World's Fastest Gamer

McLaren’s World’s Fastest Gamer is a unique esports competition where the overall winner will be offered a role as one of McLaren’s official F1 simulator drivers for the 2018 season. The role involves working with McLaren engineers to develop and improve the machinery driven in the real world by the team’s drivers. Competitors can enter via a wide variety of racing simulators and games, for the first time providing great accessibility and removing many of the barriers of entry.

Virtually Entertained were commissioned to provide technical support for the rFactor 2 qualification rounds of the event, the first WFG events that have been broadcast online, live from the Silverstone Wing with a full studio production team. Organised by IDEAS+CARS and presented by Matthew ‘Sadokist’ Trivett and Ben Constanduros, the entire team wanted to provide a professional presentation and showcase the world of sim racing to a wider audience, something that had never been performed before on this scale.

We provided hardware solutions for the simulator in the studio, a dedicated commentary station with multiple cameras, along with timings and data displays. A Race Control station was provided, allowing the stewards to closely monitor the action and officiate the event, guaranteeing a fair playing field. During the race, we captured some of the on-track action and incidents allowing the production team to incorporate these into the analysis and post-race discussion of any incidents or events that occurred. Another technical solution we designed and implemented was to allow the presenters to engage the podium drivers after the event with interviews.

Utilising our eSports and Motorsport background, we provided consultancy to assist with the organisation of the event. Promoted via the Official McLaren Facebook Page, GiveMeSport, and Millennial Esports Twitch streams, the number of viewers has climbed rapidly to over 1.3 million viewers in the third round, engaging a previously untapped audience for sim racing and being the highest viewed sim racing eSports event ever. With the fourth and final round happening this weekend, it will be very interesting to see which of the 20 rFactor 2 finalist will make it through to the grand finale at McLaren Technology Centre in November.