The current spike of interest in Esports has in part been driven by the participation of real racing stars in the field. F1 might have launched an official Esports series back in 2017, but the competitors were drawn from the gaming scene and largely unknown to the wider audience. That's all changed now with the likes of Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Alexander Albon and George Russell making an impact. The appeal has spread beyond the younger drivers who grew up with gaming, with Jenson Button recently succumbing to the appeal of racing again in the Legends Trophy, and even Sebastian Vettel said to be looking into equipping himself for a try at online racing, surely one of those genuine "world turned upside down" tipping points.
Sebastian Vettel equipping himself for online racing is surely one of those genuine "world turned upside down" tipping points
Initially teams were hesitant about this in case their expensive signings fell flat on their virtual faces and damaged the brand. But Charles Leclerc's emergence from occasional player to clinching dominant back-to-back victories in F1 Virtual GP shows drivers have remarkably transferrable skills and that class will out. It's an observation supported by similar consecutive successes in IndyCar iRacing for Simon Pagenaud, another recent convert to sim racing, followed by a convincing victory for gaming veteran Lando Norris in his maiden outing in the same series this weekend. However it hasn't all been fun and games: the fate of Kyle Larson - dropped by his real world NASCAR team after using an offensive term in live chat during a recent Esports event - shows that even in the virtual arena there remains a genuine level of risk to drivers.
But it's not the sort of physical risk that draws people into racing in the first place. However accurate and realistic Esports might look to those of us watching the television broadcasts, can it ever really measure up to the real thing as far as the drivers in the hot seat are concerned?
Some have voiced positive opinions on this front: "You still get just as much of a buzz and enjoy it as much as we do from doing it for real," Norris told the Formula 1 website last week, while Pagenaud won his most recent race kitted out in his full team firesuit.
"The adrenaline was definitely at the maximum level at the end of the race," he said afterwards. "You're racing the exact same guys as usual, exact same moves as you would in real life."
But I can't help but think that the truth is closer to Kimi Raikkonen's view. Even though his Alfa Romeo team mate Antonio Giovinazzi is an enthusiastic Virtual GP participant, the oldest driver on the F1 grid isn't convinced.
"I'm not really interested," he told Corriere della Sera last week. "I prefer to wait until I can get back to a real track." And while we may be happy to indulge in Esports in the current absence of the real thing, I suspect that's true for most of us and the reason why Esports will never match - let alone eclipse - the appeal of the real thing.
For now at least.
