Sim Racing and Esports News for March 24, 2022-From The Virtual Track To The Real Thing

This week on the Motorsport Prospects’ Sim Racing and Esports News I have some exciting developments to report on. Registration for the Ferrari Velas Esports Series is now open, the Skip Barber iRacing Series has started with some great real world racing prizes, Driver61’s Sim Racing Master Class is opening soon, and I tell you how to get ahead of the general public for a place in the class. I also feature some tips about virtual racing from Grassroots Motorsports, the latest updates and new features on iRacing and a tour of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team facilities and F1 simulator. Strap in, boot up and let’s get going.

• Registration is now open for the Ferrari Velas Esports Series. The Ferrari Velas Esports Series winner will have the opportunity to access the highly successful Esports program of the ‘Scuderia Ferrari Velas Esports Team’ for 2023, an opportunity extended for the first time also to North American based sim racers: USA, Canada and Mexico. The registered drivers will run two parallel championships in Europe and North America, divided into 8 qualifying phases (4 on ‘Assetto Corsa Competizione’ and 4 on ‘Assetto Corsa’) for each continent from April to August, concluding the double round with the respective regional finals in Europe on 13 September and in the USA on 14 September. The event will culminate in the Grand Final on October 2, 2022, in Italy, with the top 3 drivers of both regions battling in an innovative format that will be disclosed just after the regional finals. The car through which the drivers will compete will be the Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo and the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo.

• I am a little late to the party but the Skip Barber Formula iRacing Series has recently launched. Drivers will compete in the iRacing Formula iR-04, iRacing’s equivalent to the Skip Barber Formula Car at six tracks on the 2022 Skip Barber Formula Race Series schedule, including iRacing’s virtual versions of VIRginia International Raceway, Watkins Glen International, Sebring International Raceway, and Road America, as well as tracks we currently operate our collection of racing programs including Laguna Seca. Through our continued partnership with iRacing, the world’s premier motorsports racing simulation, the weekly races will be broadcast on iRacing.com/live, the official home of iRacing live streaming coverage. The prizes are pretty impressive in that they involve free courses and vouchers at the Skip Barber Racing School so you can take what you learned on the virtual track and apply it to the real thing. Full details can be found at the Skip Barber website.

• The Driver61 Sim Racing MasterClass will be open for Early Bird Purchase on FRIDAY, March 25th @ 7pm British Standard Time (that’s 2pm Eastern Standard Time and 11am Pacific Standard Time). To sign-up for early notice, join the waitlist on their course page. Everyone on our waitlist receives a 24-hour head start to purchase the course as well as an early-bird discount! Seats are limited, so please keep an eye out for that email. We will open the course up to the general public on Saturday.

• The Checkered Flag has their review of Gran Turismo 7 on the PS5. “Despite some strange quirks and questionable micro-transaction implementation, Gran Turismo 7 returns the numbered series to its roots and knocks it out the park.”

• The article is from 2020 as the pandemic took hold but Grassroots Motorsports has some excellent advice in Virtual Racing: Get Off the Couch and onto the Digital Track.

• Wondering what is new in Season 02 at iRacing? Well there is a lot! You can either read all about it in the Release Notes here or watch the videos on their YouTube page for all the details.

• WTF1 had the opportunity experience the brand new Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team esports facility which included a taste of the F1 simulator. Chgeck out the video above for how it all went down.