Home Formula 4British F4 British F4 Esports series returns in 2021, sim racer to win real race entry

British F4 Esports series returns in 2021, sim racer to win real race entry

by Craig Woollard

The Dallara F317-based British Formula 4 iRacing Trophy Esports series will return in 2021, and has been opened up to simulator-only racers as well as their real-world counterparts.

British F4 was one of many junior single-seater series to expand into Esports during the first global coronavirus lockdown period in early 2020, and used the iRacing simulator programme for its virtual championship.

Chris Lulham beat Fortec Motorsports team-mate Luke Browning, the real-world 2020 champion, to the inaugural title.

The second season take place on successive Monday starting in January next year, and each round will feature a practice session, qualifying and two races that are broadcast on YouTube. A fully reversed grid will be used for race two of each round.

Donington Park’s National layout is used for round one on January 11, followed by races on Snetterton’s 300 configuration, Silversone’s full Grand Prix layout and Brands Hatch. The season finale utilises the circuit’s Grand Prix loop.

As in season one, the prize for the champions will be a waived entry fee for a round of that year’s British F4 season. This time there will be two champions, with the inclusion of simulator specialists in a seperate championship classification.

The real-world drivers must have a minimum of six British F4 starts to be eligible for entry, while sim drivers must have an iRating (the in-game measure of a driver’s skill) of 2000.

Grids will not be split for the two classes, but drivers will only score for their individual championships, and there is a shared teams’ championship with squads comprising of both real and sim drivers.

Those who wish to enter the PRO-SIM class can only do so if they enter alongside two other drivers and form a team together, while British F4 will put PRO class drivers in teams at a later date.

“We’re delighted to bring back the iRacing Trophy for a second season,” said series promoter Sam Roach.

“Lockdown was a challenging time for us all, but it presented us with a fantastic opportunity to finally explore our options to expand into Esports. Needless to say, it was very successful – but we don’t want to just do the same thing again.

“We had lots of enquiries from the sim racing community last time around, and I’m pleased to say we’ll now be able to accommodate a number of them on the grid for season two.

“We’ve also matched the prize structure for the real-world drivers in the brand-new class for sim drivers, so there should be plenty of incentive for everyone to get stuck in when the season begins in January.”