The novel Coronavirus pandemic has caused major sporting events around the world to face cancellation and postponement, and cricket is no exception. Many international series and tournaments have been either suspended or dropped as to safeguard the players, staffs and fans from a possible contamination- and the players are now in self-isolation, away from the pitch. However, English cricketer Ben Stokes has found a new activity up his sleeve, as he is about to test his driving skills against many revered Formula 1 drivers in the motorsport’s new eSports variant: the Virtual Grand Prix!
As many F1 GPs have been cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the idea of a virtual grand prix was picked up in mid-march, as to let the supporters continue to enjoy the races virtually, as the drivers pit themselves in the official F1 2019 PC video game, developed and published by Codemasters.
The Bahrain Grand Prix took place as the sports’ first eSports event on 22nd March, which was won by Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou of the Renault F1 team.
Stokes, the superstar English cricketer will join up for the Red Bull Racing team, alongside Thai-British driver Alexander Albon for the upcoming Virtual Vietnam GP this weekend.
The 2019 World Cup winning all rounder will be pitted against the stalwarts of F1 racing, such as the likes of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Christian Lundgaard and George Russell this Sunday, who will be joining the virtual event from their homes.
However, as the Hanoi Street Circuit is not available in the F1 2019 game, the Vietnam GP will be played in the Albert Park semi-street circuit of Australia.
The grid order will be determined through an 18-minute qualifying session, and the main race will be 28-laps.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major disturbance in the 2020 calendar year for F1. Starting from the cancellation of the season opener Australian Grand Prix, the Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix all had to be either postponed. The Monaco Grand Prix also faced cancellation.
There have been over 961,000 positive cases of Coronations around the world till date, along with 49,165 deaths.
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