With Gran Turismo, racing esports has come of age
What an exquisitely busy weekend of racing it's just been. The impossible spectacle of Macau's street races, the intermittent spells of racing that broke out in-between the showers in China for the last 2018 round of the WEC Super Season and the 24 Hours of Cota. My own Sunday started with a 3am wake-up call for the 6 Hours of Shanghai, and ended up watching an ex-BTCC Toyota Avensis slowly lunch itself over the course of Brands Hatch's two hour Race Into The Night.
The best race I saw all weekend, though? There's not really much of a contest; it was Friday night's Repechage for the Gran Turismo Championship World Finals, a last chance effort to gain a place in Sunday's grand finals that was beautifully tense. With only the top four qualifying, the real action was to be had in the battle for fourth and fifth, and good lord did it deliver, the Brit Adam Suswillo and the Portuguese Carlos Salazar endlessly swapping positions in the improbable pairing of a race-ready Ford Mustang and Bugatti Veyron. It's a scrap that went right down to the wire, Suswillo eventually winning out in a robust fight.
Okay, it wasn't quite the real thing, but if the weekend's action has taught me anything it's that that doesn't matter so much; racing is racing, and the world of esports has some of the best racing you can find at the moment. There are epic tussles, rivalries and drama that's easily the measure of anything you'll find in the world of motorsports, and while it lacks the raw thrill of hardcore machinery being pushed to the limit, it goes towards compensating by being a little more human. This is racing that doesn't need a full-face helmet, after all, so you can see the raw emotion - the strain and the jubilation - on the driver's faces as they compete.
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