TEAM VIKING MOTORSPORT
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The SMS-R Driver Network Championship brings together the best pro racers from around the world, competing to prove they are the fastest Project CARS drivers on the planet. With such high standards, the season has attracted some of the best eSports teams too. So far, we have introduced you to Team Shark Racing, SDL Motorsport, Starlux, and Virtual Drivers by TX3. Today it’s the turn of the Vikings!
Team VIKING Motorsport actually debuted ten years ago, all the way back on the original Xbox with a 4 driver team. 10 months ago, the team relaunched with a new website and new drivers.
The Vikings are actually one of the most age-diverse sim-racing teams in the world, with drivers aged 27 to 65, merging talent and experience to make them extremely competitive. We sat down with Colin Lionel, better known as VIKING Asgard on Xbox One, to find out what drives this Norse-inspired team...
Team VIKING Motorsport actually debuted ten years ago, all the way back on the original Xbox with a 4 driver team. 10 months ago, the team relaunched with a new website and new drivers.
The Vikings are actually one of the most age-diverse sim-racing teams in the world, with drivers aged 27 to 65, merging talent and experience to make them extremely competitive. We sat down with Colin Lionel, better known as VIKING Asgard on Xbox One, to find out what drives this Norse-inspired team...
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How did you first get interested in sim racing?
I have started playing racing games many, many years ago, back on the original PlayStation in the 1990s. My first serious racing games were the original Gran Turismo, V-Rally, and Porsche Challenge all on the first Playstation. I was already taking my racing very seriously back then, playing with a wheel when very few others did. Before Project CARS, the VIKING team has played pretty much every other racing game you can think of! We got started with the original Forza Motorsport on the first Xbox and that was our main series until Project CARS came along. Why did you choose to play Project CARS? Other games don’t have the same realism and sense of atmosphere that Project CARS has. We also loved the real-time dynamic weather and the ability to have qualifying and full race weekends. The gameplay and driving gives you an extraordinary feeling as well. Finally a mature racing game on the Xbox! The best thing about the game is the physics, the behaviour of the cars and the awesome feeling that you get from driving them. How do you prepare for each round of the Driver Network Championship? We don’t really have any special preparations at VIKING. For training, we turn as many laps as we can so that we can learn the cars and the circuits. Having a large team is important for finding the best setup, because we can share information and learn from each other. Does one particular driver lead the car setups for the whole team? Some of our drivers are better than others when it comes to car setup. In particular, we rely on Stradus, R0ATT and Nono 45. However, we often look at common settings between each driver's’ setup to help us to find the fastest way overall. We don’t keep our setups secret either. We’re happy to make them public. How do you keep the team motivated? We tend to work separately a lot of the time, so I don’t really have to work to keep everyone motivated. We are mature players who are here to just have fun and race! We don’t really think about whether or not we have a chance of winning each week. We know that our competitors are very strong. We push ourselves at our level, to give our very best. We know that the results will follow if we do this. |
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Have you raced any cars in real life?
Sadly not, but I would love to! It must be a big dose of adrenaline! In real life I drive just a simple family car, so that I can travel with my three children but like many other people, I love Ferrari. I also have always had a soft spot for the Renault 5 Turbo! What's your favourite car in the game? We all love the GT3 category, and I also love the Mercedes C Klasse DTM. I’m happy to drive all of the cars in the game though! The diversity on offer in Project CARS is one of its biggest strengths. |
What would you like to see added to Project CARS in the future?
We’d love the multiplayer to be improved, by the developers working with the drivers. In particular, we would like to be able to organise championships directly on the console, with field sizes & race lengths similar to real racing and proper points systems. A more organised way to watch live multiplayer races would be nice too.
We’d love the multiplayer to be improved, by the developers working with the drivers. In particular, we would like to be able to organise championships directly on the console, with field sizes & race lengths similar to real racing and proper points systems. A more organised way to watch live multiplayer races would be nice too.
