Lamborghini reveals official drivers of esports team

MANILA: Demonstrating its commitment to the esports industry with a factory team, Lamborghini has introduced the three sim drivers who will represent the brand in international sim racing competitions this 2022 season.

Lamborghini formed its own official team in order to build on its experience with The Real Race, a virtual one-make championship that began in 2020. The esports team is another opportunity for the brand to boost its presence in a field that is rapidly evolving, fiercely competitive, and offers a way to experience emotions similar to those of an actual race.

Jordan Sherratt, Gianfranco Giglioli, and Giorgio Simonini have been selected to represent Lamborghini in various international esports tournaments.

Sherratt, who was born in South Africa in 1999, secured his spot on the Lamborghini esports team by winning 15 out of 17 races and claiming nine out of 10 pole positions in the most recent edition of The Real Race. The EMEA region's second-place finisher in the Lamborghini Esports Championship, who rose to prominence after a third-place finish in 2020, is the perfect standard bearer for the team, both for the skills he has shown in tournaments over the past two seasons and for being a big supporter of the Lamborghini brand.

In a statement, Sherratt said, “Being chosen by Lamborghini to be the official sim driver still feels like a dream. All the hard work and sacrifice I have put in behind the scenes have been recognized and I finally get to live my dream! I want to thank Lamborghini for putting their trust in me to represent their prestigious brand.”

Giglioli, a 24-year-old Italian-Venezuelan racer, is already well-known in the virtual racing community. He was one of the first virtual drivers to compete In the first season of the Formula 1 Esports Series, finishing ninth. Giglioli finished fifth in the first edition of The Real Race in 2020, and he also won the Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Italia in the same year.

Simonini, a 22-year-old Italian sim driver, rounds out the lineup. His accomplishments include first place in the Sim Grid World Cup 2020 and fourth place in the SRO Esports 2020 championship, making him one of the most promising virtual racers.

Sherratt and Giglioli will race in the GT World Challenge Esports Sprint Series Europe together, while Simonini will join them in the 2022 Intercontinental GT Challenge Esports Endurance Championship.

The Misano race kicks off the Sprint calendar, which comprises five races. The final appointment is slated for August 3, with the grand finale taking place at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza's virtual version.

The 12 Hours of Bathurst, the famed Australian endurance race, will start off the Intercontinental GT Challenge Esports series on April 16. There are also five races on the calendar here, with the 9 Hours of Kyalami bringing the tournament to a close on August 27.

Sherratt, Giglioli, and Simonini have already begun training for the first events on the calendar, sharing vital driving and setup knowledge. Throughout the season, the three virtual drivers will be backed by the Squadra Corse team, which will deploy a team principal, driver coach, and engineers to the project to provide their expertise in the development and study of telemetry data from the track to the virtual simulation.

“Sim racing is an important platform in today’s motorsport scene. Video games were born to allow those who didn’t have opportunities for real-life racing to impersonate the professional drivers. Now, after several decades of development in the industry, simulated racing is getting closer and closer to its real-life counterpart and now has nothing to envy from professional motorsport. Moreover, sim racing is an additional tool for us to develop some of the fundamental aspects of real racing, such as car setups and software applications that will play an important role in the future of our brand,” Automobili Lamborghini Motorsport Head Giorgio Sanna stated.

Lamborghini has also announced that The Real Race will come back in 2022. The dates of the third edition of the Lamborghini Esports series will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Photos from Lamborghini

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