After the first running in 2019 and a prolonged postponement, the FIA Motorsport Games returns for 2022. With it comes a major change for the sim racing competition: Gran Turismo is being swapped out for ACC.
Image credit: FIA Motorsport Games
In November 2019, the first edition of the FIA Motorsport Games was held at the Vallelunga circuit in Rome, Italy. It was the racing world’s answer to the Olympics, and it featured six disciplines including F4, Touring Cars, GT cars and Drifting.
The second edition was set to take place in 2020 and would race at Paul Ricard. It was pushed back twice after the COVID pandemic began. But it will happen finally 26-30 October with an increase from six to 17 disciplines.
One of the original six was actually sim racing, known as the Digital Cup. It was held on Gran Turismo Sport and it was Kodi Nikola Latkovski who was representing Australia at the time that won the gold medal. Costa Rican Touring Car racer Bernal Valverde won the silver. Italy’s Stefano Conte got bronze just ahead of the UK’s James Baldwin.
New Year, New Games
This year’s newly renamed Esports Cup will shift to Assetto Corsa Competizione. This being in part due to Gran Turismo‘s championships discontinuing their collaboration with the FIA after the latest title Gran Turismo 7 launched back in March.
The FIA Motorsport Games event is ran in collaboration with the SRO Motorsports Group. Their official esports series use ACC as their platform. With the GT World Challenge Europe, America and Asia esports series as well as the Intercontinental GT Challenge esports series.
They even use it for the Fanatec Esports GT Pro Series. This being the championship that the Pro and Silver team drivers from the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup race in. The top five finishers earn extra points for their teams.
Esports Cup Event Format
The FIA Motorsport Games Esports Cup discipline is expected to have up to 80 competitors. There will be knockout stages to whittle it down to 20, with the final taking place on Saturday 29 October.
The 2019 event had competitors split into three semi finals after setting their qualifying times, and select drivers from the three Semi Finals entered into a repechage. The best placed three drivers in each of those races entered into the final.
Also in the 2019 event, since Vallelunga wasn’t in Gran Turismo Sport, the circuits used were Interlagos, Red Bull Ring and Barcelona. However for the 2022 event, Paul Ricard is already in ACC although there will be a custom version made for the Esports Cup competition.
Plus whilst the 2019 event used the Fittipaldi EF7, Pagani Zonda R and Red Bull X2019 Competition cars, the 2022 event will exclusively be in GT3 cars.
Future ACC content?
The headquarters of the developers of ACC Kunos Simulazioni are actually in a pit building at the Vallelunga circuit. With the sim being the official game of SRO and GT World Challenge, would it be too farfetched to suggest that the nation based liveries will become selectable in an update around the time of the event?
It may also be the perfect excuse to add in Vallelunga into ACC. Yes, the 2022 event is being held at Paul Ricard. However, since Kunos are based at Vallelunga and have the data for the track from the original Assetto Corsa game, it could be an easy addition.
They were able to add in Imola very quickly when it became one of the two tracks to come onto the GT World Challenge Europe schedule in 2020. Could the SRO-supported FIA Motorsport Games using ACC be the justification that Kunos need to add their home track?
What do you make of the FIA Motorsport Games using ACC? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
