VCO SIMMY AWARDS – The Winners

Yesterday was the first edition of the simRacing awards “SIMMY” sponsored by VCO of which both Gonzalo and I were part of the jury. There is a long list of winners, but we leave you with the complete information in the press release.

Munich – The winners of the inaugural VCO SIMMY AWARDS have been named. In the online award ceremony broadcast on Boxing Day (available on YouTube HERE), the winners were chosen in a total of eleven categories. Ahead of the event, Esports racing fans around the world had the opportunity to participate in an online voting for their favourites. The results were rounded off by votes from the well-known members of an expert jury. Virtual Competition Organisation (VCO) is donating 1,000 Euro to good causes on behalf of each of the prize winners.

The big winners of the evening were Jarno Opmeer (BEST ESPORTS RACER), Max Verstappen (BEST REAL-WORLD PRO) and Jimmy Broadbent, who topped the voting in the BEST SOCIAL MEDIA category and also became the first personality to be included in the ‘Hall of Fame’ for the VCO SIMMY AWARDS. The SIMMY for the BEST TEAM went to Team Redline. More than 4,200 votes were submitted in the online polls and the votes from the well-known members of the jury accounted for 50 percent of the final total.

“The VCO SIMMY AWARDS represent the culmination of an unbelievable year for Esports racing,” said Florian Haasper, CEO of the VCO. “In these tough times during the pandemic, this sport has found many new fans all over the world. With the SIMMYS, we intend to honour important personalities, teams, platforms and brands from Esports racing and review the year together with them. There was an immense amount of feedback about this new competition from the community. Many thanks to everyone who voted and to our VCO SIMMY AWARDS jury, of course. Congratulations to the winners! The fact that we were all able to do something for good causes makes the SIMMYS the perfect way for us to round off the year.”

And the SIMMYS 2020 go to…

BEST ESPORTS RACER
Jarno Opmeer

BEST REAL-WORLD PRO
Max Verstappen

BEST TEAM
Team Redline

BEST PLATFORM
iRacing

BEST CAR
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (iRacing)

BEST EVENT
24h Le Mans Virtual (rFactor2)

BEST SOCIAL MEDIA
Jimmy Broadbent

BEST NEWCOMER
R8G Esports

BEST HARDWARE
Fanatec

BEST COMMENTARY
Lewis McGlade

HALL OF FAMER
Jimmy Broadbent

Reactions from the winners

Marco Ujhasi, Manager Esports Porsche Motorsport (BEST CAR)
“At Porsche we believe that Esports racing is an additional part of motorsport. This is our DNA and our passion. Thanks to the community for voting for us; we are very happy. Everyone who tried our car in the real or in the virtual world realised that it is a special car. Therefore, it is challenging to really nail it and get it done as good in the virtual world. We want to attract as many drivers as possible from the real world to jump into the virtual car. They feel comfortable if they find the feedback that they are used to from the real world. The year 2020 was a huge challenge but also a huge push for Esports racing. Stay tuned for 2021; there will be some news.”

Charity: MIND – www.mind.org.uk

Jimmy Broadbent (BEST SOCIAL MEDIA & HALL OF FAMER)
“It is so nice to be recognized and I am very thankful for the award. The year 2020 has been a mad year. The moment when we realised that it was becoming almost a normal thing to be driving against famous F1 drivers was definitely a highlight of this year. I try to keep my social media channels a chill place to hang out. The community was founded on acceptance. As long as you are willing to drive cleanly, you are always welcome to come along – no matter your background. I am not sure if my influence has been a good or a bad thing, but this is a pretty big deal. We have these awards in the real world as well and I think every driver wants to end up in the Hall of Fame. It is an honour to be the first one in this Hall of Fame. I am very privileged to have this position with over 600,000 subscribers. If you have a platform like that, it is important to do something good if you can. It is very easy to get self-centred when you have an audience like that but I think it’s very important to give back.”

Charity: MIND – www.mind.org.uk

Atze Kerkhof, Team Redline (BEST TEAM)
“I am really grateful for this award. Sim racing has grown and we are raising our bar on Sim racing. We have been here for over 20 years so I think we are one of the oldest teams in Sim racing. It’s becoming more and more professional and we are trying to make the most out of it. We are getting better and we have good partnerships for the future. The future looks bright and we are trying to keep growing. We have great ambassadors and even the real-world pros are proud to be part of the team. We had many highlights in 2020 and we are proud of every single one.”

Charity: WINGS FOR LIFE – www.wingsforlife.com (Max Verstappen also chose this charity)

Thomas Jackermeier, CEO Endor AG (BEST HARDWARE)
“It is really a great honour and something very special. We don’t get awards very often in our industry so we really appreciate it. We are a company that is driven by the community, we listen to it and we are grown with it. Knowing they voted for us is a sign that we did some things the right way. The year 2020 was a bumpy ride for us, but in a positive way. With lockdown, everybody was jumping on the Sim racing train and suddenly we saw a lot of real-world pros driving with our equipment. April was crazy. As a company, if you suddenly have to manage that kind of volume, it obviously is a challenge. But we were on the lucky side.”

Charity: Wikipedia – www.wikipedia.org (Fanatec is doubling the amount donated to 2,000 Euro)

Romain Grosjean, R8G Esports (BEST NEWCOMER)
“I am feeling alright, things are getting better each day. It is exciting to try and get back to normal and to sim racing as well. I miss it. I always kept an eye on Esports racing. During lockdown, things accelerated and I had the opportunity to create a team together with some people that knew Esports very well. I got completely hooked on it very quickly. I have a good relationship with our drivers and I really want to try and create a professional Esports world at R8G Esports. It is getting better and better.”

Charity: Enfance & Cancer – www.enfance-et-cancer.org

Kevin Bobbitt, Director of Marketing iRacing (BEST PLATFORM)
“This is amazing. This award goes to the entire company. Everybody in the company had a hand in this and has been working very hard this year. Sim racing has really elevated itself and I think that iRacing has been a big part of that. The history of iRacing goes back until 2004 where we had the idea to try and develop a new platform and a new way of sim racing. We launched the product in 2008 with only a few thousand members. This year we have surpassed 170,000 members who are racing online from all around the world. In 2021, we will keep on developing and try to make our product better every day.”

Charity: Greater Boston Food Bank – www.gbfb.org

Gerard Neveu, 24h Le Mans Virtual (BEST EVENT)
“The idea, when we decided to create this event, was to make sure that we can organise a meeting point for the sim racing community, the real world racing community and motorsport fans. We sincerely believe that there is common ground between these communities. We had all the attention during the middle of the lockdown period. Everyone was staying at home for a long time, we had a great level of competition, the fans were available and the visibility was great because there were no other live sport events at the time. Secondly, our idea and concept were corresponding exactly with what the people were expecting.”

Charity: Mécenat Chirurgie Cardiaque – www.mecenat-cardiaque.org/en/24-heures-du-mans/

Lewis McGlade (BEST COMMENTARY)
“It really is a top honour. The togetherness, that we are getting these days, really shows the best side of sim racing. It has obviously been an odd year, but sim racing has given us an escape and we have stood tall together throughout the year. There have been so many great events this year. Working alongside commentators from real world racing and guiding them through the particularities of sim racing has been a bizarre but great experience.”

Charity: Samaritans – www.samaritans.org

Jarno Opmeer (BEST ESPORTS RACER)
“I definitely didn’t expect to win against the other guys who have achieved so much in sim racing. I made the change from Renault to Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN this year and I learned so many things. It was a really intense year, all the events were very close in a row, so we really had to push flat out to get the settings right and learn all the F1 tracks as fast as possible.”

Charity: a charity in support of MS patients, which Jarno Opmeer will specify at a later point in time

The VCO SIMMY AWARDS 2020 Jury

Kristin Banse, Managing Editor, Overtake.gg

Matt Gallagher, WTF1

Ben Rossiter-Turner, Head of Esports, Motorsport Games

Nathan Quinn, THE RACE

Gonzalo Camara & Alberto Segovia, BoxThisLap

Marco Ujhasi, Manager Esports, Porsche Motorsport

Rudolf Dittrich, General Manager Vehicle Development, BMW Motorsport

Jimmy Broadbent, YouTuber

See you on the track!