Last year, I was lucky enough to be invited to witness the journey of Team Toyota Philippines as they breezed through the 2023 leg of the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup Philippines.

It was thrilling watching Luis Moreno, Russel Reyes, and Matthew Ang emerge as our representatives for the Asia finals in Malaysia.

The trio slugged it out with some of Southeast Asia’s finest sim racers, and Luis finished in second place. He became one of SEA’s representatives, but couldn’t make it to the finals in Barcelona due to unfortunate issues.

That experience alone cemented sim racing as genuinely thrilling in my mind, and I knew I wanted more. As soon news broke of the 2024 leg of the e-sports competition, I decided to join.

Not as a media representative but as a proper competitor (my colleague Justin Young won the media contest). If you know me, I play Gran Turismo to unwind from work. Pop into the game, drive at least three races, ogle at a few cars, and get ready for bed.

This time, I’m jumping headfirst into a competition where I would go up against professionals with thousands of hours of experience. With the caliber of talent I’d seen from the three racers last year, I’d be lucky enough to qualify for the quarterfinals.

The day came for the qualifying session. The track was Tsukuba, and the car was a Toyota GR86, which I’m familiar with. Unfortunately, out of all the people I could take the qualifiers with, it had to be Russel. Not a very good thing for my confidence, as he posted a time that was nearly two seconds faster (1:01.917) than mine (1:03.476).

With the offline qualifiers happening the next day, I thought I would be faster on an actual rig, as I set my time with a controller. That wasn’t the case as my wheel time was almost an entire second slower.

Anyway, I was told that my fastest time would be recorded, and I’d be contacted if I made it to the top 40. A few days passed, and I was told that I had made it.

Damn, I guess that means I have to get serious.

I needed time to practice, something I had to squeeze into my hectic schedule. I had a Logitech G29 but no table to mount it to, so I ordered a stand that (unfortunately) arrived a day before the competition. There were the mandatory GR GT Cup races, but I would be participating on an input device I wouldn’t be allowed to use.

The day of the quarterfinals came. Who wouldn’t feel butterflies in the stomach? I was in the third batch, so to my dismay, I had to watch the first two races.

Holy crap, they’re fast.

I spent at least three hours running Trial Mountain and a bone-stock GR Yaris the night before. I had problems taming the GR Yaris’s tendency to understeer. My fastest time would be around 2:20.

I saw Luis set a lap around 2:12. Yikes. I was starting to feel butterflies in my stomach as I began overthinking: “Am I fast enough to qualify for at least fifth? If I drive hard, I can make it to the middle of the pack, but I’d have to race dirty. Maybe I shouldn’t.”

Two friends came up and told me to “calm down, you’re here for the experience.” I obviously lacked the pace to be competitive, so why was I worrying too much? That and a 15-minute nap helped calm my nerves, thankfully.

As we headed onstage, I was ambushed with an interview as I was the only new face in the group. “I’m just here to have fun,“ I said. Leveraging expectations is a powerful tool.

I qualified seventh in the first heat. I’m fond of grid starts and usually gain a few positions that way, but I kept my race clean and drove conservatively as I knew I could capitalize on inevitable crashes and spinouts.

Except that didn’t happen until the last two laps. Two people eventually spun out and I passed them, but maintaining my eighth-place position was tough as they were gaining on me. I had finished eighth, but a mysterious track-limits violation would punt me to the back of the grid.

Well, not exactly, as the second heat would be a reverse grid. This meant I was sitting on pole position. I would have to drive fast and defend first place from a pack of faster drivers. Something to get the heart pumping, for sure.

I comfortably led for about three-fourths of the track before I was overtaken. After that, I started losing positions as fast as you can read this sentence. There was no way I could cleanly defend and not spin out, so I conceded and finished eighth place again.

The final heat had a qualifying session where I decided to throw all caution to the wind. I set a time that would have put me firmly in the middle of the pack, which was unfortunately deleted due to track-limits penalties.

I was at the back of the pack. I went in with a nothing-to-lose mentality and drove more aggressively. According to my friends who were watching, I had pulled off some ballsy overtakes, fighting in corners and going three-wide.

It was going well until I had a race-ending spin on the fourth lap. I was a whole 20 seconds behind the person in eighth place, so it was a casual drive for me till the end. Tiring, but very rewarding.

So, what did I learn from this experience?

First, sim racers are a different breed. They extract so much from virtual cars on virtual tracks. Later races even involved fuel consumption and tire wear, meaning they were a one-man race team as they would have to strategize and race at the same time.

Second, it’s physically exhausting. The entire stint was more or less 45 minutes, and my back and arms were sore by the end of the batch.

Third, it takes time and practice, like everything. Skills aren’t learned overnight.

It’ll take some time for me to get back to playing Gran Turismo 7, but this was an interesting insight into the world of e-sports and sim racing from a player’s perspective. It ain’t easy. Would I want to do this again in the future? Definitely, with a lot more time and practice.

A lot of skills that you can learn from sim racing can also apply to actual motorsports, hence the reason why you see the likes of Max Verstappen enjoying sim racing as a hobby, or the multiple stories of the sim racers who became real racers from the now-defunct Nissan GT Academy.

And for the three racers—Luis Moreno, Enzo Ison, and Russel Reyes—who will be representing the country in Malaysia this October 13, I wish them the best of luck and hope they kick ass, because I know these are the most passionate and fastest Filipinos on the virtual track that I’ve had the pleasure of racing against.

NOTE: Our editor-in-chief gives the author his full blessings to invest time and hone his skills as a sim racer. All for better results for next year (yes, pressure).