Chris Lulham at the Nordschleife - Photo: GPblog

Who is Chris Lulham, Max Verstappen’s new racing-winning teammate?

17:22, 27 Sep

byBen Hunt

Verstappen’s dominant victory on his GT3 debut stole the show at the Nordschleife, but who was his teammate in the penultimate round of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Series?

Chris Lulham, 22, is a British-born racing driver and esports racer who competes in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup driving for verstappen.com Racing, the team formed by the four time F1 world champion. He also races for Emil Frey Racing in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Series. Lulham, from Coldharbour in Surrey - around 30 minutes from McLaren’s Woking HQ, started his racing career in 2010 and competed in karts until 2018. He won the 2016 X30 Euro Series in the Junior category and the 2017 Trofeo Delle Industrie in the Original Kart category.

In 2019 he joined the British F4 Championship and race in three races for Fortec Motorsport in the penultimate rounds of the series at Silverstone.

It proved to be a one-off as he switched to sim-racing professionally and joined the Team Redline virtual racing squad in 2021. In his first year with the team, Lulham won the iRacing Nürburgring 24 Hours, the iRacing Daytona 24 Hours in GTE and the VCO ProSIM Series title at the end of the year.

Chris Lulham and Max Verstappen on the podium at the Nordschleife - Photo: GPblog

He returned to competing in real life racing in 2024, winning all but two races in the 18-race season in the Hagerty Radical Cup in the UK. And this season he has competed in the Complete GT World Challenge Europe and Sprint Cup thanks to the backing of verstappen.com which has allowed him to dovetail his racing commitments with his sim-racing.

Lulham is joined at the team by Thierry Vermeulen, the son of Verstappen’s manager Raymond. The two drivers topped the Gold Cup standings in the series this season.

Speaking after his victory in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Series, Lulham said: “It's unbelievable. I don't think it's settled in yet. But I mean, the car was fantastic. And driving through so much traffic and various accidents. It was really not made easy for me.”