Yesterday I did watch for the first time an e-sports competition. Due to the lack of real sports activity, the sports pay channel I have did broadcast 2 F1 e-sports competitions.

First they did broadcast a F1 exhibition race, between real F1 e-sports drivers. Don't be fooled, some of these drivers do earn more in one year than we will earn in 10+ years.

After that the main event was served. A virtual GP of China, driven in F1 2019 from ea sports. The line up was a mix of real F1 racers, real racers from other or lower competitions and some more known people, like Real goalie Courtois and Ciro Immobile.

With nothing else on the TV I did see the complete GP, which had 28 laps (50% of a real race). And there were some great things and some things which could be improved.

Some images did gave you the idea that you were watching a real F1 race. Others clearly indicated that it was a sim. But hey have you ever seen an interview with a f1 driver live during a GP? Well in the e-sports variant this is possible, which gives it an extra dimension.

The minor things were some unclear time penalties during the qualification, which makes it hard to understand. When in a real qualification a time penalty would have been given, lots of footage would have been available. Also during the race some drivers did get one of more 3 seconds time penalties after multiple warning and not respecting the track limits. But also here no prove available.

Which also was a set back, it that when you are going the lap a car, you can just drive through it?? I can understand the idea behind it, but this will never happen in real life! I know that the setting can be altered so that damage would 100% of the real damage and would mean a DNF, while in this situation only a netwerk or computer problem would result in a DNF.

But I did enjoy this 1.5 hour broadcast. It was better than nothing and can't wait until thet will broadcast a FIFA tournament or so!

Cheers,

Peter