Attention video gamers: Formula One could be for you, says Hong Kong driver Adderly Fong

Developing video-game skills is set to become a major path to a Formula One motor-racing career, top Hong Kong driver Adderly Fong Cheun-yue believes.

Bentley Team Absolute driver Fong was commenting on the recent announcement by F1 team McLaren of a competition to find the “world’s fastest gamer” with a view to grooming that person to become one of the team’s simulator drivers.

“Formula One stars could start off as gamers in future,” said 27-year-old Fong, who was a F1 development driver for Lotus in 2015, the closest a Chinese driver has come to driving in Formula One.

“Nissan actually started a programme called the GT academy, where they used the Gran Turismo video game to audition drivers to have a final shoot-out. The top 30 did a training course in the UK and went through the ranks from small cars to GT3 race cars. I would say it’s going to become more common to see the link between video game simulation and real driving.”

“A lot of experience and knowledge has to be accrued on track, but to start off from fundamentals and basics, video games are also a good platform because there’s no risk of crashing a car.