Ahead of the highly anticipated 2021 F1^® Esports Series Pro Championship presented by Aramco, which begins next month, the full driver line-ups and event details were announced in Wednesday’s Preview Show, as teams’ get set to battle it out once again for a piece of the huge $750,000 prize pot – one of the biggest in Esports.

F1^® Esports Series’ flagship competition continues to exceed expectation and shatter records along the way with last year’s Pro Series, as it was then called, achieving 10.6m views across TV & digital, as well as a record 291m social impressions and 23.8m video views throughout the campaign. The ever-rising popularity of the competition was even more evident as nearly half a million people attempted to qualify for this year’s championship, an increase of 108% from 2020.

As per the 2020 competition, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, drivers will continue to race from team factories or bespoke Esports facilities, or their own homes, whilst broadcasts will be filmed from the Gfinity Arena in London. Drivers will compete on the official F1^® 2021 video game, developed by Codemasters and EA.

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Aramco return as the presenting partner of the Pro Championship for a second year, and long-term partners DHL and Fanatec also continue to be a key part of the F1^® Esports Series. Fanatec will supply hardware to all drivers for this year’s campaign, as it had done since 2018, while three new drivers will compete in the 2021 season after qualifying through the DHL Time-Trial qualification route, including prominent sim-racer Sebastian Job, who joins Alpha Tauri.

HUGE MOVES ACROSS THE GRID

Since last year’s Championship wrapped up in December, there have been a number of high-profile moves around the grid as two world champions switched allegiances in the off-season. Reigning champion Jarno Opmeer, who secured his first title with Alfa Romeo, has joined Mercedes, filling the spot left by Brendon Leigh. Two-time world champion Leigh, who has been recruited by the FDA, joins the only other drivers champion, David Tonizza.

Reigning teams’ champions Red Bull have retained duo Marcel Kiefer and Frederik Rasmussen, who will both be in contention for a shot at this year’s individual honour, whilst Opmeer’s teammate Dani Bereznay, who helped Alfa Romeo to a second-place finish in the teams’ championship has joined McLaren as they prepare for the new season with a completely new three-driver roster, with last year’s ‘Rookie of the Year’ Dani Moreno also heading to Mercedes.

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There will be ten new drivers on this year’s driver line-up, with a third of the grid having been scouted through this year’s Pro Exhibition after qualifying via one of F1^® Esports Series’ qualification routes.

Team	Number	Driver	Nationality Advertisement	D.O.B
Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN F1 Esports	30	Simon Weigang	German Advertisement	28/10/1997
	38	Filip Prešnajder	Slovakian	27/11/2002 Advertisement
	73	Thijmen Schütte	Dutch	25/08/2004
Scuderia AlphaTauri Esports Team Advertisement	51	Joni Törmälä	Finnish	15/08/1996
	13 Advertisement	Sebastian Job	British	22/03/2000
	28	Dario Iemmulo Advertisement	Italian	28/01/2003
Alpine Esports Team	40	Nicolas Longuet Advertisement	French	06/08/2002
	8	Fabrizio Donoso	Chilean Advertisement	19/06/1999
	80	Patrik Sipos	Hungarian	30/04/2003 Advertisement
Aston Martin Cognizant Esports Team	88	Lucas Blakely	British	15/07/2001 Advertisement
	92	Daniele Haddad	Italian	12/08/1992
	79 Advertisement	Shanaka Clay	British	04/02/1999
FDA Esports Team	95 Advertisement	David Tonizza	Italian	14/01/2002
	72	Brendon Leigh Advertisement	British	07/08/1999
	29	Domenico Lovece	Italian Advertisement	29/06/2001
Uralkali Haas F1 Team Esports	2	Cedric Thomé	German Advertisement	26/02/1998
	15	Samuel Libeert	French	12/11/1992 Advertisement
	48	Matthjs van Erven	Dutch	03/03/2003
McLaren Shadow Advertisement	12	Daniel Bereznay	Hungarian	28/05/2000
	20 Advertisement	Bardia Boroumand	Iranian	17/04/2003
	52	Josh Idowu Advertisement	British	10/02/2003
Mercedes-AMG Petronas Esports Team	34	Jarno Opmeer Advertisement	Dutch	11/04/2000
	26	Dani Moreno	Spanish Advertisement	09/01/2001
	94	Bono Huis	Dutch	04/12/1994 Advertisement
Red Bull Racing Esports	24	Marcel Kiefer	German	24/08/1998 Advertisement
	19	Frederik Rasmussen	Danish	18/06/2000
	59 Advertisement	Liam Parnell	German	05/09/2002
Williams Esports	21 Advertisement	Álvaro Carretón	Spanish	21/07/2001
	53	Michael Romanidis Advertisement	Greek	07/09/2003
	23	Alessio Di Capua	Italian Advertisement	10/04/2002

TWO CIRCUIT DEBUTS, AND OLD FAVOURITES RETURN

This year’s campaign, the fifth season of the competition, will begin on Wednesday 13 October with the first two races of Event 1, as drivers’ replicate the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship by starting off at the Bahrain International Circuit. Whilst the real-world F1^® drivers couldn’t travel to China this year, the Shanghai International Circuit will be brought to life virtually, before the always popular Red Bull Ring rounds off the season-opening Event on the following day.

While most of the chosen venues remain the same as last year, including Zandvoort where F1^® returned earlier this month, there are three new tracks for drivers to get to grips with this season. The ‘rollercoaster’ in Portimão makes its debut in the Pro Championships, as does Imola, whilst the Circuit of the Americas returns to the calendar. As has been the case for the past two campaigns, the season finale will see competitors battle it out at Interlagos.

Event # Advertisement	Date	Round #	Circuit
Event 1	13-14 October Advertisement	Round 1	Sakhir, Bahrain
		Round 2	Shanghai, China
		Round 3 Advertisement	Spielberg, Austria
Event 2	27-28 October	Round 4	Silverstone, Great Britain Advertisement
		Round 5	Monza, Italy
		Round 6	Spa, Belgium
Event 3 Advertisement	24-25 November	Round 7	Portimão, Portugal
		Round 8	Zandvoort, Netherlands Advertisement
		Round 9	Austin, USA
Event 4	15-16 December	Round 10 Advertisement	Imola, Italy
		Round 11	Mexico City, Mexico
		Round 12	Interlagos, Brazil Advertisement

EIGHT LIVE SHOWS ACROSS THE SEASON

F1^® Esports fans will be happy to hear that following the increased coverage of last year’s Pro Series, the format will remain the same for 2021, where there will be live racing on Wednesday and Thursday of each Event week, as well as livestreamed qualifying sessions on both days. The Pro Championship will be broadcast on the official F1^® social channels (Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and Huya), as well as select TV broadcast partners.

Ben Pincus, Director of Commercial Partnerships at Formula 1^®, said:

“There’s huge excitement building ahead of the new season of the F1 Esports Series Pro Championship, and we can’t wait to get started, and with so many big moves around the grid, this year’s title really is anyone’s for the taking! As always, we want to thank our partners Aramco, DHL and Fanatec for their continued support which enables us to bring elite sim-racing to fans around the world.”

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Paul Jeal, F1 Senior Franchise Director at Codemasters, said:

“The 2021 F1 Esports Series Pro Championship promises to be the most exciting and unpredictable season to date. There have been some exciting driver moves with former double F1 Esports Champion Brendon Leigh joining another ex-champion David Tonizza at Ferrari, and our current F1 Esports Champion Jarno Opmeer moving to Mercedes. We also welcome new exciting talent from the Challengers, and it will be fascinating to see how Alessio Di Capua and Josh Idowu compete on the biggest stage. On behalf of the F1 team at Codemasters and all our players worldwide, good luck to the 2021 drivers. Let the racing begin.”

John Clarke, CEO at Gfinity, said:

“Anticipation is building for the new season of the F1 Esports Series Pro Championship presented by Aramco. It has become a must watch competition for both existing, and an ever-growing army of new, virtual racing fans. The bar is raised each year with new talent emerging and spectacular racing. The Gfinity production team will also be raising the bar with more storytelling and high-octane coverage of the races. It’s time to sit back and enjoy the show!”

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