Romain Grosjean participates in the World eX Championship, a tournament with a focus on electric cars and prototypes to raise awareness of climate change.
Photo credit: imago images / HochZwei
“It’s time for a new era in sim racing”: The World eX Championship from RCCO E-Sport AG features an ambitious slogan in their launch trailer. The tournament is an esports racing series in rFactor 2 and runs completely under the initiative “Racing For The Climate”. eX stands for electric experimental prototypes and therefore, the entire event will be completed with electric cars.
10 teams will race for the climate, and each squad consists of one professional motorsports driver and one esports racer. The duos will challenge each other in the electric prototypes eX Zeros over the course of 18 races in total. There is no exact date yet for the tournament, but the plan is to start in 2021. The first test races will take place in November 2020.
On top of the 10 teams who are going to race in the main stage, there will also be two guest drivers per event. To assemble all duos, RCCO hosts six eX series in the following six regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The winners of these races then have a chance to qualify for the World Championship as wildcard drivers.
Formula 1 racer Romain Grosjean will sit behind the wheel
One of the ten participants is R8G Esports, which was founded by Formula 1 racer Romain Grosjean. The patron himself is going to race in the event – not under the banner of his usual Haas F1 Team, but for his own esports team.
R8G assembled a broad line-up of esports racers from various games. The esports driver in rFactor 2 who also is going to compete in the World eX event is Erhan Jajovski. The 25-year-old esports racer from North Macedonia has already made a name for himself in the scene: he is the 2019 McLaren Shadow runner-up, champion of the 2017/2018 Virtual Endurance LMP1 and counts as one of the fastest competitors in the game.
R8G eSports to compete in World eX, the all-electric virtual racing series launched in 2021, promoting the fight against the climate crisis. “It will be entertaining & make esports & motorsport fans think about what they can do personally to fight climate change” says @RGrosjean pic.twitter.com/MfXvTXXyHn
— R8G eSports (@r8gesports) October 6, 2020
Grosjean and Jajovski are the first confirmed participants; other teams have not been announced yet. The F1 star is eager to be a part of the tournament, as he revealed in a statement on the official homepage of World eX:
I like the concept and the forward-thinking approach of World eX co-founder Mike Rockenfeller and his team. As a father of a family, I know that we need to act to preserve our planet. World eX will be more than just sim racing. It will be entertaining and make esports and motorsport fans think about what they can do personally to fight climate change. I’m really looking forward to this new adventure. Together, I believe we can build something very exciting.
Which other teams would you like to see participate in the World eX Championship? Tell us on Twitter at @overtake_gg!