McLaren’s World’s Fastest Gamer racing esports tournament is about to enter its final phase, as 12 finalists battle it out over an intense week of challenges.
The winner will join the McLaren F1 team as an official simulator driver.
Isaac Price and Harry Jacks are the two UK players in the finals – both aged 22. Here are their videos:
The full list of finalists are as follows:
- David Hoch (USA), 23, qualified
- Rudy Van Buren (The Netherlands), 25, qualified
- Yordi Maldonado (Mexico), 20, qualified
- Henrik Drue (Denmark), 34, qualified
- Isaac Price (UK), 22, qualified
- Freek Schothorst (The Netherlands), 20, qualified
- Aurélien Mohammedi-Mallet (France), 23, panel selection
- Bono Huis (The Netherlands), 23, panel selection
- David Le Garff (France), 40, panel selection
- Greger Huttu (Finland), 37 panel selection
- Harry Jacks (UK), 22, panel selection
- Ryan Moore (USA), 22, panel selection
Over 30,000 players entered the competition, which has amassed more than 10 million views, according to McLaren.
It’s a partnership between global sports and technology brand McLaren and the founder of virtual motorsport’s GT Academy, Darren Cox, in collaboration with Logitech G, GiveMeSport and Sparco.
The 12 finalists will meet for the first time on November 11th and go head-to-head in Finals Week – a series of physical, mental, track and virtual challenges to find out who has the skills to claim the ultimate prize.
The winner will be offered a one-year contract with McLaren as a simulator driver, working with engineers at the McLaren Technology Centre in the UK, feeding into the technology used in the real world by the team’s drivers, Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, at grand prix circuits across the globe.
Read Esports News UK’s behind the scenes look at the McLaren HQ
McLaren Technology Group Executive Director Zak Brown said: “We are proud that McLaren is the first F1 team to launch in esports. World’s Fastest Gamer is an exciting platform for us to bring motorsport and the sport of Formula 1 to a whole new audience, as well as traditional fans. The results have shown our instincts were right.”
Ujesh Desai, VP and General Manager of Logitech Gaming, commented:
“With over 20 Logitech G esports teams worldwide, its been fun developing the first global virtual racing competition with McLaren. We’re excited to see the outcome and are looking forward to working with the winner to improve our racing and simulator peripherals.”
Six of the finalists were selected in qualifying events across a number of platforms including rFactor 2, Gear.Club, Forza Motorsport 6 and iRacing.
A panel of experts pre-selected six additional finalists based on their careers so far in virtual racing. The panel included: Dom Duhan, Head of Team Redline esports Racing Team; Davide Brivio, Head of esports, Sparco; Andreas Schicker, Head of esports Business Development, Logitech; and Wolfgang Reip, GT Academy Winner/Simulator Coach.
The tournament is separate to F1’s own esports tournament.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
