Drivers being announced for the upcoming ESL R1 event in Katowice in just over two weeks’ time are coming through thick and fast, as Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Esports have now shown their hand and also have some heavy hitters in their four-driver line-up that will represent the team.
Two-time SRO Esports champion and 2022 FIA Motorsport Games gold medal winner James Baldwin is of course one of the big names that are part of the squad, having recently announced his departure from Veloce very recently after a five-year association.
The World’s Fastest Gamer winner’s services had already been secured back in early September of 2022 by Mercedes, and his success has been recognized even further with the recent Esports Driver awards he has received through the VCO Simmy Awards and Autosport.
He also will partner with two other drivers that he has also been working with at the recent Le Mans Virtual 24H, Bono Huis and Graham Carroll, along with Marco Pejic from Veloce.
Huis, who is also a part of Team Redline, has been a mainstay in top-tier sim racing for a very long time, and has also been successful in his own right, becoming the Formula E Visa Vegas eRace Winner back in 2017, a five-times Formula Sim Racing Champion, and has also competed in F1 Esports Pro Series alongside Jarno Opmeer.
Carroll also competed alongside Huis in the Formula E Vegas race, and was also a part of the line-up at Red Bull Racing for F1 Esports, Apex Racing Team and Team Redline in the iRacing World Championship Grand Prix Series between 2015 and 2017, along with the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup, and has even had some exploits in real-life racing in Formula Ford.
Pejic has been representing Veloce and YAS Heat on several platforms, most notably ACC and RaceRoom, competing in a variety of series, including DTM Esports, ADAC GT Masters Esports and the SimGrid X VCO World Cup, so will also bring another set of skills to the team.
Naturally, they will be the defacto Mercedes-AMG works outfit, running in the AMG GT3 EVO on the RENNSPORT platform, and will be a force to be reckoned with, along with Baldwin, Huis and Carroll giving their thoughts on what lies ahead: