until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
The 44 pairs of real world and esports drivers have been announced for the first VCO ProSIM Series.
The eight race championship will be run on iRacing from this month through to March 2021.
The real world pro with the highest iRating, which is Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen, was the first to pick his partner and chose fellow Team Redline driver Maximilian Benecke.
Both drivers have raced alongside one another in multiple iRacing events and together have by far the highest combined iRating of any of the driver pairings.
Romain Grosjean is the other current Formula 1 driver in the draft and will race alongside Thomas Petitjean, who’s a member of Grosjean’s own R8G Esports team.
Reigning Formula E champion Antonio Felix da Costa will have Olli Pahkala as his esports team-mate while former Ferrari F1 driver Rubens Barrichello will also line up on the grid and with Jurgen Frank alongside him.
Former Formula 1 and current Mercedes Formula E driver Stoffel Vandoorne will have Red Bull Racing Esports driver Graham Carroll as his team-mate.
The field also features IndyCar representation with 2004 champion and 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner Tony Kanaan and Simone Maria Marceno as his esports partner.
W Series Esports League champion Beitske Visser will have BS+COMPETITION driver Nils Koch as her esports team-mate.
Some of the other big names in esports who will be racing include this year’s Porsche Esports Supercup champion Sebastian Job as well as 2019 champion Josh Rogers.
All of the draft picks have been announced on VCO Esports’ Twitter account.
The series starts on November 18 with everyone driving Dallara Formula 3 cars on fixed set-ups.
A $50,000 prize pool is up for grabs with money available for the ultimate series champion, starting on pole position and for race finishing positions.
In each championship race, which will last for 40 minutes, the two drivers in each pair take turns driving and have to change over in the pits.
Before the main event there will be a 20 minute long ‘fun race’ solely for the real world pros and with no championship points on offer.
Drivers will only be told which circuit they’ll be racing on two hours before the start of the event to stop them from excessively practicing.
