McLaren’s Shadow Project now features the World’s Fastest Gamer: James Baldwin.
Photo credit: Veloce Esports
British esports racer James Baldwin takes the next step in his career by joining McLaren’s Shadow Project, as the 22 year-old announced on Tuesday. Baldwin joins the team as an official Formula 1 esports driver in 2020. The team celebrated the newest addition with a live-stream featuring Baldwin, Formula 1 star Lando Norris and content creator Benjamin “Tiametmarduk” Daly where the trio raced together in the new F1 2020 game.
Welcome to the team, @JaaamesBaldwin! 🤝
— McLaren Shadow (@McLarenShadow) July 22, 2020
James joins team #McLarenShadow as one of our 2020 #F1Esports drivers.
Watch him live with @LandoNorris and @Tiametmarduk now ➡️ https://t.co/p9ssiPhGf3 pic.twitter.com/5L1BO6xTES
What is McLaren Shadow?
Formula 1 giant McLaren started their Shadow Project in 2018 to search for the most promising talents in various genres of esports racing. The project followed the special TV show “World’s Fastest Gamer” where Dutch esports racer Rudy van Buren won the first season, getting awarded with a seat in McLaren’s team as their professional simulator test driver.
McLaren then formed an esports development program which is supposed to “shadow” the real-world racing equivalent, hence the name. The company hosted competitions in several titles, such as Real Racing 3, Forza Motorsport 7, iRacing and Rfactor 2.
Their driver line-up features top-class names such as Enzo Bonito, Bono Huis, Igor Fraga and Olli Pahkala. They have all been part of the Shadow Project.
It has been a whole month since the #McLarenShadowFinals, can you believe it!?
— McLaren Shadow (@McLarenShadow) January 14, 2020
Relive all the action again via our official @YouTube channel 📺👉https://t.co/sDOpC4HnVj pic.twitter.com/211Mpt8UGW
Who is James Baldwin?
Like many promising young talents in karting, Baldwin eventually faced financial problems that stopped him from fully pursuing his racing career, as explained in an article by iNews. Sim racing was an opportunity for him to further fulfill his need for speed, and he eventually excelled in this category. In 2019, he got awarded the title as World’s Fastest Gamer by winning the second installment of the event. His success scored him a spot in a works GT sports car last season, following an initiative to close the gap between esports and real world racers.
If you want to learn more about Baldwin, check out our portrait about the World’s Fastest Gamer.
FROM DIGITAL DEXTERITY TO REAL RACING: THIS IS WORLD’S FASTEST GAMER
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