The FIA Motorsport Games were a celebration about all things racing – and Michael Teichmann was right in the middle of it all: The Geekz Energy driver got to take part in the Esports Cup of the event at Circuit Paul Ricard for his native Mexcio.
Teichmann’s aim was to make it to the semi-final – which the 26-year-old managed via a last chance qualifier round. Even though the journey ended there after coming 17th out of 20 drivers, the Mexican-born SimRacer was happy with his performance. “There was not any more I could do with the car. I am really pleased with what I showed”, says Teichmann, who took to the grid in a BMW M4 GT3 – “and I talked to other drivers who used the car. We all had the same problem: It just was 5-7kph too slow on the straights.”
Despite that, Teichmann looks back positively. “Us SimRacers were the biggest field of all, we had 50 people there. It was a great experience”, reminisces Teichmann, who only knew one other SimRacer before the event – Slovakia’s Bence Bánki, who usually competes for Dörr Esports. It did not take long for the Geekz pilot to form new friendships, however: “I was in touch with the entire team of Peru, half of them were German, funnily enough. And I spent the evenings after the event with the Mexican team, along with some people from Malta and Austria, not just with their SimRacers.”
The event did bring nations and different disciplines together – Morocco’s Michaël Benyahia, who competed in the GT Sprint event, “was always with us when he was not driving and took us to the car as well”, reports Teichmann. “Communication to the real drivers was always there.” Interestingly, not all countries were there with the same amount of people. “Some countries like Peru or Mexico were on their own for the SimRacing side of things”, says Teichmann. “Others like Spain had a trainer, team manager, social media manager, and a setup manager. I thought that was really interesting to see.”
Meanwhile, time to watch the other disciplines was sparse, as Teichmann says: “The days were pretty full. I only got to watch the other events of Team Mexico on Sunday, plus the Touring Car and GT finals. The rest was difficult to follow.” With races of the Esports Cup running for one hour each, SimRacers did not have much time to spend outside the Esports Arena during the day.
This did not mean that the event was not a professional one – quite the contrary, actually. “There were five live stewards, a race director, and even medical staff”, Teichmann remarks. “We got an email on how things went every evening, and after each session, you had ten minutes to go to the Marshal’s Office to discuss things that had gone wrong or file protests. But it was really fair racing, the organization was great.”
For 2024, the FIA Motorsport Games move to Valencia in Spain – and Teichmann hopes to be part of it again.