If you watched last Sunday’s first F2 virtual event, you may have been surprised that the 2019 third place finisher Luca Ghiotto was not featured higher in the results. The Italian qualified to a lowly P17 and classified 14th in the Feature Race. He eventually fought his way back into the points in the Sprint Race crossing the line in 7th. Not one to find excuses, Luca reveals how his event went.

“This first F2 virtual round was nice, but the first lap I did on this game was the qualifying lap (laughs)! I had to build a brand new PC on the Saturday because the other one I had could not handle the game. There was a test race organised on that day, but obviously I had to miss it. After that, I had other races on Saturday night: I had to train for those, and then I found myself on Sunday morning having to install the F1 game which took quite a long time. It finished installing about 30 minutes before the F2 event started so I went straight into quali! I literally used the Feature Race to install the set-up, the steering wheel, the pedals… The Sprint Race went a bit better: I could finish 7th.

“So, if you’re asking about my pit stop strategy in the first race, as you can imagine, I did not have time to think about it. For sure, not having an engineer telling you what to do was not easy (laughs). In the shorter race, I was starting to get a bit of feeling with the game. I found out how to be fast and how to drive better. I had a good start and I could move forward, with a decent pace. I was still a bit too far from the guys in front, but still, having the pace to finish in the top 10 less than one hour and thirty minutes after I finished downloading the game was quite a good result! I can be happy with it.

“I took this event quite seriously even if it is fun and we have obviously less pressure than when we’re racing for real. Honestly, I wish I would have had some time to train before Round 1. I want to be back for more! I cannot wait for Round 2. I will spend some time on the game to train and be ready to challenge the other drivers more. I want a revenge and show a better pace.

“I am used to playing online racing games. I have played a lot for the past 2 months as I was in quarantine. I’ve had a simulator for a few years, so this is not new to me, I was doing sim racing before. Nowadays, it’s become quite a big part of my daily routine. I play at least 1 hour per day, every day. It’s something I’m doing a bit more than before.

“Most of the drivers are doing sim racing right now; we find each other online and we race against each other a lot during the week. That’s a nice way to keep in touch with the others.”