At the Special Interest Group on Computer GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) conference in 1991 Loren Carpenter, one of the co-founders of Pixar Studios ran an experiment. An auditorium full of a couple of hundred people played a giant game of Pong using coloured paddles.

This experiment was notable for a number of reasons, Carpenter was looking into subconscious consensus but in this context it is more relevant as an early example of collaborative gaming. That experiment and developments over the last quarter century point to something which could have a profound impact on the future of motor racing.
Gaming and motorsport have great potential for crossover, from the old ‘Nigel Mansell’s Grand Prix’ game of the 1980’s to the photorealistic simulations of today with their highly advanced physics models there has long been a will to blend the digital world and reality. One regularly repeated ambition of many ‘forward thinking’ organisations in motor racing is to create a stronger link with e-sports and gaming. The most regularly discussed target has been creating some way of allowing gamers at home to compete against the real cars on track in real time.

The gamer could they argue, sit at home during the real race and drive in that race on their own system, on paper this is great, after all who would not want to take on Lewis Hamilton around Monaco in real time" (Well other than Nico Rosberg apparently).
This kind of...