‘No limits’: An interview with sim racer Emily Jones

A long-time gamer and sim racer who formerly drove go-karts, Melbourne-based Emily Jones has built up quite the fanbase – 31k followers and counting – as ‘Emree’ on streaming platform Twitch. The only woman to qualify for the Gran Turismo World Series in 2022, Emily’s career continues to go from strength to strength.

Tell us a bit about your background. When did your interest in racing begin?

Growing up, my family was really into it: my uncle and my cousin were racing themselves and my dad was watching Formula One. I remember thinking, ‘That's really cool. I want to do that.’ And they would encourage me to watch and get involved. My first word was “car” as well, so I was ruined from the start.

I was always playing video games growing up, but I got really into sim racing around 2017 or 2018. Racing in the real world is limited. In sim racing, you can drive whenever you want. I started playing it more and more and I got better at it. I started streaming, joined a team, entered bigger and better competitions and became a faster driver.

Can you provide an overview of your career so far?

I originally got into eSports for fun. I started racing in the V8 Supercar Online Premier Series. It's open to everybody but it's really hard to qualify for the top spot. I eventually qualified and did really well. It came out of nowhere and I had a bunch of racing teams reach out to me with offers to drive for them.

I joined the best team that I could and drove with them for a couple of years in bigger eSports events. I raced in the first series of the Supercars Official e-Sports competition – I was one of 12 drivers to be selected. From there, more opportunities opened up. I was also part of the FIA all-female driving team for virtual Le Mans and started getting invited to other events.

Do you think that sim racing is a good substitute for real-life racing? What are the overlapping skills needed?

I think it's a great substitute for how economical it is and anyone can do it – it's open to everybody. The majority of the skills are the same; what makes you fast in real life will make you fast in sim racing and vice versa. The main difference between them is that you don't get the feeling of the car moving underneath you. You do get force feedback through the wheel, you can see what's going on on the screen and you can hear what's going on, but you don't get the actual G-Force or the feeling under your butt where a car is moving around underneath you. We've seen sim racers go to real racing and be really good and real racers go to sim racing. Max Verstappen, the world champion of Formula One, jumps into sim racing and is incredible. He’s one of the world's best sim racers and he often doesn’t practice.

What are your favourite things about the sim racing community?

It's a lot more diverse than the real-world racing community in a lot of ways. There are people from different walks of life; there are young people, old people, men and women racing. In the sim racing community, everyone's a bit of a nerd. A lot of people don't have a lot of money, so it is a bit more supportive and accessible.

In what ways is sim racing more real than anyone may think?

If people don't understand sim racing, they may just think it’s playing Gran Turismo or Forza. It's so real; we face similar issues that we do in real life. A huge amount of strategy is involved in how we race and what works in the real world also works in the sim, which is interesting. Some people that I race with use race engineers from the real world to engineer in the sim, often using the same techniques. There’s so much crossover.

Do you think people can earn a sustainable income from sim racing?

I think it is possible to make a living out of sim racing, but it is tricky to make a living as a pro driver. It is possible to make a living as a professional sim racing driver, but I’d say less than 40 people are doing that in the world. For most of us, streaming or YouTube would be our main source of income. I don't earn enough streaming to live on personally, but you can live on streaming income and YouTube income and a lot of our money comes from sponsorships.

“If people don't understand sim racing, they may just think it’s playing Gran Turismo or Forza. It's so real; we face similar issues that we do in real life.”

What software and hardware do you use?

Most recently I've been competing in Gran Turismo, but I also race on iRacing as well. Gran Turismo is a little bit more accessible. There are a lot more people playing it on PlayStation, it's open to everyone. iRacing is more old-school sim racing. It's quite niche and limited and it's really difficult to get fast, but a lot of the driving techniques carry over to real life as well.

Compatibility can be annoying in sim racing. Often one wheel will work with one game but not another. I have an 80/20 rig, so it's like a racing cockpit made out of aluminium. I have a load cell set of pedals that has a similar feel to a real-life braking pedal. I have a direct drive wheel, like a little industrial motor that spins and we trick it into pretending it's a wheel. I use a single screen but a lot of people use multiple screens, so it can be a pretty big setup.

How does your approach change depending on the game that you're playing?

The driving style is different – it's like jumping out of a Formula One car and jumping into a V8 supercar. You're doing exactly the same thing, but the technique is different. So swapping between iRacing and Gran Turismo, I sometimes need to give myself a month between competitions just to remember how to drive again.

Which Toyotas have you raced? Do you have a favourite?

I've raced the 86 in both Gran Turismo and iRacing. Probably the one I drive the most is a Gr.3, so it's like a GT three-spec Toyota Supra. It's actually a concept car – it doesn't exist in real life. I think it was designed a while ago, but it's based on the current spec Supra. It's a Gr.3 GT3 version and that's my favourite. I've won races in that car. It's used often in the Gran Turismo World Series. It's got a lot of power and turbocharge and it's really good in a straight line.

What's been your most memorable moment to date?

Qualifying for the Gran Turismo World Series has to be the most memorable. I did it during Covid in 2020, which was wild as I was racing from my own home. But in 2022, I qualified for my first live world final and got flown to Monaco. It was by the beach with a huge stage – 36 of the best drivers in the world and I was one of them. I remember being really nervous, but it was the most fun experience and I worked really hard for about six months to qualify for it.

I was scared about being on stage. You get so much time to practice. But when it comes to actually racing, you get one shot at it when the lights are on and the cameras appear and the crowd's behind you. The moment I could hear the crowd, I started freaking out. Then the countdown came on and my brain switched. I was focused and it was the best feeling ever.

“Every new lap is a new opportunity to do something better.”

Can you talk about your biggest setback and what you did to bounce back?

I've had times where I've had a string of bad results. I've been really slow or I've made mistakes and it tends to compound. There was one series where I just had a really bad season. My first race was okay. But my second race – I went into that championship where there were 20 drivers and I thought, ‘I reckon I can put this inside the top 10’. I was genuinely confident with my speed. In every single race, I would qualify last or second last and would make mistakes on my qualifying runs. And then you make the same mistake and you go into the next week and you're fixated on that and it just spirals out of control.

That was probably the biggest setback I faced. It sounds like a terrible way of dealing with things but going to race something that you enjoy – race a different championship for a bit, race against some people who are maybe not as fast and destroy them to make you feel really good about yourself and then come back more confident. It’s kind of poetic, but every new lap is a new opportunity to do something better.

How do you feel about being a woman in eMotorsports? How can we champion women trying to get into this space?

I get a lot of hate from guys who bully me or make fun of me, but it's generally people quite new to sim racing or potentially not very good at it. The higher you get up in competitive circles, people tend to be really nice. If you take it seriously and you show respect to other people, they'll show it back to you. When I first started I didn't know any other girls sim racing at all. Now there's a huge amount, so that's changing for the better.

Support the women who are driving already and encourage young women to get into it. It's the same issue with real motorsport. We don't have enough girls taking up go-karts when they're young and the talent pool is a lot smaller, so it's harder to find good women drivers. And fight against the standard sexism and stereotypes when people are making fun of women drivers.

Have you got a mantra that reflects your values and principles?

“Driving is for everyone”. People think driving is this specific thing that only some people can do, or a really masculine thing: aggression, big engines, speed. And it's really not. It's about feeling a car move underneath you, listening to what it's telling you. I find it one of the most fun and rewarding things. Driving is for everyone; everyone can try it and everyone should give it a go.

“Driving is for everyone; everyone can try it and everyone should give it a go.”

What’s the sim racing community like?

When we go to sim racing events, all the content creators will go there. It's bizarre seeing people in person, they look exactly how you expect them to look but also completely different. Sim racing and content creation can be pretty isolating although you’re streaming and you seem like you're having a great time. The reality is you're sitting on your own in a room talking to a screen in the camera for huge amounts of time just by yourself. So we try and look after each other and message each other. That peer support makes sure we're doing okay.

Tell us about your link with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing.

Toyota had a sim racing series in 2020. It was like a TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Gran Turismo championship, open to everyone across the world. There was an Oceanic championship and I was one of the top drivers in that which was cool. Because of that, I got invited to test with Neal Bates Motorsport. I had a lot of fun and was coached by Harry Bates. There were some licencing rules changes with Sport Australia which meant it didn’t go ahead. Covid was happening as well, so it wasn't a great time. But it was a really cool experience to test an 86. It was also really similar to what I was expecting based on my experience in Gran Turismo.

If you were to pick a GR Series vehicle to drive, what vehicle would you pick?

I really want to buy a GR Yaris, but the new GR Corolla looks pretty awesome. I think the Yaris just seems fun, but the Corolla gives me an early 2000s Toyota World Rally Championship kind of vibe, which is pure nostalgia for me.

What's the schedule for a streamer?

It depends on where you stream. Everyone streams in a different time zone, but I tend to do it after I've finished my working day. Streaming takes up a lot of time – you need to sink huge hours into streaming to make it professionally. You should be doing a lot of promotion around it: posting on social media, cutting up your stream into YouTube videos and doing all that extra work. Also, watching lots of other people's streams to see what other people are doing to get inspiration. I'll set my rig up, I'll turn the lights on, make sure I look presentable and then I decide what to play. And that's often a tricky decision.

There are a lot of new games that people want to watch but also people want to watch me play. I got big playing iRacing so my community wants to watch me play that. Generally the longer you stream, the more viewers will go up. You have to pace yourself, take breaks, take a walk, drink water, and don't go too crazy into your game. I finish streaming around 11 or midnight and I’m generally pretty broken after that.

Where do you see sim racing/eMotorsports in the next five years?

I think there are ways for eSports competitions/live eSports racing to become the norm and more sustainable, but we're still figuring out how to do it. We'll see the FIA get involved more, so we'll see real-world motorsport really try and figure out how sim racing and digital motorsport fit in. I think previously they've thought, ‘We can use this as a promotional tool for our Real World Series’. We’ll see more official bodies get involved and hopefully more games, more people playing them, more drivers and more of all that.

The GAZOO RACING CLUB would like to give a big thanks to Emily for taking the time to speak with us.