![]() ![]() When the show’s inaugural winner went on to finish second at LeMans in 2011, Formula One, Nascar, and other leagues started paying attention. The line between the virtual and real worlds began to blur in 2008, when Cox launched GT Academy, a TV program that turned gamers into drivers. “You can’t kick a ball around in FIFA and become the next Ronaldo,” he says. He notes that people who excel at, say, playing soccer on their Xbox aren’t going to find themselves appearing in the World Cup. Baldwin now joins a handful of sim hotshots who have made that jump, something you don’t see in other sports, says Darren Cox, who launched World’s Fastest Gamer after a career in the auto industry. Research suggests that the skills needed to master titles like Gran Turismo or Forza apply to competing in events like the 24 Hours of LeMans, one of the most grueling contests in motor sports. Hyper-realistic driving games and hardware that mimic the sensation of hurtling around a track have made it possible to go racing with minimal experience in a proper car. That isn’t as foolhardy as it might sound. ![]() Now he’s preparing for his professional motor-sports debut on a bona fide road course. Baldwin is among the best esports drivers in the world, one of several dozen who earn a living competing in the digital domain. The 22-year-old Brit watches this drama not through the visor of a helmet, but on the screen of a racing simulator. Chastened, he takes this one at a more prudent velocity. Within moments he reaches 110 again for the sprint down a short straight, then heads into the next turn. Baldwin exhales, downshifts, and roars back onto the track. The car skitters for several seconds and just misses a wall, but the move arrests his slide and gets him pointed the right way. After hitting the brakes, he cranks the shuddering steering wheel to the left, turning into the skid. ![]() His tires skate across the slick pavement and he careens onto the grass. Baldwin, however, attacks them at 110 miles per hour, risky given the damp morning’s freezing cold. The track, home to the British Grand Prix and among the most famous in racing, features a tricky series of sweeping curves best approached with a delicate balance of gas and brakes. For F1’s 2020 return, the latter corner will be both widened and banked into a parabolic corner, to allow cars to run side by side, and at the same speed, through it.James Baldwin’s confidence overtakes his ability midway through his fourth lap of Silverstone Circuit. We recommend taking to either the first turn at Tarzan, or to one of the banked corners, either at Arie Luyendijkbocht – the final turn on the track – or Hugenholtzbocht. What’s not to love? Where is the best place to watch? And then there’s the beachside location, just a 30-minute train ride outside of Amsterdam. There’s the atmosphere, which with Max Verstappen on the grid is set to be electric, and most definitely orange-hued. There’s the historic track, which famously featured in John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, and was the scene of many great F1 moments over the years (Gilles Villeneuve’s three-wheeled lap, anyone?). Zandvoort combines a lot of enticing features for an F1 fan. And while the circuit will be modernised in time for F1’s 2020 return – including increasing the banking angle at the famous Tarzan corner to an Indianapolis Motor Speedway-trumping 18 degrees – Zandvoort will remain a proper, challenging drivers’ track. The Zandvoort track swoops and flows through the sand dunes, creating a rollercoaster-like feel to the lap. ‘Really quick’, ‘pretty insane’, ‘crazy’ and ‘old-school’ were words used by the current crop of F1 drivers when asked to describe the Zandvoort track that many of them tackled in their junior category days.
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