They say nothing sharpens the mind like competition.

For our eight McLaren Shadow semi-finalists, weeks and months of dedicated application, practice and effort will finally be mercilessly tested on Saturday December 1, when they will be put through their paces across a series of livestreamed competitions.

McLaren Shadow is the biggest, most diverse and most engaging esports racing programme on the planet, and we’re fast approaching the grand finals, which take place in January.

And this weekend’s semi-final event marks a critical point in the course of the competition. The subject of a two-hour livestream on YouTube (see below for full details), it brings together the eight winners of our series of online qualifying rounds.

Who are the semi-finalists?

The eight contestants were selected via our series of qualifiers, held between August and November. They comprise three Logitech G Challenge finalists, three Real Racing 3 winners and two finalists from Forza Motorsport 7:

Logitech

Our three Logitech G Challenge contestants are Igor Fraga, who won at Brazil Games Show; Kristian Kwietniewski, who triumphed at Paris Games Week and Kazuki Cho, who won the APAC qualifiers.

Real Racing 3

We welcome back Henrik Drue, who was such a notable presence at last year’s McLaren finals. He’s joined by Lasse Wiman and Gregoire Forret.

Forza Motorsport 7

Our most recent qualifier finished in November and we welcomed Numa Natali from Italy and Miguel Ballester from Spain. Four tenths separated them in qualifying for the semi-finals, but who will emerge fastest this week?

Over the course of the evening, these eight contestants will be whittled down to just three. One winner from each of the three competition streams – Logitech, Real Racing and Forza – will then go on to contest January’s finals alongside four independently qualified racers, whose path to the finals came via the rFactor 2, Atyaf eRacing, iRacing and HTC Vive qualifiers.

A night of serious competition

Our semi-finalists will be tested over a series of racing challenges, competing at legendary tracks in iconic McLaren machinery:

They begin on Real Racing 3, racing at Hockenheim in the 600LT. They then switch to rFactor 2, at Silverstone, driving 1993’s MP4-8 Formula 1 car. Then it’s Forza Motorsport 7, at the mighty Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the McLaren P1 GTR.

The semis will wind up with two further contests – at Monza, driving the 720S in Project Cars 2, then, finally, competing on iRacing, racing Austin’s Circuit of the Americas with the feisty 12C GT3 car.

Each race will last about 20 minutes, and the contestants will quickly switch from platform to platform, so there’ll be plenty of action to keep you on the edge of your seat all evening.

How you can watch it all

Saturday’s live event will be broadcast live on YouTube between 19:00 - 21:00 GMT.

You can watch the stream at the following address:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWIgO4zAr34

The show will be presented by Nicki Shields, who will be supported by shoutcasters Alie Tacq and Alex “Goldenboy” Mendez and roving reporter Black Panthaa

The winners will be announced once all the races are completed at the end of the night.

Make sure you follow @McLarenShadow on Twitter and Instagram for further updates both before and during the big semi-finals evening.