McLaren announces new esports competition

McLaren is offering one lucky gamer a place on their Formula One motor racing team’s esports division in 2019.

The McLaren Shadow Project will see gamers face off in Global online qualification heats throughout July, with the winner securing the opportunity to ‘shadow’ the Formula One team.

McLaren will include a number of games and platforms, as “more casual games” such as Real Racing 3 will allow them to reach a much bigger audience.

The semi-finals will take place at McLaren’s Woking base, with the final held in January to decide the McLaren esports team member.

“In World’s Fastest Gamer the simulator was the star,” McLaren director of esports, Ban Payne said.

“The Shadow Project has broadened the entire programme out, so there are more ways to get involved.

“The end output of it is we’ll have additional talent for our esports team, and more people to bring into our eSports development programme across McLaren as a group.”

Chief executive of McLaren, Zak Brown, added: “A strong, diverse esports programme has a direct benefit to McLaren’s innovative ambitions, bringing in new audiences, partners and talent to motorsport.

“By ramping up over multiple platforms across the online world, it will establish McLaren as an important brand in the motorsport esports community.”

Last year’s World’s Fastest Gamer contest was won by 26-year-old online gamer Rudy van Buren from the Netherlands, who successfully fought off competition from 30,000 other applicants across 78 countries.