Today it sits at the heart of how electric motorsport develops cars, finds drivers and reaches fans who may never have watched a race on TV.
The overlap between gaming and electric racing has grown so much that anyone following esports news, on sites like esportnow.com, will increasingly see names from Formula E and the wider EV world. Here’s how that happened, and why it matters for the future of electric cars.
The lockdown moment that changed everything
The turning point came in spring 2020. With real racing halted, Formula E launched the ABB Formula E Race at Home Challenge, a virtual championship featuring the series’ real drivers alongside a separate grid of sim racers, with money raised for UNICEF. Belgium’s Stoffel Vandoorne won the drivers’ series, and millions of fans tuned in to watch on YouTube and Twitch.
The event also produced one of the most talked-about scandals in esports history. Audi driver Daniel Abt was caught letting a professional sim racer drive in his place during one round. He was disqualified, fined and later dropped by the team. Embarrassing as it was, it proved a point: the best sim racers were now fast enough to be mistaken for professionals.
Formula E: Accelerate and the search for new talent
Formula E built on that success with Formula E: Accelerate, an official esports championship launched in 2021 on the rFactor 2 platform. Sim racers raced for real Formula E teams, earned points for them and competed for a prize pool that started at €100,000. The top reward was not just cash but seat time in a real Formula E car.
Later editions moved to GEN3 cars on the simulator, added live finals at real E-Prix weekends and brought in influencer-led formats to reach younger audiences. The FIA’s backing of Formula E: Accelerate gave the championship official weight, a sign of how seriously motorsport’s governing body now takes virtual racing.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2020 | Race at Home Challenge during lockdown, won by Stoffel Vandoorne |
| 2021 | Formula E: Accelerate launches with a €100,000 prize pool |
| 2022 | Road to the London Final with qualifying rounds open to the public |
| 2023 | GEN3 cars on the simulator, live events in Berlin, Rome and London |
| 2026/27 | GEN4 era begins in real-world Formula E |
Why electric racing and simulators fit so well
Every top racing series uses simulators, but electric racing depends on them in a special way. The reason is energy management.
In a Formula E race, drivers don’t simply go flat out. They have to finish with a fixed amount of energy, deciding when to push, when to lift and coast, and how much to recover under braking. Those decisions change lap by lap depending on traffic, safety cars and Attack Mode. Practising them on a real track is expensive and time-limited. On a simulator, a driver can run the same race dozens of times.
That’s why teams invest heavily in driver-in-the-loop simulators, where engineers change software settings and the driver feels the effect immediately. Much of the development of regenerative braking strategies and energy maps happens here before a car ever reaches the circuit.
GEN4: a faster car, a bigger role for virtual testing
The stakes rise again with the GEN4 car, which debuts in the 2026/27 season. According to Formula E’s GEN4 guide, it produces 450kW in race mode and up to 600kW in qualifying and Attack Mode, reaches a top speed of around 335km/h and is the first Formula E car with permanent all-wheel drive. It can also recover up to 700kW under braking.
More power, all-wheel drive and more regeneration mean more variables to understand, and far more simulator hours to master them. For drivers and engineers alike, the virtual car has become a first draft of the real one.
What sim racing teaches the EV industry
The link doesn’t stop at motorsport. Several lessons from sim racing are feeding into the wider EV world:
- Software is everything. In electric racing and road cars alike, performance depends on how software controls power delivery, regeneration and battery temperature.
- Efficiency can be exciting. Energy-saving techniques that started as racing tactics, like lift-and-coast and one-pedal driving, are now everyday features of road EVs.
- Gaming builds brand loyalty. Manufacturers that race in Formula E use sim events to reach younger audiences who may buy their first car in the next decade.
- Simulation cuts costs. Testing ideas virtually is cheaper and more sustainable than building and shipping prototypes around the world.
Can a sim racer become a real driver?
It has happened. The most famous example is Jann Mardenborough, who moved from Gran Turismo to real-world racing through the GT Academy programme, a story later turned into a Hollywood film. Formula E: Accelerate followed a similar idea on a smaller scale, putting winners behind the wheel of a real car.
It’s still a narrow path. Real racing demands physical fitness, race craft in close traffic and years of experience. But sim racing has become a genuine scouting tool, and it’s far cheaper than a season in junior single-seaters.
The future is part virtual
Electric racing was always meant to be a technology showcase, and sim racing has become one of its most important tools. It trains drivers, develops software, connects with fans and even finds new talent. As GEN4 cars hit the track, the line between the simulator and the circuit will only get thinner, and the next generation of EV fans may well discover the sport from behind a steering wheel at home.
