Who would have said that a day of real pilots recognized motor sport may compete in a championship on a digital console ? Forced to fall back on e-sports, for lack of a real racing car and bike due to the pandemic of sars coronavirus, these drivers are catching up "for real" for their pranks and other misbehavior in the online contests.

Last example in date last weekend. In the ultimate tour of a virtual race, the Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, the winner of the Indianapolis 500 2019, has thus "taken out" the british driver of Formula 1 Lando Norris, who was travelling towards the victory. All this without harm to anyone, but in the context of a competition, "Indycar iRacing Challenge" very followed on social networks.

"I trained for 24 hours to properly negotiate the corners" of the oval of Indianapolis, on which he has never raced in real life, regretted then Lando Norris, 20 years old, on his account twitch, a platform for e-sport on which it broadcasts its courses. "And just because a guy gets a bit annoyed because a driver who does not Indycar is going to win, he flung it all to the ground. But it is like that ", he added, vexed.

The realism of these virtual races reveals the characters of the drivers © DR

He has received the support of his boss in F1. "This is not what one expects from a champion," tweeted the American, Zak Brown, who knows about Indycar racing, where his single-seater McLaren are back this year.

The French, who at 35 years of age does not miss experience of the race, later apologized, without taking things too seriously.

Lando Norris has handed in a layer on ESPN : "We always expect that people behave professionally as pilots who have the experience. Even if it is virtual, and that this is what everyone gives as an excuse, this has been taken seriously by almost everyone. "

in the same race, the young American Santino Ferruci has also caused a accident, without being much criticized by the French on social networks. Perhaps because, despite its 21 years, it suffers from a reputation already badly tarnished by several incidents of actual circuits.

layoff real insult virtual

another american rider, Kyle Larson, who races in Nascar, comes to him to pay dearly to have forgotten that the border between the virtual and the real was not so watertight as this. During a race e-sport broadcast on the social networks in mid-April, he unleashed an insult, racist. Contrite, he acknowledged that he had no excuse but was suspended again by Nascar and fired by his team. Now he must follow a course of awareness of racism before we can hope to get behind the wheel of a real car.

The realism of these virtual races reveals the characters of the drivers © Chris Graythen / North America / DR

The sport psychologist Eric Nihous makes a parallel between video games and the cruel children's stories of yesteryear. "They are used to express the aggressive impulses ", he says in an interview to the AFP. "The virtual games can lead to slip-ups" that would not occur in "real" life, according to him.

But this clinical psychologist and sport attached to the Creps Antibes and Boulouris-Saint Raphael recalls that drivers also have accidents "in real life" and that the video game can reveal "holes" in the personality of top-level athletes.

things are far more calm in MotoGP. The competition virtual organised by the promoters of the world Championship can wait for the return of the "real" races. It is also a very useful marketing the new video game " MotoGP 2020 ".

The Spaniard Marc Marquez, untouchable on the circuit for several years, there shines but little. In the last round, in line, two young Spanish drivers who have not yet made their debut in the category for supreme this year, Alex Marquez, the younger brother of Marc and Iker Lecuona, even found several rounds in the head, in front of the opponents much more experienced.

Fabio Quartararo, the great French hope of the MotoGP, does not seem to have forgotten that he is first and foremost a game. He fell no less than six times in the last virtual race... without getting hurt.