The Simpit – Dom Duhan and Enzo Bonito Team Redline

Interview

Last weekend, the FIA Formula E Championship which is the world’s first fully-electric racing series, held its Visa Vegas e-Race where 20 leading professional Formula E drivers competed against a selection of 10 sim racers who qualified themselves via the Road to Vegas Challenge, organized by Cloud Sport.

The organizers and sponsors shelled out a $1 million prize pot to be divided by the contenders, making it the biggest prize in eSports racing history. Shaun Cole was able to interview Team Redline team principal Dom Duhan and Enzo Bonito who is one of the Team Redline sim racing drivers.

For most sim racers out there, Team Redline needs no introduction. For the last few years, they are known as the most successful sim racing team ever and are made up out of a selection of the fastest sim racers on the planet. Team Redline was founded in May 2000 and rapidly became the sim racing team to beat. The Fanatec sponsored team has won over 100 individual and team based championships from the top levels of sim racing, ranging from iRacing, Grand Prix Legends, Nascar titles, GTR 1 and 2, rFactor, iRacing, Toca 2, Gran Turismo, Richard Burns Rally as well as many F1 titles.

It did not come as a surprise that five of the ten sim racing drivers in the Visa Vegas E Race were Team Redline members. Even better so, dutch Team Redline member Bono Huis was crowned the final winner and took home $225,000 for the win and the pole position.

Despite its controversiality and some technical difficulties, it is safe to say that this particular race will have an impact on the future of competitive sim-racing. While parts of the sim racing community had outed their doubts about the event, the race was surprisingly exciting and entertaining.

So was the biggest sim race ever?

As in the real world, putting huge amounts of money in the equation could help our exciting hobby to reach new heights. Then again, it might also turn high-level sim racing into an elite sport with all the controversiality and politics associated with high-stake events.

After the race, the opinions in the sim racing community seemed divided. Will we see a new sim racing event with this kind of prize money? Time will tell…

Official Webpages – www.teamredline.co.uk  –  www.thesimpit.com