Formula 1 eSports now more exciting than the real thing—and that’s a problem

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On Sunday, the 2017 Formula 1 season drew to a close with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It was a deathly boring end to a season that started with so much promise back in March. The series had a new owner, Liberty Media, which promised to stop ignoring things like the Internet and 21st century. The cars were wider and had more grip than seasons past. And there was the threat of actual competition between Mercedes-AMG and Ferrari as opposed to starting each race weekend knowing that a win by the three-pointed star was a foregone conclusion.

But repeated missteps by Ferrari after the summer break saw Lewis Hamilton clinch his fourth championship weeks ago, and the sad fact remains that technical rules changes meant to improve the racing didn't deliver anything of the sort. Indeed, so boring was the final race of the season (and to be honest, the two that preceded it) that the biggest story from Abu Dhabi was about the series' underwhelming new logo. But the weekend did actually deliver a rather thrilling race on the Yas Marina circuit; it's just that it happened the night before the main event, and took place within F1 2017. Yes, it was the final race of F1's inaugural eSports series.

As I've noted on a few occasions now, eSports is finally getting some legitimacy from the motorsports world. At the end of last year, Formula E held a big-money rFactor 2 race in Las Vegas, pitching professional drivers against some of the world's best sim racers. A decade after Nissan and Sony started using Gran Turismo to find new racing talent, the FIA (which organizes global motorsport) officially sanctioned the latest version of that game. Just last week the McLaren F1 team concluded a massive online competition to find its new simulator test driver. And then there was the F1 eSports series, which was open to anyone with a copy of Codemasters' F1 game—in total 63,827 players took part in the online qualifying races earlier this year.