ESL announced yesterday that they've partnered with Rennsport to host a brand new sim racing esports tournament with a massive 500,000€ prize pool.
We wrote previously about Rennsport, the upcoming all-new motorsport racing sim that should shake up the sim racing genre with cutting-edge Unreal Engine 5 graphics, all-new physics and unusual features like a marketplace to sell your previously purchased cars and tracks.
Rennsport will be available next month as a free-to-play open beta with limited base content. Additional cars and tracks will be sold separately.
What is ESL R1?
ESL R1 is the name of the new sim racing esports tournament that will be hosted by ESL and will kick off next month from 10 to 12 February. The prize pool, as mentioned earlier, is 500,000€, with teams like Mercedes-AMG and Team Redline already confirming entry.
48 drivers will compete during the 8-round series with seven races per round. The top 24 drivers will then progress to the ESL R1 Major that will be held in May this year to see who will be the first Rennsport ESL R1 Champion.
We predict the usual ultra-close lap times and competitiveness similar to the F1 esports championship. Still, we have no further information on all the cars and tracks that will be used during the tournament.
Final thoughts
Despite recent reports that esports is bad for sim racing, we disagree and see ESL R1 as another sign that sim racing is not on the decline but on the rise. The virtual Le Mans 24 Hour was fraught with technical difficulties, and the iRacing Daytona 24 Hour though massively better, was not trouble-free. However, we don't see these types of events as bad for sim racing and consider them signs of growth and an indication that sim racing is at the base of a steep, upward curve.
We didn't get a closed beta key for Rennsport, but we will definitely test the game extensively when it's released as an open beta. It might be a bit early for the game to jump straight from open beta to an esports tournament, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised, and it will be better than both Factor 2 and iRacing.
