McLaren’s Lando Norris believes Esports could produce Formula 1 drivers in future, but don’t for a minute think they can go straight from Esports to F1.

The Formula 1 eSports Series was founded in 2017 with 2018 the first full season with Brendon Leigh winning the title and Mercedes walking away with the Constructors’ Championship.

Following the success of the first two editions, the prize money for the 2019 installment was increased to $500,000.

Norris has made no secret of the fact that he is obsessed with Esports and the 20-year-old, who competes in sim racing for Team Redline, believes the sport be a breeding ground for future F1 drivers.

“In the future I think you can get people who start in Esports and come over,” he told Racefans.net.

“I don’t think they can go straight from Esports to Formula 1, they would have to still do some steps: F3, F2 and so on. But I think there’s already been some drivers who have proved that having skills on the simulator can translate very well onto the actual race track.

“The better the simulators get and everything then the higher the chance of something like that happening.”

The F1 rookie believes the real benefit from eSports is the fact that you can put in plenty of hours at home.

“You can obviously test a lot more in Esports than you can doing real testing and real driving. The thing you realise with some of the good drivers like Daniel [Bereznay, Alfa Romeo F1 Esports driver] and all of the Esports are the hours that they put in,” he added.

“The days of testing, every day for weeks, that’s the impressive thing. And that’s what you need to be able to do is constantly adjust the setup, improve your driving compared to your team mates and do that for weeks, basically.

“That’s the impressive thing and even for me to see someone who spends so much time trying to find hundredths and thousandths and so on, that’s what makes them so good.”

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