Transcript from video
Hi, I’m Scott Mansell and welcome to the Driver61 channel. Now today, I’m in London at the Veloche Motorsports and Esports to check out their sim and to speak to them a little bit more about the E-Sports world. I’m here with Jamie Chadwick, British F3 driver, having a great year. She comes to Veloche to use the sim and to help train for racing.
Scott: So, Jamie, firstly, how often are you coming to use the sim and what value do you get from it?
Jamie: Yes, I start working with Veloche at the beginning of this year off the back of my first year in British F3 and really it was just looking at ways in which I can improve my performance obviously on track but maximizing my time when I’m away from the track I think. As most racing drivers know, the amount of time we get on track is so limited that it’s difficult to really, you know, maximize performance when you have to do on the spot and you only get a few days in the car.
Scott: So how does the time in the sim translate to the real world? What value are you taking from actually doing the amount of time that you spend in the sim when you’ve, you know, for example, you’re going to Spa this weekend? How does that translate?
Jamie: So in my opinion, it’s impossible to get a simulator exactly like the real car, but to have a tool that you can use that is very similar and requires very similar mental preparation and physical preparation as driving the real car is so important and for me, I think that’s been fundamental this year and I think the intensity and how close British F3 is, you’ve got to be always at the top of your performance, you can’t have a bad day. So to be able to basically do a race weekend before a race weekend here at Veloche, it’s so so important to me.
Scott: So when you come here to train on the sim, how much time you’re actually spending on the track, are you changing things like set up to understand that a little bit more? Or is it just purely to prepare you mentally?
Jamie: Bits of both to be honest. I think it depends if I know the circuit well and I’m happy in the car, then we will start to make set up changes but more often than not, it’s literally just me trying to work through a race weekend. So the intensity that’s required to do one lap in qualifying and get the most out of it when you’re just given one lap to do it but also doing race sims and being consistent, you can really work through a whole race weekend in a couple of hours so that’s been fundamental for me. But also one of the nice things at Veloche, they’ve got both Jack and Rupert who live on that sim so they’re very, very quick and also they’ve got a couple of other drivers that are quick so it then becomes like an in-house competitive nature that, you know, I think is always healthy.
Scott: Yeah, obviously, aside from using it for training, it is a lot of fun to use the sim. So you’re racing in British F3 this year, but you’re also competing with some Esports. So that’s a really interesting concept for a real-world driver to go and compete in Esports, how are you finding that and what are you doing?
Jamie: Yeah, so it’s something I’m very new to, so I’m not yet there in terms of the competing side, I’m still sort of earning my stripes, trying to get a bit faster on the Esports side of things. I think I underestimated how difficult it was, I think going from the real-life side of things into Esports I thought it’d be easier and I would go in at the sharp end but it really isn’t, so it’s taken me a bit of time. But I think again, the more you can do when you’re away from the track, the better and little things like Esports and that competitive nature seems to be really important. I think it’s the future so it’s something that I’m looking forward to getting more involved in.
Scott: I guess from a driving perspective, you’re using a similar skillset, but not exactly the same as real-world racing, you know, you’re not getting that feeling of the car moving around quite as much so I guess your senses in some areas need to be a bit more sensitive than actually that might be in a real-world car.
Jamie: Yeah, exactly, a lot more sensitive because you haven’t got the feeling of what the car is about to do, you have to almost preempt it so very different but it’s almost, again, that having to adapt from one to the other quickly is a whole different skill in itself. I think that’s also important for me because I don’t just race in British F3, I’ve been doing some endurance stuff in GTs and sports cars and adapting to one car to the next it’s the same sort of thing so it’s teaching me all sorts of new things and yeah, I’m really enjoying it.
Scott: That’s fantastic. Jamie, thank you very much for talking with me today. Good luck this weekend, we’ll be watching out for you and enjoy the rest of the season.
Jamie: Cheers, thank you.