The F1 Sim Racing World Championship, the official esports series for Formula 1, will return in April and May 2024 following a rocky start to its campaign.
The league shared dates for the remaining events via social media and will host six races in April and five races in May 2024, split across two LAN events.
This development comes after a tumultuous period for F1 Esports. The 2023 season started in November 2023, however, only one race was finished. In December, the second event was suddenly cancelled and its esports circuit paused shortly after that.
It now appears that the entirety of the season will be played in just a dozen days. F1 Esports shared that two events will take place. The first one will be set between April 10th and 12th, with drivers participating in simulation races in Saudi Arabia, Austria, the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands, and the United States. After a brief pause, the racing will continue between May 7th and 9th. Drivers will compete on Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Qatar, and UAE tracks.
News of the F1 Esports circuit continuing first surfaced in February 2024, with League Racing News sharing via social media that talks were held between representatives of teams and F1, which resulted in the two sets of races announced today.
Grouping races so closely together is less than ideal given that the races were originally meant to be split across the F1 Esports calendar, which runs from November to May. The decision to still conclude the 2023/2024 F1 Sim Racing World Championship in May may also be a result of the official new the new official Formula 1 Game, F1 24, which is set to be released in that month.
All of the teams that participate in Formula 1 have official simulation racing teams in the F1 Esports series and the scene has grown in popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the F1 esports scene has had plenty of issues recently with team representatives and fans pointing fingers at F1 for its lack of communication, for example.
