24h Le Mans
Tony Mella is a simracer and will be competing alongside professional racing drivers Francesco Castellacci, Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella with Strong Together in the car fielded by the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation. He tells us how he’s gearing up for the first ever Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans on 13-14 June.
How do you prepare for this kind of race – 24 hours of racing on a simulator, sharing driving duties with three teammates?
“First of all, your equipment needs to be properly set up – your pedals, steering wheel, the game... Then, you need to get to grips with the car and the circuit. We’re developing the car’s settings with our engineer, Robert Noćon, using telemetrics and feedback from the drivers. At the same time, we’re running simulations to test out various strategies. That’s the advantage with sim-racing – it’s easy to simulate an array of situations and test all kinds of stuff. The downside is that it takes so much time! Ideally, you’ll spend hours and hours driving to prepare for a race like this.”
Have you ever driven in an endurance race?
“For real, no – though I’d love to! Only virtual races. For the past four years, I’ve competed in the Virtual Endurance Championship organised by SimRacing.Club. It’s a hobby, alongside my work and studies."
What advice do you have for your teammates? And how are they helping you?
“I’m mainly sharing advice on driving in rFactor 2. There are a few differences with real-life driving that you don’t necessarily expect. A few tips to be applied systematically, mainly when it comes to settings. The big difference is that you don’t feel the car’s movement with your whole body, so it can be difficult to tell when it’s slipping – that kind of thing. I try and give them advice on how to keep the car stable, based on my experience, to give them a basis to work on. But it really comes with practice."
What strategy do you expect to apply for this race, which mixes racing drivers and sim-racers?
“That’s not been defined yet. In theory, a strategy leaves you some room for manoeuvre, so you can adapt to what happens on the track."
Tell us more about how you usually race?
“I mainly drive in endurance races in the Virtual Endurance Championship organised by SimRacing.Club, the official rFactor 2 endurance championship. The principles are quite similar to the WEC. Our races last 4 to 24 hours with driver changes, variable weather, race control and so on. What I like in endurance is that you need to be very versatile to manage your race in the best way possible, because so many things can happen. Driving through the traffic at night too, that’s amazing!"
Are you looking forward to the Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans?
“Yes, definitely! It’s an incredible opportunity. I have to thank the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation for giving me this chance.”
Will you and your teammates be together for the race? How will you communicate? Do you have a team principal?
“The plan is for Francesco, Giancarlo and I to be at the Automobile Club de Monaco to race on the simulators set up for the event by Trakracer, but Felipe will be at home in Brazil. Depending on the Covid19 situation, our engineer Robert may be there too. We’ll all be communicating via an online system. The Foundation’s general secretary is Gareth Wittstock, the Princess’s brother, and he will act as team principal."
More on this topic: Stars of Motorsport and Esports Ready to Take on 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual.
