On Thursday night, IndyCar returns, at least in its virtual form.
Presumably it’s aiming to not break the internet like the last time this series raced, when Simon Pagenaud took Lando Norris out of the Indianapolis finale and there were five leaders in the last three corners amid multiple crashes…
Despite many drivers and fans calling for more IndyCar esports series after the iRacing version’s 2020 debut when the real-world season was postponed, this is the first we’ve seen of the series’ follow-up simracing plans.
So The Race has broken down what to look out for and evaluates whether it can be as big a hit as last year’s edition was.
Why are we having just three races now?
Last year’s IndyCar iRacing Challenge was a huge draw, which begs the question why have we waited until now for a sequel – and why it’s a meagre three races.
Yes, the IndyCar off-season requires testing in real life, especially when there was so little of that last year, but there’s still been time to spread perhaps six esports races across November-March.
NASCAR and IndyCar trounced the real-world opposition last year when there was a captive audience looking for a replacement for the real-world racing that had been cancelled due to the pandemic.
The realism of the iRacing IndyCar combo and the brilliant production delivered on TV made it easy to watch and the teams and drivers took it so seriously. IndyCar’s drivers certainly bought into the esports stand-in more than their counterparts in most other championships did.
With a relatively small amount of cost needed to run a basic follow-up in the off-season, it’s sad to see IndyCar elected not to until now.
While I agree with my colleague Glenn Freeman, who argued that in the sixth race of the series last year drivers were beginning to become tired of the week-to-week barrage, I still think six was just about the right number and that if you spaced the races out in the off-season you’d avoid that attention fatigue from the drivers. Six in a row was intense for drivers used to having a month to prepare.
Ganassi’s Marcus Ericsson was one of the drivers backing more races, telling The Race’s Esports podcast last year: “I seriously think they should do a winter series”.
Ericsson was also critical of that finale at Indianapolis, which became more destruction derby than championship showpiece. Maybe part of that was the fact that it wasn’t a championship with a points table, which may have encouraged drivers to take things a bit more seriously. It doesn’t look like season two will score points either.
But it’s not just about the drivers. The engineers were a huge part of the series last year and it would have been a good way to shake off the cobwebs for them, too. And for new drivers to develop relationships with their teams’ engineers.
The condensed three races mean chances for clashes with other series, likely fewer drivers available and fewer people watching, sadly. This ought to be a proper off-season series given how long IndyCar typically breaks for.
Grosjean’s IndyCar racing debut (sort of)
It still makes me laugh that Scott McLaughlin was an IndyCar race winner before he’d made his series debut! He won at Barber, then at Indianapolis, in the iRacing Challenge before his real-life debut in St Petersburg.
Now Romain Grosjean will get a similar chance to rock up and fight for wins and there’s every chance he will, owing to the fact he’s a regular esports competitor and even a team owner in the discipline with some of the best simracing drivers out there on his books. IndyCar should have him on retainer to set about getting a proper esports championship off the ground for simracers like every other major motorsports championship does…
When it comes to the opener, Grosjean’s got to be fancying his chances. Especially as he has the tiny advantage of the venue being long-time F1 track Montreal.
Watch Grosjean practicing for this week’s race via Twitch here
“I love the circuit. It’s one of the best,” Grosjean told IndyCar.
“Actually, it could be a circuit that fits the real IndyCar Series.
“It is tough to go fast. It takes hours of practice, and we get so competitive. You think it’s just a video game, and then we spend eight, nine, 10 hours of practice for a short race.
“We are competitors, and we want to win. We are going to push it and try as hard as we can. It’s going to be great fun.”
You’d be silly to rule out a Grosjean win in this three-race series. And that means his addition is a big plus for trying to rekindle last year’s magic.
He’s not the same as Lando Norris, but he’s an intriguing big-name IndyCar driver fans want to get to know as he’ll compete in the series for real this year.
He’ll have the support of a squadron as his Dale Coyne Racing team-mate Pietro Fittipaldi, who will race his car on the ovals this year, joins him on the iRacing grid.
Regular team-mate Ed Jones and expected – but not yet announced – team-mate for the Indy 500 James Davison complete the Coyne entry.
Who else is doing it
Yes, sorry, there are drivers other than Grosjean racing in IndyCar this year!
Last year’s unofficial champion McLaughlin and his Penske team-mate Will Power will certainly be ones to watch, but Sage Karam is arguably the favourite. He races for top simracing group Coanda, and won the opening round of last year’s series at Watkins Glenn.
Interestingly, Karam is down to race the #98 for Andretti Autosport, despite having driven for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, with the exception of two races, since 2016.
He’ll make his Andretti IndyCar debut as the team’s only entrant, with Ryan Hunter-Reay being the team’s only other driver mentioned as competing but not doing so this week.
Two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden and double Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato are among the other big names, as are ex-F1 drivers Ericsson and Max Chilton.
In terms of absentees, Arrow McLaren SP drivers Felix Rosenqvist and Patricio O’Ward, Ed Carpenter, Conor Daly, Graham Rahal and Pagenaud (below) are all confirmed for appearances in the series but not the first round.
Of the ‘ringers’ you may not recognise, RC Enerson will race for Top Gun Racing, which recently confirmed its re-energised plan to contest the Indy 500 in real life this year.
Nikita Lastochkin, who will drive Rinus VeeKay’s Ed Carpenter Racing car, is a Road to Indy regular – as is Braden Eves, who won the 2019 USF2000 championship in 2019 and will pilot a Road to Indy entry. Simon Sikes won the F1600 title last year and will drive Daly’s Ed Carpenter car.
Of the big names not yet confirmed or slated to race in the series are reigning champion Scott Dixon (above) and his new team-mate Jimmie Johnson, Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi.
Some drivers are unable to race at this round as they are focusing on competing at the Sebring 12 Hours this weekend, like Sebastien Bourdais, Dixon, Johnson, Pagenaud and Rossi.
Last year, almost every regular IndyCar driver did multiple races and most did the whole thing, which was an incredible effort. The take-up hasn’t been as good so while there are big-name stars, it’s lacking compared to 2020.
Circuit Gilles Villeneuve entry list
Max Chilton (Carlin)
James Davison (Dale Coyne)
RC Enerson (Top Gun)
Marcus Ericsson (Chip Ganassi Racing)
Braden Eves (Road to Indy)
Pietro Fittipaldi (Dale Coyne)
Romain Grosjean (Dale Coyne)
Ed Jones (Dale Coyne)
Sage Karam (Andretti Autosport)
Dalton Kellett (AJ Foyt Enterprises)
Charlie Kimball (AJ Foyt Enterprises)
Nikita Lastochkin (Ed Carpenter Racing)
Scott McLaughlin (Team Penske)
Josef Newgarden (Team Penske)
Alex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing)
Will Power (Team Penske)
Takuma Sato (Rahal Letterman Lanigan)
Simon Sikes (Ed Carpenter Racing)
Any special guests?
Last year Johnson joined the fray before it was clear he’d sign up for a full-on real-life switch to IndyCar, while Dale Earnhardt Jr scored a podium and Kyle Busch gave it a go.
Aside from NASCAR greats, there was also Chaz Mostert from Australian Supercars, all of which helped to open up IndyCar to new audiences – which should be a key ingredient among the reasons behind doing this series.
There’s no word on any big-name additions for the second and third races yet, but the tracks should keep things equal – they aren’t IndyCar regular circuits so the series regulars won’t have a huge advantage.
After last year’s finale it’s doubtful someone like Lando Norris would come back. But there’s always hope.
It is disappointing that – given the cross-pollination of drivers coming from other championships – that no drivers who haven’t raced in IndyCar or the Road to Indy before are taking part that we know about as yet.
Keeping the production standards up
Its vital that esports strives to provide polished broadcasts with proper commentary, camera angles, cars that don’t glitch too much and realistic races that crossover fans of real-world motorsport can enjoy.
The technology is always improving and a combination of iRacing and NBC helped to deliver all of the above last year.
That needs to continue if this iRacing Challenge is going to be a success. Last year the series had the comfort of knowing there was a captive audience thanks to the pandemic but this championship will race through the ongoing real-life NASCAR season and the beginning of F1 for a start.
Ensuring high production quality is one more way you can keep a real-world fan entertained and it will be very important to the iRacing Challenge’s success.
However, this series will not be promoted by NBC and will be shown across IndyCar and iRacing’s channels instead.
This mirrors a real-life TV debate; do you go with a TV network for the production quality and the doors that opens, or do your stream your races online – via a subscription model or for free? This will be something that’s being discussed currently as NBC’s deal for real-world IndyCar racing expires this year.
Going it solo is a risk for the iRacing Challenge, but could give us a great glimpse at what more frequent IndyCar-backed esports races and series might look like without network TV.
A slight step into the unknown, then, but one that could tell us a lot about the success of the formula of streaming IndyCar online moving forwards.
It’s also a glimpse into the real-life series’ future post-NBC. Who says, for instance, that Twitch and YouTube can’t be a proper broadcasting home for a sports series?
A brilliant way to keep up
With the above taken into account, a brilliant website has been launched to keep up with the series this year.
The INDYCAR @iRacing Challenge kicks off tomorrow at 6:30 PM ET. Tune in live to https://t.co/nI9HbQgrT6 as we take on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Check out the course preview and spotter guide now.
Read: https://t.co/T390SZRnHO#INDYCARChallenge pic.twitter.com/YYozV101vU
— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) March 17, 2021
It features a spotter’s guide so you know which livery each driver is using, plus a tag next to the car livery that lights up with ‘live’ if that driver is currently streaming. That’s a fantastic and easy way for people who don’t know what Twitch is to stumble across their favourite driver’s stream.
The website has dates and timing info, as well as plenty of preview and video content.
This is a great start by IndyCar, making it as easy as possible for casual real-world fans to understand what’s going on.
Dialling the “salty” to a 7/10
Part of the reason last year’s Challenge was so good was the ‘banter’ between the drivers. IndyCar is one of the most friendly paddocks out there but take away real-life racing and force drivers into esports and you’re going to get a bunch of thirsty drivers with nowhere else to divert their competitive juices than here. That’s what happened last year.
Obviously it most famously spilled over into the spat between Norris and Pagenaud, which was regrettable. A bit of controversy is usually good but the crash-fest finale undermined the series last year and provided a damp squib of an ending.
However, a bit of that feisty competitiveness this year would ensure the series is entertaining, so finding a balance between good-natured, hard-fought competition and throwing toys out of the pram is what the series is aiming for here.
Obviously it’s out of the series’ hands, and the drivers have a responsibility to represent the championship accordingly.
So overall we can anticipate that a three-race series broadcast amid NASCAR, F1 and MotoGP real-world action is going to struggle to capture a wider audience, with a poorer-than-last-year entry and a lack of any confirmed superstars making it nigh on impossible for the 2021 IndyCar iRacing Challenge to rival the 2020 edition.
However, the one thing you can never take away from IndyCar is the quality of its racing, and – driving standards stumbles aside – that’s been replicated in the virtual world so far.
So if it can add a few famous guests and bring back a few more of its stars for coming rounds there’s every chance it will at least prove a success even if it can’t quite live up to last year.
