The first Russian Formula 1 driver confessed to training on PlayStation

The first Russian Formula 1 driver Vitaly Petrov revealed how he trained for the championship races.

"I've already joined Formula 1 after several seasons in GP2, I bought myself a PlayStation, a steering wheel with pedals and trained at home. I needed to learn the configuration of the tracks, because the Australian Grand Prix, the Chinese Grand Prix, and so on are held at race tracks that I have not been to before," the athlete said in an interview with Auto Mail on Thursday, March 5.

He added that the teams currently have professional and very expensive simulators, but 15 years ago such technologies were rare.

According to Petrov, taking into account the capabilities of modern simulators, we can confidently say that this is not only esports, but also a kind of bridge to the world of real racing. SMP Racing has an esports division called SMP Racing eSports, where future pilots train. Serious simulators are used for training: for example, an exact digital copy of the BR03 sports prototype was recreated, which the team's specialists took part in setting up so that the virtual version would match the real car as much as possible.

In 2011, Petrov took third place at the Australian Grand Prix driving a Lotus, raising the Russian flag above the podium of the Royal Races for the first time. This success was an important step for the development of Russian motorsport and paved the way for other Russian drivers, including Daniil Kvyat and Sergey Sirotkin, to enter Formula 1. Today Petrov holds the post of General Director of the SMP Racing motorsport development program, while continuing to participate in races.

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Mercedes Formula 1 driver Kimi Antonelli showed the best time on February 13 on the third and final day of tests in Bahrain. His best lap was 1 minute 33.669 seconds. Antonelli's teammate George Russell took second place, 0.249 seconds behind, while Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton took third place, 0.540 seconds behind.

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