F1 to use Esports drivers to trial rule changes

Formula 1 will work with its leading Esports Series drivers to simulate proposed rule changes for their real-world counterparts.

After initially launching in 2017, F1’s Esports Series completed its third season last year with support from all 10 teams as gamers competed for a share of the $500,00 prize fund.

F1 has been using its own simulations to try and assess potential sporting rule changes for the future, such as introducing reverse grid sprint races that were ultimately rejected for 2020.

Speaking at Autosport International in Birmingham on Thursday, F1 chief technical officer Pat Symonds revealed that in order to introduce a human element to its trials, it would be working with some of the Esports leaders in the future.

“What’s difficult is the human part. One of the models we’ve run is we’ve looked at whether the grid formation that we have at the moment, which is the staggered eight-metre grid, whether that’s the right way to do it,” Symonds explained.

“If you want to investigate what would be the effect of a two-by-two grid, physics will tell you that the cars will all make the same start, they’ll all arrive at the first corner in the same order. But that’s not the way it really is.

“We need to understand, well, will we actually get a more exciting first lap, or will we just get a lot of accidents? We obviously don’t want to wipe out half the field on the first lap. The only way you can do that is the human in the loop thing.

“The teams have humans in the loop, driver in the loop simulators, but they are looking for peak performance. We’re looking for something different.

“What I’m hoping at the end of this year is that we’ll use some of our elite gaming racers from our Esports series to actually test out some of our ideas for sporting regulation changes.”