GP Explorer | French streamers break live view records racing F4 cars

Twitch Streamers Racing.jpg
The french Twitch scene broke its all time simultaneous unique live views count on this Saturday 8th, as Lucas Hauchard, known as Squeezie, partnered with the ACO and FFSA to host a F4 race with various influencers from the french Twitch / Youtube environment on the Bugatti Circuit at Le Mans.

The event saw 40.000 spectators attending physically, and a peak of more than a million live spectators online, making it the biggest french Twitch stream to this date, even beating the annual Zevent charity convention. The GP Explorer stream is also officially the 5th most viewwed broadcast on Twitch worldwide.

The grid saw a bunch of people totally new to the racing world, but also a few quite involved in the automotive scene: the duet from the Vilebrequin automotive youtube channel formed their own team, with Sylvain Levy taking the win after an incredibly intense and professional looking battle with Pierre-Olivier Valette, known as Depielo, a high profile simracing influencer who commentated on the FIA Gran Turismo championship and is no stranger to real life racing, as he participated in the Pau Grand Prix.


Viewers were able to enjoy a race with a high production value, allowing everyone to enjoy the battles and other events just as well as you would expect it from a world class racing event, with the direction not missing overtakes or incidents. The FFSA crews were also on high alert, managing to rebuild the destroyed single seater of Joyca in time for the race, after his big shunt in qualifying.


This all falls in line with the overall incredibly professional feel of the event, with proper marshalls, safety car, sponsors and racing actors backup, and even the drivers attitude as well. For instance, Sylvain from Vilebrequin, who is usually known for his humorous and chaotic persona, surprised everyone by deciding to only run 2 laps in Q1 in order to preserve his tyres for Q2. But it's his overtake on Depielo which impressed the most, showing full confidence as he lunged it on the inside of the Chappelle corner.


The success of this event is historic both motorsport and media worlds, as most motorsport series struggle to reach out to new audiences through TV or series dedicated channels. With people coming from internet medias and used to produce gaming related content hosting races of this quality and with such great returns, simracers may find a more direct route into racing real cars in the future.
About author
GT-Alex
Global motorsports enjoyer, long time simracer, Gran Turismo veteran, I've been driving alongside top drivers since the dawn of online pro leagues on Gran Turismo, and qualified for the only cancelled FIA GTC World Tour. I've left aside competitive driving in 2020 to dedicate myself to IGTL, a simracing organisation hosting high quality events for pro racers and customers, to create with friends the kind of events we wished we could have had. We strive to provide the best events for drivers and the best content for viewers, and want to help the simracing scene grow and shine further in the global esports scene.

Comments

It may sound like a lot, but when you consider all the noise it made and the views it racked, I think it beats a lot of things on ROI.
Certainly, but we are still far from being able to make this kind of event (as a driver) accessible to everyone, hence the market for simracing, which, if you take away the price of the material, is certainly cheaper than a tyre for a racing car.
 
Every youtubers/streamers in this event are "well known" and wealthy with further help of marketing, boom , voila ;)
Couldn't care less about this $£%L but I'm very impressed at the attendance and fan base these youtubers get ! It was like a million viewer on Twitch also, correct me if I'm wrong
 
It may sound like a lot, but when you consider all the noise it made and the views it racked, I think it beats a lot of things on ROI.
The problem they may run into is when the curiosity factor wears off. It's one thing for people to want to see sim racers and influencers race for real a handful of times, but that doesn't mean it has staying power.
During covid a lot of people were entertained by real race drivers sim racing, but that quickly ended when real racing came back. Generally people who watch motorsport, regardless of their preferred category, want to see the best teams with the best drivers.
 
The problem they may run into is when the curiosity factor wears off. It's one thing for people to want to see sim racers and influencers race for real a handful of times, but that doesn't mean it has staying power.
During covid a lot of people were entertained by real race drivers sim racing, but that quickly ended when real racing came back. Generally people who watch motorsport, regardless of their preferred category, want to see the best teams with the best drivers.
And initiatives like GT Academy and McLaren Shadow proved there's an underexploited pool of talents to discover through simracing by mixing it with real life elements. The vast majority of racing teams nowadays have the "how much money will you bring to the table" criteria pretty high up the list when picking drivers. Events like that, with the correct adjustments, would be a good way to bring visibility and sponsor support to talented drivers.
 
Top for my French colleagues, but don't be fooled, it took several million euros to organise this event.
Anyway, it seems that it is a great success.

Long live to motorsport
It tooks 4 millions euros. I saw it at a debrief stream.
 
we can also note the skill of the podium drivers, and how amateur drivers really made the race interesting to watch
 
we can also note the skill of the podium drivers, and how amateur drivers really made the race interesting to watch
I knew Depielo would be at least decent at it, having hosted the Renault Vitality GT Sport Show in which he raced the likes of Esteban Ocon and Hadrien David, but seeing Sylvain actually being a match was a bit surprising to me. Not that I thought bad of him, it's just this serious business side was unexpected when he's all about memes on his channel.
 

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Alexandre Tonini
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