Is sim racing the future of junior motorsport?

The traditional route to a career in motorsport used to go something like this: karting, junior car racing, car racing bigger and then landed a role in F1 or sports car or some other racing drivers paid series.

Either that, or have parents who are very rich.

But now, with the rapid progress in the world of simulation games, there are other, arguably in a more affordable way. Racing sims.

24 years Jann Mardenborough is the poster child for this route. The winner of GT Academy in 2011, he beat 90,000 gamers him to get professional racing seat with the Nissan.

Five years of victory, Mardenborough has evolved from being a wide-eyed look forward to racing professional drivers ultra-cool, now competing in and currently leads the Super GT championship in Japan.

"The culture is very different, but I really liked it," he told me when I asked what he thought of his new home. "The culture of cars out there is crazy. It's like that seen in the film."

I will experience first hand the talent of this Mardenborough from the passenger seat is brand new Nissan GT-R, which is lined up in the supercar category of the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We quickly get into the subject of sims.

"Gaming is really good at teaching you the dynamics of the race," he told me. "But do not take too much notice of the lap time. You must be faster in real life sim of pure because there is no fear."

Mardenborough still game now when he's not in the car racing, partly for exercise but also because he loved it. "Nothing compares to bum sitting down, though," he said.

He explained to me that while sims effective to train drivers, they can still compete with karting. Gran Turismo 6, for example, is great at teaching the basics of car control, but like most of the game a bit unrealistic in some areas.

"It does not simulate the movement of the field in the car well and [the game] can be very oversteery car," he said. "This means you have to speed up before the summit, but it was not like that in real life."

Nevertheless, Mardenborough is proof of how effective the racing sims can reveal talent. So while it now seems the traditional route into motorsport is still arguably the best way, I think it is only a matter of time before we see a driver in F1 that began as a gamer.

If given the chance, I think Mardenborough could be the driver. The way he hangs on to the GT-R is like throwing the tail out on the road past the stone wall Goodwood is proof enough for me. The child was able to really push.

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