Brabham believes in esports: 'A growing industry, with bumps in the road'

His surname symbolises a rich history in motorsport and Formula 1 in particular. With his three F1 world titles and ownership of the eponymous team, his father Sir Jack Brabham is one of the sport's true icons. David himself also raced in the highest motorsport classes, but his main successes were in endurance racing. Nowadays, he is, among other things, active as team boss of his own esports team.

Admittedly, originally David Brabham (57) didn't particularly like gaming, he says in a conversation with GPblog. During his time as an active driver for Acura, the Australian did spend plenty of time in a simulator. "It was work," he looks back. "And as we were obviously looking at how we can expand the brand (Brabham Automotive) and go into other areas and other demographics to get people to know what Brabham is. We felt esports was a good place to be."

Memories of the past

A new audience has indeed been tapped into, in Brabham's experience. "There's a lot of people that do esports perhaps don't know the history of Brabham. What we found is that us being in esports, it's a big topic for the commentators and people talk about it. The livery that we use on the esports goes back to my dad’s era, you know, the green and gold and the blue and yellow of the Formula One cars. It's a talked about subject. Also, we'll see the team is improving and the results are getting better and we're learning as we go along to see how we can improve it."

Brabham got behind the wheel for some esports racing during the Covid lockdown, for example, when he competed against the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel in 'The Legends'. So yes, by now Brabham has become a fan of esports. "It gives people the opportunity to race against perhaps some of their heroes, which obviously has happened. Obviously with Max Verstappen doing it, I'd say briefly this year, that's a big deal for a lot of these guys to be able to be on the same track, which they will never be able to do in the real world, but in the virtual world they get a taste of that."

Work in progress

According to Brabham, esports is still a work in progress. There were technical problems during the last Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans, at which Verstappen decided to call it quits. "It happened to us as well. It's a work in progress and I mean you go into these races knowing something like that could happen. I think if you go in the attitude that everything should be perfect in the virtual world when you go racing, you're not seeing it in the best way because you're going to get upset when something happens, which is what happened to Max."

Brabham continued: "And if you go into with a different attitude to know that this is a growing industry, there are bumps in the road. You are part of that early process, being on the journey with everyone learning. Obviously, they (the organizers) are learning how to have backup servers. They're learning how to manage all the back end of that clicking from one server in one country to another country. It's a minefield, it really is."

Respect for passion and effort

In the 'real' world, Brabham won the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times, so these days he and his esports team are competing in the virtual version. "It is literally like a mini Le Mans", he reflects on the last edition. "Even though I've been in that environment in the real world, to see it in the virtual world really showed how much passion, how much effort, how much money people are spending in that space to give opportunity for all these drivers to be involved in a prestigious championship and obviously Le Mans 24 hours."