Time to race – and support the World Health Organisation

You’ll probably have seen that I’ve turned my hand to sim racing during the current lockdown. It’s been a lot of fun. But things are about to get a lot more serious.

Myself and 17 other drivers (from F1, F2 and other racing categories) have put our heads together and formed a mini sim racing series called ‘Race for the World’.

I should point out early that none of our races will clash with the official F1 Virtual Grand Prix Series races which are already really popular.

‘Race for the World’ is simply another opportunity for us to race as a group online and enjoy some extra competition that we can share with F1 and other motorsport fans across the world. We’ll be racing on the F1 2019 game and everything will be streamed live on our Twitch channels.

Having looked at the interest and engagement on social media and Twitch around the recent Virtual Bahrain GP, there’s clearly a strong appetite for this type of thing with no real F1 races to enjoy on TV.

And given the number of eyeballs that have been on our sim racing so far, we felt we also had a good opportunity to use ‘Race for the World’ to do something good for a worthy cause.

So, we’ve set up a fundraising campaign in aid of the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, established to help fight the current global pandemic. We’re hoping the stream viewers we attract through ‘Race for the World’ might want to donate something and support a cause that all of the drivers truly believe in. Details of how to make a donation are on my Twitch page.

It’s fair to say this mini sim racing series started as a simple idea for fun. But I’m pleased it’s morphed into something more serious, that can bring a bit of F1 entertainment to people and do some good at the same time.

The drivers taking part alongside me are: Charles Leclerc, Arthur Leclerc, Louis Delétraz, George Russell, Callum Ilott, Giuliano Alesi, Antonio Giovinazzi, Alex Albon, Antonio Fuoco, Pietro Fittipaldi, Christian Lundgaard, Lando Norris, Antonio Felix da Costa, Nick Cassidy and Sean Gelael. We’ll also be joined by World Superbike rider Luca Salvadori and Alex’s younger brother Luca, who we have made an honorary entrant 🙂

We’ll race three times in the next week, at 19.00 CET on Saturday 11 April, Tuesday 14 April and Friday 17 April.

There will be two races per event. The track for each race will be drawn at random, 15 minutes before the racing is due to start. Each draw will be streamed live.

Then there’s a short free practice session, a short qualifying and a 25% distance race. The same rules and assist restrictions will be used as per the F1 Virtual GPs. We reckon each event will last two hours.

It’s all pretty straightforward – but an exciting prospect for the coming days. I hope lots of you can join me on my Twitch stream @Nicholas_Latifi to see the action unfold.

Wish me luck!

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