F1’s official Esports series is now in its sixth season, while the interest generated by the growth of the official video game’s following led to EA Sports, a giant of the gaming world, to take over Codemasters in a deal worth $1.2 billion last year.
But it has also created a whole new side of F1. Lockdown showed just how competitive the Esports sphere could be as many of the regular races turned themselves into avid gamers, while F1 gaming content on platforms such as YouTube continues to thrive.
One of the biggest names in this realm is Jarno Opmeer. Amid the Dutch boom motorsport, naturally spearheaded by Max Verstappen, Opmeer has also tasted success, winning the past two F1 Esports titles.
“In the past five, six, seven years, Dutchies have really kind of exploded in the world of racing,” Opmeer tells Autosport. “Not just Formula 1 fans, you can also see more sim racing Dutchies lately, and a lot more people going into karting in the Netherlands. It’s been an absolutely massive explosion of racing fans.”
Opmeer chased a career in F1 from a young age. As many youngsters do, he started out in national karting championships and enjoyed decent success before making the switch to single-seaters at the age of 16, a few years behind Verstappen. He fought with compatriot Richard Verschoor – a Macau GP winner now racing in Formula 2 – for the SMP F4 title in 2016, winning seven races including one in support of the Russian Grand Prix. It put Opmeer on the radar and led to a place with Renault’s academy, only for his contract not to be extended after a tricky 2017.
By this point, Opmeer was already starting to dabble in Esports, only failing to qualify for F1’s first official championship in 2017 due to a clash with his real-life racing commitments. Although the money had dried up for him to keep his junior career going, there was now a new path for him to go down.
Jarno Opmeer, Formula 4 NEZ Championship, Race Two, Sochi Autodrom
Photo by: Sutton Images
“Esports was my second chance basically,” says Opmeer. “Usually in racing, especially in junior formula, if you don’t have a lot of backing from your parents – or not at all, money-wise, in my case – then you usually only get one chance.
“The chance of making it in one go is very, very unlikely, because usually you need a few more years in junior formula to make it. So then I had this chance. I knew from real life racing that I was pretty fast on the sim in preparation…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Autosport.com – Esports – Stories…