Will Lando Norris make a splash in esports racing?

The news that Formula 1 racer, Lando Norris, has created his own e-racing team might not be a shock considering he is well-known for his love of esports. Known as Team Quadrant, there will be a main focus on racing as well as content creation, but how will an actual offline race driver cope with the eSports version?

Norris himself quickly managed to garner over 600,000 followers on his Twitch account, and this was partly due to the delays in the start of the 2020 Formula 1 race calendar. According to Norris, while racing is at the heart of his esports team, he won’t rule out them venturing into other games either as time goes on. Also, it’s something that he’s been wanting to do for some time, and it’s not entirely related to him indulging in online racing due to the global pandemic.

Team Building from the Ground Up

Team Quadrant has moved quickly to secure the services of several content creators in the field, including FNG and RiaBish, along with specific sim racing content creators including both Aarava and Super GT. Of course, these are still early days, and there’s no real indication as to the direction they will be heading in from the outset. It’s also unknown how prominent a role Norris himself is going to be playing due to his other commitments, but it’s clear that esports is something he is passionate about.

But Norris isn’t the first F1 driver to venture into this world. Romain Grosjean has already launched his own sim racing team which is in line to compete across various platforms and competitions. Known as R8G Esports, it’s still early on for this team to have made its mark, but there’s certainly less fanfare surrounding R8G than there is with Team Quadrant.

However, when you have a high profile individual owning the team, it does lead to huge backers and a strong support network. That does effectively make it possible for them to almost buy their way to success, but anybody with any knowledge of esports knows that this is harder than it seems. You certainly shouldn’t be placing any bets on either of these teams making a huge impact right from the outset.

You do get the feeling that Team Quadrant could quickly build an impressive team, and as long as Norris is able to drive the team, then the clamor around the team should be enough to help it make a significant impact. However, if Norris thought that F1 was competitive, then wait until he checks out what’s possible in the world of esports.