Max Verstappen made contact with lapped traffic while leading the virtual 24 Hours of Daytona, which dropped him and his Team Redline car several laps behind.

Verstappen and his team-mates had been leading outright in the iRacing event with six-and-a-half hours to go, but in wet conditions, the reigning World Champion appeared to aquaplane while overtaking a GTD car up the inside of the International Horseshoe, which caused contact.

Max Verstappen crashes from the lead in virtual 24 Hours of Daytona

Verstappen and his Team Redline team-mates, Chris Lulham and Diogo Pinto, qualified third in the top GTP class and worked their way into the lead, but this incident saw them drop outside the top three.

The Red Bull driver looked to move past a car in a lower class at the International Horseshoe hairpin while leading the race, but with grip low, he appeared to lose adhesion and made contact with the car on his outside as he then slid slowly into the tyre barrier.

He reversed out and managed to get to the pit lane, but lost the lead and three laps to the new leaders while repairs took place.

Lulham started the race in the #20 BMW and took the lead on the first lap, trading places with Williams’ Esports team in the opening few hours before Verstappen managed to establish an advantage overnight, though two separate 40-second penalties for entering the pit lane in an unsafe manner caused a frustrated reaction while he was racing.

He and his team-mates had recovered to lead once again before this crash, however, but between repairs and a further loss, they lost eight laps to the leader at their biggest deficit.

Ferrari’s Esports team crossed the line first in the #50 car in the GTP class, with Verstappen, Lulham and Pinto able to finish fourth, recovering one of their laps to finish seven laps down come the chequered flag.

There was success for Verstappen’s sim racing stable in the GTD category, however, with the #171 car crossing the line to win in that class.

Asked in a Q&A during the race about the differences between sim racing and the real world, Verstappen said the two were similar in many ways – with the main obvious difference being the physical aspect of what it takes to drive a Formula 1 car, in his case.

He explained: “I think the biggest difference is, of course, the G-forces.

“I mean, everything like accelerating, braking, cornering; that’s something that you don’t feel (in sim racing). Especially (…) at home, on a static rig, all these kind of motion rigs are slower.

“But of course, if you want to try and replicate a little bit of what you feel in real life, then you buy a motion rig. And then besides that, I think what is quite similar, I think in terms of how you work on the setup, how you work out strategies… And as you see now in this race as well, you know, it’s raining (so) you have to make the right call to be on the right tyres.

“It’s exactly the same as in real life. You’re working off a radar. So for me, I would say it’s like 90, 95% (the same).”

The real-life 24 Hours of Daytona takes place next weekend, with former Haas driver Kevin Magnussen set to be in the field in his new role as a factory driver with BMW.