McLaughlin keen on Supercars Eseries

Scott McLaughlin is making the plunge back into online sim racing, and says he'd eventually "like to have a go" in Supercars’ official eseries.

The reigning Supercars champion has recently taken delivery of a simulator at his Brisbane home, joining a growing list of drivers using online racing to stay sharp.

It adds to the state-of-the-art motion simulator based at Shell V-Power Racing headquarters that is used to help drivers prepare for race weekends.

“Simworx has hooked me up with VR [Virtual Reality] and all that sort of stuff and it’s amazing,” said McLaughlin of his new set up.

“It really helps with keeping sharp. Going to the track [for the test day last week], I felt like I was ‘on’ straight away. I felt fresh.

“It's kind of like going in the go-kart. I'm doing a lot of different things. I'm not necessarily racing, but I'm having goes in different pieces. The sim is a good tool.”

Supercars has stepped up its eseries program for its second season in 2019, moving to the iRacing platform.

To be broadcast on Fox Sports, the series will be held across six events on Tuesday evenings between September 24 and November 19.

“I’m excited to see what the eseries looks like for our category. I think it will be quite cool,” he said.

“They're predicting that esports is going to be one of the biggest sports in the next few years, so it's something our sport is doing well to be a part of.

“I’ll be watching to see what goes on. I used to race all that stuff back in the day. I got myself into trouble a number of times hitting people off! But it's bloody fun.

“There's some really good people, good drivers on there that haven't got opportunities before, but they've got the opportunity to race in esports. It's a very cool platform.”

As for whether McLaughlin is interested in racing in the eseries, he suggested he’d need more practice to be competitive with the top Supercars sim racers.

“I'm no good in a V8 on there so I need to get better, but I'd like to have a go,” he said.

“Just as long as I don't get taken away from the real job; I'd much rather win the actual Bathurst 1000. But we'll see what happens.”