FIA & iRacing Announce F4 Esports Regional Tour

iRacing FIA Formula 4 Regional Series.jpeg
After announcing their partnership in May, iRacing and the FIA take things to the next level with their Formula 4 collaboration: Starting with Season 4 of 2023, the F4 Esports Regional Tour makes its debut, drawing inspiration from the real regional series.

Image credit: iRacing/FIA

Since its introduction in 2014, the real Formula 4 hosts numerous national and regional championships around the world. Six chassis and six engine manufacturers are homologated for F4 machinery, with equalization applied to ensure a level playing field for competitors.

The new iRacing format will be divided into four regions, two for Europe, and one each for the Americas and the Asia/Pacific region. Servers will be hosted in their corresponding regions, but racers are free to join any of the events they like. They are limited, however: Races will take place each Wednesday and Thursday, using 7, 9 and 11 pm time slots in a time zone of a respective region.

iRacing FIA Formula 4 Regional Tour.jpg

iRacing and the FIA take their Formula 4 collaboration to the next level with the FIA F4 Esports Regional Tour. Image credit: iRacing

"An Amazing Step"​

iRacing President Tony Gardner is excited about the prospect of the F4 Esports Regional Tour: "It is an amazing next step in our collaboration with the FIA Around the Formula 4 platform. We have always shared the FIA's vision of giving the next great racers an approachable platform to learn the skills they need to excel in real-world motorsport."

Likewise, FIA Single-Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis is looking forward to the series: "It Is great to see that the collaboration between the FIA and iRacing is continuing to develop. The FIA F4 Esports Regional Tour will bring virtual and real-world racing even closer together, and encourage the global development of new talents through close competition, which is exactly wha the Formula 4 Championships are doing."

Kern County Looks Ready to Go​

In addition to the Formula 4 announcement, iRacing also shared a preview video of the upcoming Kern County Raceway that is set to join the service for Season 4 2023. The video showcases all four of the included layouts, which sees the dirt and asphalt ovals being joined by their respective smaller versions that make partial use of their front straights.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1696932824484348405

Alongside Kern County, a current-day version of Zandvoort is on its way for Season 4. The Dutch Grand Prix venue is one of the oldest European tracks in iRacing, so the much-needed modernization brings the circuit up to an appropriate standard while also introducing changes like the banked final turn that were implemented ahead of Formula One's return in 2021.

What do you think about the F4 series and the Kern County video? Let us know in the comments below!
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About author
Yannik Haustein
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

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Comments

I
Damn, their marketing team is good!
Totally undeserving to land such a deal w/ the FIA when AC is by far and away the most popular sim... but hey, they got an IndyCar deal despite Scott Dixon & Josef Newgarden being totally negative about the physics model.
Once more, congrats to their amazing marketing team!
 
fromlondonwithlove
ivanalesi said:
Damn, their marketing team is good!
Totally undeserving to land such a deal w/ the FIA when AC is by far and away the most popular sim... but hey, they got an IndyCar deal despite Scott Dixon & Josef Newgarden being totally negative about the physics model.
Once more, congrats to their amazing marketing team!
Click to expand...
Yup, all their success is definitely down to their marketing.

All the negativity in Simracing is so tiresome. We live in a great age here - different sims with a plethora of content available for all. Online multiplayer that doesn’t have any of the hassles that we had in the nineties. Different communities concentrating on different things.

And every news article fills with constant bickering over which sim is better. They’re not even civil discussions anymore - just everyone ranting at each other.

It’s so tragic.

On topic: I’m glad Zandvoort is getting a refresh.
 
I
In life, there are positives & negatives. When you feel smth is unjust, you have the right to point it out, that's called free society. Pretending that everything is positive is called falsehood & it's very popular in closed societies ruled by dictators.
Now it's very fashionable to label as negative person anyone pointing out facts that another person doesn't like, but labeling them won't change reality one bit or bend the truth.
So, yeah, life is tragic, not everyone agrees with you, so toughen up :)
 
W
What's the point of watching esport if there's real sport? esport is for things too dangerous in real life for modern men. racing 1937 or 1967 F1 cars on nurburgring (nordschleife or gesamtstrecke), pescara, isle of man or old spa, that's some esport worth watching
 
Johnr777
ivanalesi said:
In life, there are positives & negatives. When you feel smth is unjust, you have the right to point it out, that's called free society. Pretending that everything is positive is called falsehood & it's very popular in closed societies ruled by dictators.
Now it's very fashionable to label as negative person anyone pointing out facts that another person doesn't like, but labeling them won't change reality one bit or bend the truth.
So, yeah, life is tragic, not everyone agrees with you, so toughen up :)
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So what’s unjust? In what way is this damaging to you?
 
jappygamer
Nice for the iracers i only dislike the irenting model Neither its my favourite ffb or physics model sim.

With acc ams2 and rf2 i am served and waiting for ac2.

Also some webs sites are getting that they have to build license systems , so we can have licenses and ranked races for more realistic sims than iracing , and owning the content not only renting and having to buy the next cars tracks to race cuz our content will be obsolete? lol
 
Johnr777
jappygamer said:
Nice for the iracers i only dislike the irenting model Neither its my favourite ffb or physics model sim.

With acc ams2 and rf2 i am served and waiting for ac2.

Also some webs sites are getting that they have to build license systems , so we can have licenses and ranked races for more realistic sims than iracing , and owning the content not only renting and having to buy the next cars tracks to race cuz our content will be obsolete? lol
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Except your claim of content going obsolete is not really accurate. Maybe you were never a member.

And I fail to see the relevance of your iracing opinion with this FIA partnership announcement?
 
E
jappygamer said:
Nice for the iracers i only dislike the irenting model Neither its my favourite ffb or physics model sim.

With acc ams2 and rf2 i am served and waiting for ac2.

Also some webs sites are getting that they have to build license systems , so we can have licenses and ranked races for more realistic sims than iracing , and owning the content not only renting and having to buy the next cars tracks to race cuz our content will be obsolete? lol
Click to expand...
So you have ACC, ams2 and rf2 through steam right? If your steam account gets banned, or steam itself closes its doors all your purchased stuff is not available to you anymore and your owned content is lost forever. Where exactly is the difference apart the subscription based model of iracing?
 
G
I've been playing several games and in the end I just decided to focus on iracing, despite all the negative details that people love to point out. It is the only game that no matter how much time I have free time I will always have a fun race and without serious problems, about FFB I really think it ends up being one of the ones I like the most especially after I switched to a DD steering wheel, excellent performance in VR or triple screen.
 
G
erniedaoage said:
So you have ACC, ams2 and rf2 through steam right? If your steam account gets banned, or steam itself closes its doors all your purchased stuff is not available to you anymore and your owned content is lost forever. Where exactly is the difference apart the subscription based model of iracing?
Click to expand...
Can you show some cases where steam accounts are closed without valid reasons? And how do you think that Steam itself will close its doors, it's a billion+ dollar company. It's impossible what you're suggesting here, shareholders of such companies have more braincells than that, they have one of the best business models in the world. There is no logic in your way of thinking.

He is right about iRacing because you have to subscribe to play. But I'm not sure what your point is. With steam you own a product which you can play as long as you want without paying for a subscription. With iRacing it's temporary as long as you paid your subscription. Personally I think that the multiplayer system of iRacing is great and I understand that people want to pay for that, but I won't as long as they keep such outdated graphics, it just looks like 2008 and you have to pay premium for that. No thanks, no immersion for me after racing in Automobilista 2.
 
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I
Johnr777 said:
So what’s unjust? In what way is this damaging to you?
Click to expand...
I've stated the unjust thing, didn't you read it? It's nowhere near the most popular sim, yet it gets FIA championship. I understand if it was GT, but iRacing is probably 5-10% of what AC is in terms of numbers & I doubt if it's even 1% of GT. Does the FIA want to find the best sim racer out of the biggest driver pool or the best racer from a tiny, tiny driver pool? Actually, how many under 20 drivers are on iRacing? I bet it's 0.001% of GT. Most kids won't even try it for the outdated gfx!
FIA should be making meritocratic choices based on performance, not based on friendliest marketing team :) That's all.

metalnwood said:
Many things are unjust, womans rights in certain countries. The class system in others, the lack of food or human rights in even more countries.

..and iracing asking you to pay. Ask him to order these as I don't know which way he would go.
Click to expand...
Oh sweety, it's a sim racing forum. And no, iRacing asking me to pay isn't unjust. I have the choice to refuse to pay for an underdeveloped sim with DirectX 7/8 gfx.
I wouldn't actually drive it even if it were free, for this & many other reasons.
 
I
erniedaoage said:
So you have ACC, ams2 and rf2 through steam right? If your steam account gets banned, or steam itself closes its doors all your purchased stuff is not available to you anymore and your owned content is lost forever. Where exactly is the difference apart the subscription based model of iracing?
Click to expand...
You can continue playing. I've done it many times when I don't have Internet in the winter storms. It just says Steam is unreachable after a couple of minutes & then it loads.
 
fromlondonwithlove
ivanalesi said:
I've stated the unjust thing, didn't you read it? It's nowhere near the most popular sim, yet it gets FIA championship. I understand if it was GT, but iRacing is probably 5-10% of what AC is in terms of numbers & I doubt if it's even 1% of GT. Does the FIA want to find the best sim racer out of the biggest driver pool or the best racer from a tiny, tiny driver pool? Actually, how many under 20 drivers are on iRacing? I bet it's 0.001% of GT. Most kids won't even try it for the outdated gfx!
FIA should be making meritocratic choices based on performance, not based on friendliest marketing team :) That's all.


Oh sweety, it's a sim racing forum. And no, iRacing asking me to pay isn't unjust. I have the choice to refuse to pay for an underdeveloped sim with DirectX 7/8 gfx.
I wouldn't actually drive it even if it were free, for this & many other reasons.
Click to expand...
Cool story.

You have your preferences, some people have others.

It would be great if we could have an iRacing thread which doesn’t descend into the same complaints from people who don’t even like the sim, and never will.
 
Johnr777
ivanalesi said:
I've stated the unjust thing, didn't you read it? It's nowhere near the most popular sim, yet it gets FIA championship. I understand if it was GT, but iRacing is probably 5-10% of what AC is in terms of numbers & I doubt if it's even 1% of GT
Click to expand...
This is actually very untrue, there are roughly 10,000 members online on both iracing and Assetto Corsa platforms at this exact moment (information you can look up yourself)

And you may find it interesting that the bulk of AC online activity is for the Shutoku project - “no hesi” crowd, Nordschleife, and private lobbies. The iRacing side is 100% ranked racing.

FIA did right in picking a proper partner for, you know… good competitive racing.

I get that you don’t like the iRacing platform, but educate yourself a little more on this subject before talking nonsense
 
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I
Johnr777 said:
This is actually very untrue, there are roughly 10,000 members online on both iracing and Assetto Corsa platforms at this exact moment (information you can look up yourself)
Click to expand...
I wasn't talking about ppl online, I was talking about total users, total sales. iRacing's USP is their online racing rank system, so most users race online. In AC and for that matter most other sims, online racing is only a small subset of their total users.
Kunos has sold many millions of copies, but 99% rarely race online.
How many ppl have active iRacing subscription? AC has sold 28 MILLION copies. Apparently, iRacing had 160 THOUSAND active subscribers in 2020. Do you see the gap? There is no comparison, hence my well placed comment for their marketing team. The FIA clearly chose the wrong partner.
So, educate yourself a bit before talking non-sense :giggle:
 
Johnr777
ivanalesi said:
I wasn't talking about ppl online, I was talking about total users, total sales. iRacing's USP is their online racing rank system, so most users race online. In AC and for that matter most other sims, online racing is only a small subset of their total users.
Kunos has sold many millions of copies, but 99% rarely race online.
How many ppl have active iRacing subscription? AC has sold 28 MILLION copies. Apparently, iRacing had 160 THOUSAND active subscribers in 2020. Do you see the gap? There is no comparison, hence my well placed comment for their marketing team. The FIA clearly chose the wrong partner.
So, educate yourself a bit before talking non-sense :giggle:
Click to expand...
No, you target an active audience. Not one that may or may not be using the game at all.
Assetto Corsa sales may be inflated due to numerous steam sales, humble bundles, etc, over the course of, what 8-9 years? You thinking all 28 million people who bought copies have it installed, running... ridiculous argument.

Clearing shooting yourself in the foot as well when you just admitted AC has very little of an online audience. No ranked/organized multiplayer platform... not to mention development and support stopped long ago. How would the FIA get involved with this? Please explain...
 
M
Premium
ivanalesi said:
I wasn't talking about ppl online, I was talking about total users, total sales. iRacing's USP is their online racing rank system, so most users race online. In AC and for that matter most other sims, online racing is only a small subset of their total users.
Kunos has sold many millions of copies, but 99% rarely race online.
How many ppl have active iRacing subscription? AC has sold 28 MILLION copies. Apparently, iRacing had 160 THOUSAND active subscribers in 2020. Do you see the gap? There is no comparison, hence my well placed comment for their marketing team. The FIA clearly chose the wrong partner.
So, educate yourself a bit before talking non-sense :giggle:
Click to expand...
The last thing I would want to do is get in a competiton full of guys that don't race online and are used to the overtaking maneuvers that they pull on ai. So other than AC has no racing service it is much better to get drivers from a pool of simmers that can deal with online racing and even if they are new to it they can have as much exposure as they want to it on an hourly/daily basis.
Racing real people is how you get good at racing real people.
 
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