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Ben Collins aka ‘The Stig’, formerly of hit BBC show Top Gear, is working on an upcoming racing video game with a Professor at the University of Chichester.
Ben is working on the game titled Project Motor Racing with Stephen Baysted, Professor of Film, TV and Games Composition. Stephen has also composed music for several racing games including those in the Project Cars series.
Ben Collins paid a visit to the university recently, meeting staff and esports and sports media students, and tried out a sim racing rig at the university.
Ben is pictured below with one of the UK’s first pro gamers and the uni’s Programme Coordinator in Esports, Rams ‘R2K’ Singh.
The news comes five months after the University of Chichester announced the first BSc (Hons) Psychology of Esports degree, which launches in September 2025 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Project Motor Racing is due to be released in 2025 by Giants Software, the publisher behind Farming Simulator. It’s being developed by Straight4 Studios.
Students in pole position for esports racing competition
The news comes as students at the University of Chichester have qualified to compete in a separate national F1 sim race organised by British F1 team Williams.
A team of three students will be racing against other colleges and universities around the country in the Student Racing League (SRL) LAN (Local Area Network) event on 29 April at Williams F1 Conference Centre in Wantage, Oxfordshire.
First-year students Bertie Wellesley, William White and Lewis George have been competing throughout the academic year in F1 sim racing, securing season points to qualify for the event. The league structure of the competition emulates the professional F1 season, with the participants racing on the same virtual courses as the pro racers every week.
At Williams F1, the students will compete against nine other colleges/universities, sitting side-by-side in the state-of-the-art Williams experience centre in the final race of the SRL season. There will also be a careers talk and museum tour after the race. The whole event will be livestreamed on the Williams Esports Twitch page.
Lee Cumbers, Lecturer in Esports at the University of Chichester, said:
“Bertie, Lewis and Will have shown teamwork and dedication to qualify for this LAN event. Getting to promote their skillsets in-person, as well as learn about potential career pathways in the world of motorsport, is a fantastic opportunity for these first-year students.”
Lee Cumbers, University of Chichester
Competitor and student William White said: “To qualify for the LAN finals at Williams HQ is really exciting as it’s a testament to the hard work that the three of us put in to qualify in the first place, but it’s also a special opportunity to visit the headquarters of one of the most successful Formula 1 teams ever and to meet and connect with a lot of people within the industry.
“We’ll definitely be looking to do ourselves justice for the work and practice hours we’ve put in to get to this point.”
Chichester was the first university in the country to enter the SRL, and this is the second year they will compete in it.
For more information about esports and other creative industries courses at the University of Chichester,you can visit chi.ac.uk/creative-industries.
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.
