Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: You're listening to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast.
Hi, I'm Mark from Motorsport Prospects and welcome to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast. This is where we dive into the world of motorsport with the people who live and breathe it. From driver coaches and sponsorship experts to team owners, pro drivers and more. You'll hear real stories, practical advice and insights that you can actually use, whether you're just starting out or already chasing success on the track. Thanks for joining me and let's get started now. In today's AI powered motorsport world, trust is everything, which is why I started Motorsport Prospects. Race drivers need professionals they can count on and if that's you, you need to stand out.
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Now, my guest today is Paul Crawford, the head of esports at Motorsport UK as well and F as well as an FIA Esports Commission member. He has over 10 years experience in sim racing, having worked on programs such as the Nissan GT Academy, the World's Fastest Gamer, Fernando Alonso's Le Mans virtual entry in 2020 and the all Star series.
He also managed the Mercedes AMG Esports team in the F1 Pro Series from 2019 to 2020.
Welcome to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast. Paul, thanks so much for taking the time out to speak to me.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: No problem. Thank you for having me, Mark. It's. It's great to be here.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Now you, I, I've actually come across you on LinkedIn. You filled in quite a bit of. You cover quite a bit of stuff in, in sim racing with Motorsport uk.
A lot of informative content, which is why I thought it'd be great to have you on the podcast. So thanks so much for appearing.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah, no problem. It's great to be here and I'm always happy to champion sim racing in the motorsport world, for sure.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yes. And sometimes, let's be honest, sometimes it's controversial. As far as you know, where sim racing fits in, does it fit in? So I'm looking forward to this discussion.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, I agree.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: So now, basically the podcast asks one question.
Based on your experience and expertise as a motorsport professional, what would be the one most important piece of advice you could offer a current or aspiring race driver?
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think it might be unsurprising, but I Am going to talk about sim racing in this one.
I think that now we are in a place where the hardware and the software available in terms of simulators and simulating racing, I think it's just at a position where it can't be ignored.
Getting seat time, as everybody knows in motorsport is super important and it's very difficult to do in the real world. Whether you're a club, motorsport, driving, racing your own car all the way up to pro level, it's very expensive, time consuming to actually run out on track in a car. So I think that is one of the key areas that sim racing can, can fill. You know there's people like Max Verstappen who famously is an active sim racer who does it in his spare time, has his sim racing team taking those drivers, drivers like Chris Lulham into his Real World GT3 team. And I think the fact that somebody like him does it, and he's mentioned it in interviews before, that just being able to race whenever you know you have the time, it really keeps your eye in, you know, it's, you're always learning whether that's dynamics of the car or overtaking techniques, how to defend, how to line up and overtake on different types of tracks in different conditions, all the way down to, you know, procedural things with your engineers or setup of the car, that sort of thing. What, what works, what changes, what. And I just think that if, if you're in a world now where you're racing and you're not doing it, that you are going to be disadvantaged soon. And if you think that the Carters of the world, you know, the 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, up to 16 year olds, SIM racing and online racing is, is normal. They are doing it, you know, they have a steering wheel and pedals. Quite a lot of them have cart simulators and if you Fast forward another 10 years time, they're going to be the, the pro racing drivers, the people who are filling the race seats and they're going to be doing it completely normally. It won't be a conversation of oh, sim racing, what's that? Why do you use it? They, they will just get it. So I think that's certainly one point that I would make is that sim racing has a massive place within the sport. Not just for people who can't, like myself, couldn't afford to go racing, that it fills that gap of oh, I'm a racing driver, it just happens to.
But yeah, kind of honing those skills, learning new skills, techniques, etc. I think it's, it's so important these days.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: And you make a good point about the younger drivers. For example, Bortoletto has mentioned how sim racing has been really important in his progress. Lando Norris, obviously, you know, sim races, Pierre Gasly, you know, they all have their sim race.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it started posting him driving.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So it, it is, it is. I think I, I think you, I, I agree that it does it. You're at a disadvantage if you don't sim race.
And I think the other thing, and I actually started publishing some guidelines to choosing sim racing rigs because my concern when you see some of these rigs and they're pretty impressive but also pretty expensive, is, is that some drivers, especially younger drivers might think, you know, I can't drop $30,000 on a, on a sim rig. You know, and, and part of the guide is there's an entry level, mid level and obviously a kind of a high end. It's that you don't need to spend a fortune to set up a SIM rig 100%.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: And I couldn't agree with you more. I mean until 2020.
No later than that, it'll be, we had 2020. I had been sim racing for, you know, from the age of, with a steering wheel.
From the age of about 21. Yeah. I've been sim racing for kind of eight or nine years with a steering wheel and, and pedals and they were the entry level Logitech Momo wheels. The first one that I had properly a Logitech G27. And you know, these were 150, £200 off the shelf. You just clamp it to your desk in front, you know, on your normal desk in front of your computer, you put your pedals up against the, up against the wall and off you go. And honestly, and I, you know, I'm not just saying this, that is all you need to, to get 90 of the way there. You can take part in races, you can, you are racing. And I always think that golf is a great analogy. Right. You know, buying a 600 pound or 600 driver doesn't suddenly make you Rory McElroy or Brighton DeChambeau, unfortunately, as we all know. Correct. Yeah, it's, it's much more about technique and application and training and coaching and all of that side of things. So, you know, as a great example, when I worked on virtual Le Mans with Fernando Alonso and his team, he was with a driver called Yao Tinan who was, I think he raced for Redline at the time.
And he was, you know, at the time and still is one of the best sim races around and he was racing in that race with a Logitech G29 steering wheel and he's one of the fastest people. It, it just.
It's like every sport, every hobby, there's always the aspirational equipment or kit that you want to get to ensure. It's great having a rig that you do not need it. Right. To certainly get started and get involved and start, you know, seeing where you fit in and what, what you want to do and if it's for you right now.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah, and I agree and I, I think that's an important point to make to some people because, you know, some people are saying, geez, at that, at the price of some of these rigs, I, I could probably just buy a car at that point. And yeah, I think it's important that everybody understands that you have to start somewhere and just like anything, as you progress, you know, you'll probably want to put more money into it, but you don't have to.
So, yeah, that's a, that's a really good import. That's an important part of it. Now, Motorsport uk, tell us a little bit about your.
The involvement of Motorsport uk, because I think, if I'm not mistaken, that's relatively recent that, that they've been involved in sim racing. So I guess why, why are they involved and know what kind of initiatives do they. Do they have related sim racing?
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah, so I started at the beginning of 2022, so coming up to four years, January 2022, and there was pretty much no sim racing at that point at Motorsport uk. Like a lot of people, they did a little bit in lockdown during COVID but you know, when people went back to their day jobs, that fell off. And I think the key point to the answer of this question is when I was interviewing for the role and then after I, Hugh Chambers, our CEO, made it clear that a, he understands the importance of esports from previous roles, but the key point was this, that he sees esports or sim racing as one of the futures of motorsport. You know, along with electric cars, along with sustainable fuels, along with, you know, your normal combustion engines. It's just another way that people can go.
Can go racing. Right. And so if you look at it in that way, you think, well, what can Motorsport UK as a governing body do to. To help that happen? So I think everybody who's ever been involved with it understands the sim racing is, is the wild West. It's a very tribal. You know, people are very like, this is my game. It's the best and everything else is rubbish. There's also a lot of, you know, there's a lot of communities that have built the industry that are great. You know, we have a recommended community section on our website that promotes the communities, you know, that are run by volunteers that have built the industry to what it is. But if you think about car manufacturers, big name brands, tech companies that, you know, people like that who see sim racing as a way to get their products and services in front of a younger audience and see the value in it, there wasn't really anywhere for them to, to go where they would feel safe. You know, there's, there's things like licensing issues with cars and tracks on some titles. There's safeguarding. You know, if you're running a championship with under 16s or under 18s, then there should be safeguarding policies in place. Like there would be a real motorsport or any sport. Right. Parents should be aware and what they're doing, you know, with their spare time in the evenings racing in these championships. So on a kind of a basic level, that's what we're trying to achieve is add credibility, add professionalism, kind of standard working processes and paperwork that you might need to run with championships. And the key thing that I, that I always say is that we're not in this to try and stop anybody doing what they're already doing. You know, we don't govern sim racing so you can carry on doing whatever you like to do. This is all about who wants to be aligned with how we run it. So there's a lot of leagues and championships run by communities who want to be professional, they want to run it in line with real world motorsport and we can help that.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: And then kind of coupled to that is the events that we run, the championships that we run, that we try and bring something at prestige. You know, it's a foot. They're fully sanctioned championships.
They offer prizes that you wouldn't normally be able to get. They're at a level that you wouldn't normally see because we have the back end of the, the wider company, the organization.
So, you know, we work with Porsche Cars GB and we run a community level championship that anybody can enter. It's got a pro and an AM class on iracing and the top three from both of those classes get to go to the Experience Porsche Experience center at Silverstone to drive the real world cars, the road cars on their handling track and have a day.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: At the venue. So that, that's a great example of something that you know, a normal kind of unestablished or not unestablished, but, you know, a volunteer community wouldn't be able to do that with Porsche because you could, you couldn't work at that level. So as one example of many, that, that's a way that we feel that we can help the industry. And, you know, we're running a 24 hour race at the end of this year at Silverstone. It's in its fourth year and we've just filled the grid with 55 teams, you know, within the first day of it, while we're going live and that's fully broadcast. It's very much a club motorsport feel, you know, okay, not doing it for the money, you're not doing it for prestige, you're doing it because it's something to do with your friends at the weekend, you're practicing for it. You know, it's the ribbing that goes on in the Discord voice chat at 2am when you're trying to concentrate and all of that sort of stuff. It's the, it's the fun nature of it. And I think people could always see a governing body getting involved with sim racing as the fun police getting involved, but I'm trying to prove that that's
[00:14:13] Speaker B: not the case right now. How does Motorsport UK see sim racing and its relationship with real world motorsport?
[00:14:23] Speaker A: So I think we don't pigeonhole it into one of the categories which is, you know, it can just be for people who cannot afford to go real world motor racing or can't and you can just do sim racing. It can be supplement to, if you're already a racer, like we were saying earlier, you can use it to train. And then there's also the route, you know, that I've worked on with GT Academy and World's Fastest Gamer. And now people like Jimmy Broadbent and Super Hook gt who've used sim racing and their platform that they've built up very well to go into real world motorsport and Motorsport UK stances, all of those are fine. You know, it. We're not saying that sim racing must be used to get people into real world motorsport or for training. It's all of the above. And I think there's more and more case studies now which show that the techniques and the skill used in sim racing is relevant to, is relevant to real world motorsport.
So however people want to do that is almost up to them. But there's a lot of opportunity there, right?
[00:15:26] Speaker B: I mean, in my sim racing column, every week I lead off with, you know, the, the, the headline is, you know, from, from sim racing to real world motorsport and I highlight people that have made or are making that transition. Initially I thought, you know, maybe this would be something I would feature once a month, but pretty much every week there is something about somebody who's either transitioning to real world motorsport or who's using sim racing in a real world context. For example, a sim driver for a race team.
Yeah, but there are, there are a lot of synergies that I think some people are not necessarily aware of and I think it's, I, I agree with you. I think it's important not to pinion hole kind of the, the whole sim racing as this is how you can get into motorsport because at the end of the day it is a lot of fun and you know, and I, I mean honestly it's the same thing about motorsport as a whole.
Let's not forget that motorsport is a something fun. Yeah, it's expensive. Yeah, it's serious, but it's a lot of fun. And, and sim racing will give you that taste that, that you might not otherwise get. Certainly, I mean 20 years ago the, the, the opportunities were not there that they are there today and it's only getting better.
How would somebody who's listening to, to the podcast, how would they get more information on what Motorsport UK is up to as far as sim racing?
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, so we have a dedicated esports website that has like yours, a getting started page on how to get involved.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Okay, perfect.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Then has all the events and championships that we run and you can be involved with.
And like I said, the recommended community section is, is really good. It's got nearly 40 communities there that across all different platforms. You know, Gran turismo iracing the F1 game where it's like we recommend and we've vetted them so that they're safe and fun places to go and get involved in the Sport.
So that's esports.motorsportuk.org is the website and we have a discord as well that you can find by there that's you know, got a couple of thousand members in now that are all chatting about sim racing and helping each other out and finding teammates for endurance races and things like that.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Perfect. And, and I will post all these links in the show notes to this podcast so if anybody wants to connect it'll be, it'll be easy to do that. You do bring up a really important point about a safe place to race.
Yeah, I think that's something that maybe people new to sim racing are not Totally aware that sometimes it can get the. As you said, the Wild West.
There's been some, you know, unfortunate incidents I think where, you know, it's, it's been. Let's just say it's not a fun environment to be involved with. So yeah, I think that's really an important point of what Motorsport UK is doing and that I commend you on because we, you know, with anything with racing we want to make sure that people enjoy it and that continue and the last thing we want to see is somebody walking away from the sport because they dealt with somebody who is being a complete jerk on, you know, in a sim race.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: So, yeah, I think that's really critical. So.
Yeah. Any last words, Paul, before we, before we go?
[00:19:03] Speaker A: No, I. I'm just really pleased that, you know, I'm now able to do things like this and some racing is in a position where people are kind of sitting up and listening now and you know, I'm just trying my best. I'm passionate about it myself. I've worked and been a driver ever since and I think my own case study is one I always use. It's like, look, I wanted to be an F1 driver.
I failed at the first hurdle of not even be able to be a racing driver beyond arrive and drive. Karting and sim racing was my outlet to be able to be a racing driver and take part in event. So yeah, it's, it's been fun and I'm really excited for what the future has told.
[00:19:39] Speaker B: And you're living the dream.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Perfect. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time out Paul for to speak to me on the podcast on. I have one final question.
What is your favorite racetrack? Could be current racetrack, a historical one, but what's your favorite racetrack?
[00:19:59] Speaker A: I should probably say something like Silverstone. Right. But I'm actually not going to it. It's has to be Bathurst in Australia.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Really?
[00:20:08] Speaker A: I think the Nordschleife. Yes is. Is great but I mean I won the Bathurst 12 hours on iRacing in my own split. You know, a long way down but you know, a track that I find weirdly easy to get into a rhythm on. I think it's super unique. I love the Bathurst 1000. The Bathurst 12 hours. Yeah, I just think it's, it's a great place and one day I will get out there to see it in person.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: It is a spectacular track. Just to. As a fan just to look at that especially, I mean I. I can't get over it when they race this thing at night. I mean, you know, it's absolutely insane, but, yeah, it's hard to argue against that. It is pretty, pretty impressive.
Well, that's it for this week. Really appreciate you coming on the show, Paul.
This is Mark from Motorsport Prospects, reminding you to stay fast, stay focused and keep chasing that checkered flag.
Thanks for listening to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. For insights, advice and the latest news racers can use, visit Motorsport prospects.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Com.
