A picture of Formula E drivers playing rFactor 2
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Gaming

Team Redline gear up for $1m Formula E Vegas eRace

Meet the British team who are aiming to win the biggest sim racing event of all time.
Written by Tom East
5 min readPublished on
Formula E’s Vegas eRace is the biggest racing eSports competition ever. That’s according to Team Redline’s manager Dom Duhan. Five drivers from his British-based sim racing team will be competing in Vegas this weekend, making up half of the field of gamers who will be going for the biggest share of the $1m prize pool. However, they won’t just be racing against other gamers on an rFactor 2 street circuit – they'll be taking on real-life Formula E drivers as well.
F1 drivers like Max Verstappen have a background in sim racing, but Team Redline shouldn't be daunted by competing with the real-life racers – after all, Verstappen has trained with Duhan's team. However, as he admits, there will be more pressure than usual at this race.
“We’re using unfamiliar equipment,” he tells us. “It’s a new track, we haven’t seen it, and we’re only allowed 30 minutes practice, which means you’ve got to learn the track, get used to the pedals and the fixed setup in a limited time, so it’s going to be tricky."
So who are the Team Redline racers who will be racing for the biggest prize in eSports racing history, and who will their main rivals be? Dom introduced us to his team

Greger Huttu

A picture of Greger Huttu

Greger Huttu

© Team Redline

Dom says: Greger is known as the fastest sim racer of all time. He started 16 years ago, when he was a 15 or 16-year-old Finnish kid from the middle of nowhere, but he started tearing up these world championships with Grand Prix Legends, and then went into the NASCAR series and basically won every championship, before winning the pinnacle of sim racing: the iRacing World Championship. He’s now won it five out of seven years – he’s the greatest ever.

Olli Pahkala

A picture of Olli Pahkala

Olli Pahkala

© Team Redline

Dom says: Olli is another Finn, but, unlike Greger, he’s quite new to sim racing. He used to do karting, and he competed against Valterri Bottas when he was younger. Then, karting got a bit expensive, so in around 2012 he looked into sim racing, and it turns out that he’s pretty damn handy. Overall, Olli was probably the fastest in this competition; he’s suddenly found something in his technique – he won one of the rounds by 20 seconds.

Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola

A picture of Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola

Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola

© Team Redline

Dom says: He’s another incredibly quick Finnish racer who has won races in the iRacing World Championship. He’s also won across other sims as well, and he came first in one of the ESL rounds on Project CARS, finishing ahead of a guy who was unbeaten at the time. Once he’s in front, he’s almost untouchable – he’s so focused.

Bono Huis

A picture of Bono Huis

Bono Huis

© Team Redline

Bono was named after U2’s singer, because his Dad was a big fan. Our Dutch racer is 21, and he started when he was 15. He’s won FSR, rFactor’s most prestigious championship, five times, and he’s now racing in the iRacing side. He’s an incredibly smooth driver.

Enzo Bonito

A picture of Enzo Bonito

Enzo Bonito

© Team Redline

Dom says: Our Italian stallion is one of the most natural talents we’ve seen in racing titles – he turns using the rear of the car. He’s probably the fastest GT driver within iRacing, and he has also competed at the top level in Gran Turismo Hot Laps, plus he’s got loads of world records in Assetto Corsa. He’s just a really exciting driver. He won the last round in Formula E as well.

Who are their rivals?

Dom says: The other five guys are super fast. In each of the rounds in qualifying, there were hundredths of a second differences between the racers, so it’s very tight. David Greco is well known — he’s the physics guy behind the Codemasters games. Graham Carroll drives with us in iRacing, so we know of him and he’ll be competitive. Patrik Holtzmann is a German chap; he’s fast – he was the guy to beat in all the Codemasters games.
Petar Brljak – he’s won an FSR race, and there’s also this other Finn called Aleksi Elomaa. He’s mega fast – he drove in Grand Prix Legends when he was 12 and has gone up through all the levels. All of these guys we’ve beaten, but when it’s this close and so hard to overtake on track, I think it’s going to be the person who gets acclimatised to the wheel, the pedal, the environment, and the pressure [who will do the best].

Will the Formula E drivers be competitive?

A picture of Sebastien Buemi playing a sim racer

Sebastien Buemi enjoying some sim racing action

© Formula E

Dom says: We know we’re faster than the Formula E drivers, but we’re worried about them crashing into us and destroying our race. Formula E has organised the competition so that each sim driver has joined one of their teams [Greger is driving for Jaguar, Aleksi for Andretti, Olli for Mahindra, Enzo for Techeetah, and Bono for Faraday Future Dragon Racing].
What we’ve seen in some of the other races is that it’s a bit of fun for the Formula E drivers – they’re going to try, but some of them are very much used to the feel of the car on track rather than the visuals on screen, so they don’t get the braking points right, and they haven’t practised as well. I’m sure there’s going to be a few issues with some of the drivers going full speed into turn one and then taking someone out.
However, this event is being marshalled by people from the FIA and by the Formula E sporting director so if any of the drivers do anything like ram someone purposefully, it will impact them as well.
The final of the Formula E Vegas eRace takes place at 4pm local time on Saturday January 7 (00.00 January 8 GMT)