As part of ESPN’s Esports day on April 5, this weekend’s F1 Esports Virtual Grand Prix will be broadcast live on ESPN2.
After the first eight races of the Formula One calendar were either postponed or cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, F1 is hosting Virtual Grand Prixs in place of the actual races.
The opening round took place two weeks ago in lieu of the Bahrain Grand Prix and the second round, which takes the place of the Vietnam Grand Prix, will get underway on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET. The race will be broadcast live on ESPN2 as part of 12 hours of Esports programming over the course of the day.
After the popularity of the first Virtual Grand Prix, this week’s round will see the number of current F1 drivers taking part increase from two to six. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is the biggest name to join the online race and will go up against Red Bull’s Alex Albon, McLaren’s Lando Norris, Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi and the Williams drivers George Russell and Nicholas Latifi.
Also confirmed to race on Sunday are 2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button, three-time F1 race winner Johnny Herbert and England international cricketer Ben Stokes. A full list of participants can be found at the bottom of this story.
This week’s round takes place in lieu of the inaugural Vietnam Grand Prix, but because the Vietnam circuit is not available on the current version of the official F1 video game, the race will be staged on a virtual version of Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit — the track that should have hosted the season-opening grand prix in Australia three weeks ago. F1 only started the esports initiative over the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend two weeks ago, so the series has yet to hold a virtual race on the Albert Park circuit.
Who’s taking part?
The confirmed list so far:
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc
Arthur Leclerc
Red Bull
Alex Albon
Ben Stokes
McLaren
Lando Norris
Jenson Button
Renault
Christian Lundgaard
Andre Heimgartner
Alfa Romeo
Antonio Giovinazzi
Johnny Herbert
Haas
Pietro Fittipaldi
Louis Deletraz
Williams
George Russell
Nicholas Latifi
TBC
Anthony Davidson (team TBC)