Sim Racing
Left: The British F4 Esports
Championship racing at Oulton Park
Below: The Four Nations Esports Cup
Things get even more serious at the pro level – in championships like the British F4 Esports Championship – where drivers need high in-game iRatings to get on the grid, some racers are paid to compete, and many teams have team managers, engineers and full in-race comms. Some even do data mining and use development drivers for set-up work.
It is now even possible to make a career in esports as a team leader. Seb Hawkins did just that, joining Williams F1 esports in the pandemic to take charge of a 50-strong driver roster with 15 engineers running 150 races – including running George Russell and Nicolas Latifi in the F1 esports Virtual Grand Prix series.
“ It was a really nice merger with them all fighting for performance,” recalls Hawkins.“ There were no egos. I remember George spent every hour of every single day on it, going to Curry’ s to find the next best thing to put on his sim rig so he could be the fastest! I’ ve never seen somebody dedicate so much time to it!”
“ We won Virtual Le Mans and started to get cross-pollination in funding from the F1 team sponsors. It went from them putting a small percentage of a deal into esports, to offering esports as an extended sponsor package.”
Real-life team sponsors started funding the esports team and when F1 returned to the track, Hawkins flew to races to run simulators. On one occasion, he started comparing roles with one of the team race engineers and recalls:“ I was looking at data for Daytona 24 hours, he was looking at data from the Grand Prix, and he couldn’ t believe how far sim racing had come.”
MANAGING THE TEAM The British F4 Esports Championship field now includes representatives from F1 teams Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull, Alpine and Aston Martin. Many drivers are signed up to contracts and paid a monthly salary – albeit still in the order of hundreds, not thousands of pounds.
That series has a fixed set-up but in other championships, car-set up is part of the game – and teams use technical analysists, pro driver coaches and expert engineers to get to the top.“ Engineers can be a superpower,” says Hawkins.“ We use the same systems and look at the same variables as the real world, so there are all sorts of mechanical and aero changes we can make. We even have engineers come from university now to learn before they go into real world race teams.”
In sim racing, practice does really make perfect and pro drivers can spend hours preparing for each race.
“ There’ s a lot of different elements to preparation,” says Hawkins.“ We plan circuit-specific programmes, and have dedicated test sessions with everybody online, and the drivers work on their own with a feedback loop to share understanding as a team.”
Esports races are typically fast and frantic, with a lot of jostling for position. Team tactics can play an important role, and the wheel-to-wheel action is certainly bolder than in real world racing – mainly because virtual crashes have a lower fear factor.
It is not a free-for-all, however. Most races run with a level of governance and Crawford explains:“ Teams can make a protest after the race, and our stewards will review it. If necessary, they will apply a penalty – from added race time right up to disqualification.”
NEXT LEVEL Sim racing is evolving, and, Hawkins believes it could eventually stand on a level with real-world racing, opening a whole new avenue for motorsport fans, drivers and engineers.
32 Revolution Magazine