Max Verstappen has been incredibly successful in his career, winning three Formula 1 world championships for Red Bull.
The Dutchman made his highly anticipated debut in 2015 and was immediately on the pace before winning his first Grand Prix a year later.
Verstappen is chasing his fourth consecutive world championship this season and holds a commanding 52-point lead over his nearest challenger Lando Norris.
Despite all of his success in single-seaters throughout his junior career and in Formula 1, the three-time world champion hasn’t raced on an oval and Verstappen is reluctant to try NASCAR or IndyCar.
Ovals are unique, and they have to be approached with a technique behind the wheel that is different to circuits.
Verstappen told the Pirelli YouTube channel that there is one main reason why he is reluctant to race on an oval in real life despite racing on them in sim racing.
Max Verstappen isn’t interested in ovals as he likes to ‘watch it, not to drive it myself’
Ovals are very rare in European racing, which means drivers such as Verstappen didn’t grow up racing on that type of circuit and all his focus was on road courses.
They also have a very fine margin for error with no runoff and much higher speeds on Superspeedways such as Indianapolis Motor Speedway than in Formula 1.
Verstappen has also explained that he would like to race in endurance racing and GT cars at some point in his career.
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Ovals may not be a priority for the Dutchman and revealed why he won’t want to compete at IMS in the Indy 500.
He said: “No. Not for me. I like to do it for fun online, but not in real life. Indy, NASCAR. I like to watch it, not to drive it myself. I’ve driven an F1 car on a bank, like an oval.”
Ovals have been hard to master for top drivers in IndyCar
IndyCar has variety of different ovals including Superspeedways such as Indianapolis Motor Speedway to short ovals at Iowa.
Alex Palou has won three IndyCar championships but has yet to win away from road and street circuits despite coming close multiple times. Palou feels he can win on an oval and is ‘knocking on the door.’
Double Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso had three attempts at the Indy 500 and failed to win at The Brickyard, getting bumped out of the field by Kyle Kaiser in 2019.
Verstappen may perform well on an oval, but he is unlikely to ever compete on that type of circuit as he has other priorities in racing.