"Due to the wide variety of gaming skill levels amongst the drivers, game settings will be configured in such a way to encourage competitive and entertaining racing. This includes running equal car performance with fixed setups, reduced vehicle damage, and optional anti-lock brakes and traction control for those less familiar with the game."
More like a "So You Think You Can Dance" celebrity edition than anything else.
A much higher level event which also includes some IRL drivers from multiple series is: The Race All-Star Esports Battle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a_RV5UY8mk) Higher level mostly because they race in rFactor2 which is a better simulator than F1 2019 and there are no driver aids. Also because everyone on the grid are long-ish time sim racers, even if some of them also happen to be IRL drivers (Max Verstappen, Felix Rosenqvist, Antonio Felix da Costa, a few others)
Here's a good list of motorsports eSports events for the next few days: https://the-race.com/esports/the-complete-motorsport-esports...
I don't even watch F1 but this has me addicted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPxqKmqjP6c
So fun, and the commentary is so good.
This is really pushing the notion of work from home.
Edit: this is for a variety of reasons. The greatest of which is that when you're actually going 200 MPH and risking hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, and moreso your own life and limb and those of your competitors, your risk aversion is higher than when it's a video game.
Secondly, the drivers train massively to withstand the physical forces that F1 racing causes on the body. Take away those physical aspects and a) the barrier to entry is much lower and b) the drivers are probably used to being able to feel what the car is doing, and that tactile connection is completely broken in a video game.
On the last stream Lando Norris (McLaren F1 driver) was asked if it felt like the real thing. He was response was something like, "Not at all. Nothing is like driving an F1 car."
As one could bluntly state it: because it takes a lot of money and connections to even be considered as a driver, it is statistically highly unlikely that, talent-wise, the current F1 drivers are in the top 1% or even top 25% of the world.
If Senna were born in tropical Africa, or even if he hadn’t had wealthy parents, he probably wouldn’t ever have raced a F1 car.
It’s way more likely for a talented soccer player from a similar background to make it into a top team.
I used to do online ww2 combat flight sim as a hobby and one day I realized that all those virtual aces had not only the skill advantage of virtual death trial and error, most had also been flying virtual ww2 planes for longer than than the entire duration of the original war (in years, not in stick-hours).
For more serious sim racing, iRacing is usually the game of choice. Some of the younger F1 drivers play iRacing in their (now quite copious) spare time and they generally do quite well.
Besides, all the teams have their own non commercial simulators miles ahead of what you can play at home
I've done this myself for some track days (not races) and can tell you it absolutely helps even at my tragically amateurish skill level.
The other huge benefit is that players can put themselves in the same setups as the drivers and compare speeds. That would be awesome.
There's a great tradition of video games in Japan, surely if Formula 1 can do it, they can do it for the Olympics, too?
