24h Le Mans
For the first time ever at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, gamers will chase victory in their own sim-racing finale held over race week! Here we present one of the teams competing in the event: Wildcats eSports Racing.
Jacob Bowkett (Aerox Bowkett), Luis Felipe De Melo Helena (FRF SOLO) and Shoma Takaya (JSR AziDhk) might well set the cat among the pigeons at the Le Mans Esports Series final. But will the wildcats be as savage as their name suggests?
19-year-old Jacob has been playing the Forza Motorsport series for the last three years and took part in his first esport competition last year, after competing in an array of online races in various leagues. “The first racing game I played was Gran Turismo 3 back on the PlayStation 2. I was very young when I started gaming so wasn't very good, but I continued to play the Gran Turismo series up until Gran Turismo 6 on the PlayStation 3. After I made the switch to Forza Motorsport 6 and have played every Forza game available on Xbox since then.”
Jacob can’t remember his first video game encounter with Le Mans. “At the age of three, maybe! I do remember my first community race on Forza 6 around the track though. Myself and a few other drivers entered the TORA 24 Hours of Le Mans and took turns driving the Chevrolet C7R around the track, and ultimately finished 2nd in class. This was a great result for me as it was the first endurance race I had entered.”
Jacob is learning a lot from his teammates and says they have already established a clear game plan. Who drives which car and in what order – everything has already been decided. He knows he lacks a bit of experience at the steering wheel (he usually plays using a controller) so is training hard: “AziDhk is particularly known in the community for being exceptionally fast on wheel and pedals, so he is helping me with things such as what deadzones and wheel feedback settings are the best. I think we have worked well as a team and have a decent shot at the title in the Super Finale.” We can safely say he’s aiming high!
25-year-old, Luis Felipe De Melo Helena (FRF SOLO) remembers his first races on a games console – Top Gear and Nigel Mansell’s World Championship on Super Nintendo! He also spent hours and hours on Gran Turismo and Need for Speed on PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2, and came to esport very early. “I first got involved in eSports in Gran Turismo 4 on Playstation 2, when I knew some people who organised online leagues. I started to racing against the best players at that time in Brazil, that was in 2008, so 11 years ago. I got my Xbox 360 in 2010 and started to play Forza Motorsport 3. I’ve been a Forza Player since then and never looked back, especially since I'm one of the best players in Latin America.”
Preparation isn’t easy, given that the gamers live so far apart. “Me and my teammates are not doing sessions together, but we're communicating everything like lap times, car setups and all that. It’s a bit harder to do sessions together since I'm from Brazil, Bowkett from the UK and Azi from Japan and our time zones are different, but we try to do what we can to achieve the same pace.”
Active in esport since the second season of ForzaRC, Shoma Takaya (JSR AziDhk) is a huge drift fan and readily admits that he prefers the discipline to any other form of motorsport. A Forza Motorsport player (who sometimes ventures into GT Sport), the Japanese gamer has full confidence in his teammates for the Super Final. “I purchased the wheel controller actually used at the event. I don't particularly interact with my teammates, but I trust them very much. I don’t think much about strategy. I always drive at full speed.”
The Wildcats eSports Racing team are an eclectic, multicultural bunch and could well stir things up. Keep an eye on them and watch how the different races play out during the Le Mans Esports Series grand finale!
PHOTO: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES DU MANS, 2019 LE MANS ESPORTS SERIES: the liveries on the cars to be used by the Wildcats eSports Racing team are fabulous. They were designed by Carl ‘PTG’ Coopos, head of Pendulum Tuning.
