Bsimracing Sim Racing Resources and News for the racing enthousiast.
Back in February, famous Sim Racing / Esports influencer Jimmy Broadbent proudly announced that he will be a contender in a real-world racing series, driving a Praga R1 in the British 2021 Britcar Endurance Championship.
Round 1 of the Britcar Championship, and also the inaugural race of the new Praga Category was scheduled to take place on March 27th. However, due to the ongoing global COVID-19 situation, Motorsport UK has suspended all organizing permits and Certificates of Exemption until at least 30th April 2020. This meant that Praga’s 2021 Guest Driver line-up, including Jimmy Broadbent, will have to wait another month to kickstart their championship campaign.
However, Praga Cars now announced an eSports event to commemorate the postponed Round 1 of the Britcar Championship. The one-off eSport race utilizing the popular Assetto Corsa platform will take place at exactly the time and date of the planned Britcar Round 1 on March 27th.
Racers will include Sim racing star Jimmy Broadbent, transgender activist and Racing Pride ambassador, Charlie Martin, 2020 Britcar Endurance Championship Class 1 runner-up Jack Fabby, Romain Grosjean’s R8G eSports driver Thomas Scibilia, Supercar Driver’s Miles Lacey, Praga engineer Tomas Sabacek, Praga Cars UK’s Sam Holman, and Caffeine and Machine’s Phil McGovern.
The race is being held in collaboration with the world’s largest sim racing news website, RaceDepartment, and their partners RCI, who will host and produce the broadcast event which can be viewed on Praga’s YouTube channel.
Viewers of the live stream will be treated to a double-header two-race format, comprising of a 15-minute sprint race and a longer 30-minute feature, designed to mimic the stints that drivers can typically expect when sharing the cockpit with their real life team mates.
The broadcast, with commentary provided by established sim racing commentators Paul Jeffrey and Jack Oliphant, will begin at 1 pm GMT as the drivers take to the virtual tarmac at Silverstone, where the rescheduled season opener will take place for real on 23rd -24th April.
Mark Harrison, Managing Director of Praga Cars UK said: The increasingly influential world of sim racing has provided us with a great opportunity to start this season’s Britcar Endurance Championship on the date and at the time we would have been heading out of the Silverstone pits in reality. We’re really pleased that Jem Hepworth is back, in the virtual world at least, to race again at the circuit where her team had one of the best wins of 2020.
And it’s great that Jimmy Broadbent and Race Department are getting behind our activity. It’ll be nice to see 20 virtual R1s lined up at Silverstone and it will whet the appetite for the 10 real cars that will compete in Britcar in 2021.
Official Webpage – pragaglobal.com
