In the wake of wide cancellations of live motorsport events as the world copes with the spread of the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, online racing has brought professional drivers and esports players together to put on a show for thirsty fans.
Earlier today, The Race held a knockout style event with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and other pros. In a few hours, Veloce Esports will host its own all-star competition with McLaren driver Lando Norris and more (17:45 GMT, 10:45 PST), free for all to watch.
Is this an opportunity to launch online racing into a mainstream motorsport? Tell me what you think!
Welcome to Andrea Cairone, head of the well-known motorsports feed Axis of Oversteer! Andrea, as a huge racing fan the idea of virtual competition seems to fall short for you a bit. What were your thoughts on the events today? Did they help you fill the void?
Hi all. Some very interesting comments below. The problem I had was that while I find the idea great, I found the experience lacking. The quality was meh and I could not get over how I was watching someone else play a videogame. I’m sure this is as much a generational thing as anything, my 17 year old kids can look at a twitch stream for hours. But I love the idea of seeing top drivers in a situation outside of their comfort zone.
It makes sense, and I think you will not be alone in that. Is there something you think can be done differently that would win you over? Different cars, or tracks, or specifically professional sim racers instead of the combination F1/celebrity grid we had today?
Back with another motorsports insider, Formula E reporter Hazel Southwell (@HSouthwellFE on Twitter)! Hazel, the #NotTheAusGP from Veloce Esports has just concluded with pro drivers and gamers battling on F1 2019 at Melbourne. It wasn't the cleanest race -- or telecast -- but at the end there were some fierce battles that were fun to watch. What was your impression?
I think the main point of this event was to put something fun together - so doing it with a bit of scruffy lag and delays isn't a problem. That's how the biggest Esports work even at LAN events - if you're a big consumer of Twitch then you never really expect everything to run perfectly on time!
Lando Norris being the most-watched stream on Twitch is massive; sim racing doesn't get that sort of audience compared to the big esports (LoL, Dota, CSGO) and that's huge. It shows that the gap in IRL racing has opened people's minds to watching it online but also that there's curiosity from the wider gaming community about it as an event, which is super cool! (And kudos to Lando for building a good audience)
The racing was scrappy but with nothing at stake and a very varied field in terms of experience of esports, there's nothing wrong with that. Hopefully, to be honest, it inspires more people to try sim racing by showing it is ok to make a few mistakes (provided you're not in a league race...)
I thought it was a really fun event and it's got conversations going, Veloce are a genuine esports squad and I think that came across in the production, which was much more Twitch than Sky F1 and all the better for it. (this is one of my main criticisms of the official F1 esports series)
Great points! Yes, the count for Lando's stream so far is more than 1.5 million viewers which is really impressive. More evidence to support the theory that sim racing can evolve into a legitimate motorsport in some form or fashion.
With all of the cancelled race events, and knowing that pro drivers easily get restless in my experience, do you think we will see a lot more demand for these livestream events and participation from big names as the situation drags on?
I think we'll definitely see more of them organised! Not all drivers are all that keen on sim racing but there's a decent cohort who are.
I also think a lot of the reticence from IRL drivers about sim racing has generally come from the way events have been shoehorned/forced onto them. Most of them don't want to do a show sim race as part of an Eprix or Grand Prix or whatever - and when 'real' sports leagues and series try to organise esports tournaments they have a tendency to get it a bit hamfisted. The instinct is to go for grandeur and to make it 'serious' instead of reaching for the factors that make streaming popular - good casters, great observers, entertainment.
If you've got organisations like Veloce or AOR or the sim racing organisers running the events you end up with a much better tailored event. Which will make more IRL drivers interested in it - even though it will be much less like a 'real' event.
I think it will help increase its exposure within mainstream motorsport and having the professional drivers is only going to further increase its profile as the year goes on.
Events like the F1 Esports Series also help with bridging the gap between the virtual and real world too. Fans of the real sport will see that the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes are involved and it being broadcast on the F1 social channels further cultivates new fans into the world of sim racing.
I agree, and think it draws more attention to the fact that F1 is already heavily involved in sim racing. Every team on the grid now have a professional esports team as well. There may be a lot of F1 fans out there who aren't aware of that, but maybe that changes the longer the stoppage continues?
I certainly think that is sim racing’s time to shine. While the drivers await more information as to what 2020 holds for them, they can continue to compete in some capacity, whether it’s against each other or against a number of gamers that are more than capable of giving the pros a run for their money!
It’ll certainly be close! Due to how competitive sim racing can be, it could be anyone who takes the win. The competitive nature of sim racing also provides lots of high action racing and it’s a much cheaper way for fans to get involved in motorsport. We’ve seen recently that some gamers are capable of transitioning into a real-life racecar and compete towards the top of the field.
Yes and the audiences are larger as well, correct? There was a series of big corporate sponsors for some sim racing series recently, such as Coca-Cola in the NASCAR iRacing championship. That seems to indicate a growing interest from fans.
Lando Norris and Max Verstappen are just two top drivers that are involved in sim racing and that itself assists with sim racing cross-pollinating with mainstream motorsports.
Welcome to Andrea Cairone, head of the well-known motorsports feed Axis of Oversteer! Andrea, as a huge racing fan the idea of virtual competition seems to fall short for you a bit. What were your thoughts on the events today? Did they help you fill the void?
Hi all. Some very interesting comments below. The problem I had was that while I find the idea great, I found the experience lacking. The quality was meh and I could not get over how I was watching someone else play a videogame. I’m sure this is as much a generational thing as anything, my 17 year old kids can look at a twitch stream for hours. But I love the idea of seeing top drivers in a situation outside of their comfort zone.
It makes sense, and I think you will not be alone in that. Is there something you think can be done differently that would win you over? Different cars, or tracks, or specifically professional sim racers instead of the combination F1/celebrity grid we had today?
Sorry Pro sim racers, nothing personal, I love sims but I would watch only out of the curiosity of how real world racers would do against each other.
Fair enough. So in the meantime, how are you planning to get your motorsports fix during this shutdown?
It’s going to be painful. Mining the archives only goes so far. But I applaud what MotoGP did making the archive viewable.
Well good luck, and be safe!
Back with another motorsports insider, Formula E reporter Hazel Southwell (@HSouthwellFE on Twitter)! Hazel, the #NotTheAusGP from Veloce Esports has just concluded with pro drivers and gamers battling on F1 2019 at Melbourne. It wasn't the cleanest race -- or telecast -- but at the end there were some fierce battles that were fun to watch. What was your impression?
Heya,
I think the main point of this event was to put something fun together - so doing it with a bit of scruffy lag and delays isn't a problem. That's how the biggest Esports work even at LAN events - if you're a big consumer of Twitch then you never really expect everything to run perfectly on time!
Lando Norris being the most-watched stream on Twitch is massive; sim racing doesn't get that sort of audience compared to the big esports (LoL, Dota, CSGO) and that's huge. It shows that the gap in IRL racing has opened people's minds to watching it online but also that there's curiosity from the wider gaming community about it as an event, which is super cool! (And kudos to Lando for building a good audience)
The racing was scrappy but with nothing at stake and a very varied field in terms of experience of esports, there's nothing wrong with that. Hopefully, to be honest, it inspires more people to try sim racing by showing it is ok to make a few mistakes (provided you're not in a league race...)
I thought it was a really fun event and it's got conversations going, Veloce are a genuine esports squad and I think that came across in the production, which was much more Twitch than Sky F1 and all the better for it. (this is one of my main criticisms of the official F1 esports series)
Great points! Yes, the count for Lando's stream so far is more than 1.5 million viewers which is really impressive. More evidence to support the theory that sim racing can evolve into a legitimate motorsport in some form or fashion.
With all of the cancelled race events, and knowing that pro drivers easily get restless in my experience, do you think we will see a lot more demand for these livestream events and participation from big names as the situation drags on?
I think we'll definitely see more of them organised! Not all drivers are all that keen on sim racing but there's a decent cohort who are.
I also think a lot of the reticence from IRL drivers about sim racing has generally come from the way events have been shoehorned/forced onto them. Most of them don't want to do a show sim race as part of an Eprix or Grand Prix or whatever - and when 'real' sports leagues and series try to organise esports tournaments they have a tendency to get it a bit hamfisted. The instinct is to go for grandeur and to make it 'serious' instead of reaching for the factors that make streaming popular - good casters, great observers, entertainment.
If you've got organisations like Veloce or AOR or the sim racing organisers running the events you end up with a much better tailored event. Which will make more IRL drivers interested in it - even though it will be much less like a 'real' event.
We're joined now by Jonno Nicholson (@MrJonno_95 on Twitter), a UK-based esports journalist.
Jonno, how will this wave of sim events with real professional drivers change the way online motorsports is viewed by race fans?
Here is the link to The Race event earlier today that drew more than 50,000 live spectators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpq9oMLTc-k
I think it will help increase its exposure within mainstream motorsport and having the professional drivers is only going to further increase its profile as the year goes on.
Events like the F1 Esports Series also help with bridging the gap between the virtual and real world too. Fans of the real sport will see that the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes are involved and it being broadcast on the F1 social channels further cultivates new fans into the world of sim racing.
I agree, and think it draws more attention to the fact that F1 is already heavily involved in sim racing. Every team on the grid now have a professional esports team as well. There may be a lot of F1 fans out there who aren't aware of that, but maybe that changes the longer the stoppage continues?
I certainly think that is sim racing’s time to shine. While the drivers await more information as to what 2020 holds for them, they can continue to compete in some capacity, whether it’s against each other or against a number of gamers that are more than capable of giving the pros a run for their money!
Awesome. Very curious to see whether the gamers or the pros take the checkered flag in this Veloce Esports race today.
It’ll certainly be close! Due to how competitive sim racing can be, it could be anyone who takes the win. The competitive nature of sim racing also provides lots of high action racing and it’s a much cheaper way for fans to get involved in motorsport. We’ve seen recently that some gamers are capable of transitioning into a real-life racecar and compete towards the top of the field.
Yes and the audiences are larger as well, correct? There was a series of big corporate sponsors for some sim racing series recently, such as Coca-Cola in the NASCAR iRacing championship. That seems to indicate a growing interest from fans.
Lando Norris and Max Verstappen are just two top drivers that are involved in sim racing and that itself assists with sim racing cross-pollinating with mainstream motorsports.