The Logo of SRL, The F1 Racing league I am currently competing in on PS4.
When people think of racing games or video games in general, they would most likely imagine that this is just a way to pass time, pretending to be your favourite sportsperson and imagining you’re way to a virtual world championship of some sort. However thanks to the rise of online sports, known as eSports are ensuring that video games, particularly racing games are becoming more than just a hobby. We will look at the rise in general eSports racing thanks to the Formula 1 and Project CARS game series as well as my own story into league racing that I take part in.
Formula 1 in particular have been putting a lot into this lately, with different challenges been put in game to find the 40 fastest drivers, of whom were chosen for this year’s pro draft. Last years eSports champion was Brendon Leigh for Toro Rosso, holding a final race in Abu Dhabi adjacent to the real life race being held in November. All the Formula One teams as well have been getting into this as well in general, as each team now run their own virtual counterpart with drivers selected from this years pro draft to drive for these teams in the coming races.
However I have found personally just how beneficial this can be to enter the eSports series and as well as entering an online league on your desired console. I myself race in a league called SRL, which was set up by fellow racers Sandro Doulis and Samuel Brandt. It all came about during a livestream by famous F1 game Youtuber Aarava was running, where Doulis had asked other viewers if they would like to join a new league he was putting together, the only person to answer was Brandt. Doulis and Brandt together with Sandro’s friend Max, and Sandro’s PSN friend, username CrypitusHD ran the first ever SRL league race on F1 2014. Other drivers soon joined such as season three Ferrari driver Dion Staal and also former champion Eden Newmann. Now the group runs races on Saturdays with a strong 12–18 car grid every race, but we are now currently on summer break, awaiting our new season to be done on the latest F1 game due in August. I joined at the start of season three last year in Melbourne, and although I had a terrible debut after a massive collision with IRL founder and SRL Sauber driver Cameron Weston-Edwards, they all really got behind me for every race and were always friendly and polite.
Now the group has come a long way from even when I joined, we now have our own website, run special events like our Indy 500 race and our planned Le Mans race at Christmas, both on Project CARS 2, as well as special head to head races against fellow league IRL, such as our Spa race a few months ago. As mentioned IRL is ran by SRL Sauber driver Cameron Weston-Edwards, with drivers like Cameron, Dion Staal, Lewis Marshall, Rene Van Der Stap, Francis McGinn and Ethan Croft participating in both leagues. I think the best way to describe both leagues is by their motto; “Friends off track, Rivals on track.” I definitely know thanks to SRL I personally have made some great friends.
There is also many other games such as Assetto Corsa or Xbox One’s Forza Motorsport racing series where you can try your hand at more sim based racing, or even PC’s iRacing for the hardcore sim users. Thanks to eSports though, it gives all levels a chance and most of all new friendships that will be kept through the love of racing. Expect this to only get bigger in the future as it is definitely on the rise at the moment.
It is a very exciting year coming for us in SRL, with our F1 league starting back up soon, the second planned SRL vs IRL race planned for October and our Le Mans race coming up on near Christmas. Every race will be streamed live on the “SRL League F1” page on Youtube and information on these races can be found on our Instagram page at srl_f1. Be sure to check out our website as well at srl-racing-league-weebly.com. One thing is for sure is that the future is very bright for league racing and eSports on all platforms.
Read more posts by Coilin Higgins in F1 Gaming on DriveTribe the new website by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
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