Our 12 World's Fastest Gamer finalists are set to battle it out over an intense week of challenges to bag the greatest job in esports – joining the McLaren F1 team as an official simulator driver.

Find out more about the challenges our finalists face, and the elimination phases they'll need to successfully overcome. 

PHASE ONE > 12 DOWN TO SIX

11th-15th November

Over the first five days of the World’s Fastest Gamer finals, all 12 gamers will undertake a variety of different tests.

In this opening stage of the competition, each gamer will be individually assessed by our team of Human Performance specialists. At this initial stage, we’ll primarily be focusing on cognitive function – how well our gamers can cope with spatial perception, the speed of their reaction times, their ability to recognise pattern behaviour.

We’ll be looking to explore which gamers have the greatest potential to become a simulator driver, and to understand how they compare to our own highly skilled racing drivers. 

Of course, it wouldn’t be WFG without racing action, and we’ve devised three unique tests of driving ability, each of which will take place in our unique 12-seat gaming arena.

We’ll even have a McLaren superstar on hand to provide money-can’t-buy expert analysis and guidance. 

These rounds won’t just be testing the skills of our gamers, they’ll each mirror some of McLaren’s greatest or most recent racing achievements. And they’ll be thoroughly assessed by our gaming and racing experts as we whittle our elite 12 gamers down to a super-select six by the end of the first phase.

PHASE TWO > SIX DOWN TO TWO

16th-17th November 

Suddenly, things start to get a lot more serious.

In the second half of WFG, we’ll up the ante, stretching our gamers with tougher trials, and raising the physical stresses as we look to see who’s got exactly what it takes to become a McLaren Formula 1 simulator driver.

It’s at this point that our Human Performance team will adapt their assessment programme as the competition develops from the virtual world to the simulated world. In a simulator, driving becomes more physical; the hydraulic rig tests both strength and stamina far more arduously than a gaming rig. This next series of tests will help us identify which gamers currently have the best chance of making this transition successfully.

To further measure their stamina, they’ll also be racing a full-length 24-hour race and getting seat-time in not one, but two state-of-the-art professional racing simulators.

After two further days of trials and assessment, we’ll once again filter the group, dropping four drivers to set up a head-to-head challenge between two grand finalists.

PHASE THREE > TWO DOWN TO ONE!

18th-21st November

The days of reckoning.

Our last two remaining contestants will have the opportunity to get to grips with McLaren Racing’s actual simulator before one of them gets the job of a lifetime.

Track-time in the McLaren sim will allow our judges to accurately measure just how well they’ll perform for real. And it’ll be the last benchmark before they go away to deliberate on who will be the ultimate winner, and exactly why they’ll deserve that accolade. 

Our judges will have one final opportunity for a comprehensive debrief, pooling data from across the competition, discussing form with our Human Performance team and talking about cognitive ability and technique with our engineers.

Once the dust has settled, we’ll be ready to announce our ultimate winner: the World’s Fastest Gamer!