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Grid - Fernando Alonso Interview

In this exclusive interview with Gamereactor, main game consultant and double F1 World Champion talks our David Caballero through his role in the project, how tricky it is to beat his own AI, his game preferences, simracing in esports, GRID legacy, and more.

Audio transcription

"We are at GRID's presentation event in Madrid and we have the great pleasure to be with main consultant and racing legend Fernando Alonso. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, thanks to you.
How would you describe your role with this game?
Good, well it has been an exciting journey on the creation of the game and I think GRID is one of the best games that historically we had the fans and now this new version I think is going to be a completely new level."

"I've been a consultant of the game trying to make the most of my experience wheel-to-wheel racing and try to add some value to the game and I think the result will surprise many people.
How did your experience in different categories help create a more authentic experience here and also in terms of AI?
Well I think one of the main exciting things that motor racing have is to compete in different disciplines, with different driving styles, with different cars, in different venues but most important with different players and different level of opponents."

"And I think on this game to have people in front of you that you don't know exactly how they will react to your movements I think will be a new thing that people will love.
We've heard you in cars movies, are you like Lightning McQueen that is terrible with simulators and video games but really good real racer?
I try to be good in both but yeah definitely I think there are a lot of good people in sim racing and in gaming so I'm probably better on real cars still."

"What about your times with GRID? Are they good? Can you compare them to your real life times?
They are very comparable. I think also we have the fantastic R26, the Renault Formula 1 on the game and I think that's something that in my opinion it will be something very different on the game because there are certain circuits and certain difficulties on the game that when you put a Formula 1 car on those venues I think it will surprise many.
How difficult is it to beat Fernando Alonso AI on GRID?
Hopefully very difficult. That was one of the main targets. There is a mode that you can select and challenge myself, challenge Fernando Alonso and hopefully it's enough difficulty into the game to the best players in the world to accept that challenge and yeah try to beat me."

"You just mentioned the Renault R26. Which other Formula 1 car would you bring to GRID? Would you like to drive here?
I don't know. All Formula 1 cars are nice to drive and nice to try in a video game. Maybe the cars from the 80s or the 90s maybe is nice.
The Alpine?
But the thing is that I think it's going to be very tough and very difficult to drive certain cars. I think the game has enough difficulty and great venues. There is the Barcelona city circuit, Shanghai. You can select rain, you can select night driving. So I think you don't need to add too many difficulties on the car because the game has all in."

"Of course we are all gamers at this age. My dad is 54, my father-in-law is 64. Both are huge fans of yours and they would go nuts if you returned to F1 sometime. But do you think this game could be a nice first step for them to learn how it feels to be in these cars, to beat Fernando Alonso?
I think so. I think this is probably the only game that you can combine real simulation and professional sim racing together with arcade mode and have a little bit more contact. There is the music, creating the drama sometimes. So there are things that can be very useful also for a first time user in the game. So yeah, why not?
And perhaps try directly with racing wheel or is it nice to play on the couch with the controller and just to feel the speed?
I think I have to be honest with you and I tell you that I use sometimes more the controller than the wheel. The wheel is nice and when I'm with friends and it's real competition I use the wheel and you try to make perfection on the things you do. But for an easy game, just sitting at home and you take the controller and you can perfectly still play."

"What can you tell us about the collaboration with FA team, your own eSports team, which of course competes in several games, also GRID now and there is assets, the team is present in this game. So what has it been like for you to have this journey into eSports and now with your own team here?
Well, it has been exciting. I think when I joined the eSports environment a couple of years ago with FA Racing eSports, it was a great experience. It is a great experience and we are learning every day new things because this is an unlimited world, the sim racing.
So in GRID we will find also FA Racing, you can choose the decoration of our team, you can fill one of our members. So yeah, we hope to have some success also in the game when we enter the competitions."

"How do you expect eSports to grow in the future? Ford just announced their own team as well, which is called Fordzilla, for example. So do you think that's the way for this to be more professional and bigger and bigger? You were one of the pioneers after all.
Yeah, I think it could be potentially a very big success in the future. I think we don't know yet what is going to happen in 5 years time, in 10 years time, but I prefer to discover in the system. So yeah, eSports I think will have a great future.
Closing one, you mentioned this. It is very difficult to find a sweet spot between hardcore simulation and arcade fun. This happens with many racing games, not just GRID. Every racing game tries to find that sweet spot and a pro driver like you would say, well, the pro driving is fun after all."

"So how do you think you can find and if you think you succeeded with GRID to find that sweet spot for everyone to join in?
I think, yeah, as you said, it's difficult to combine both, but probably GRID has been the only game combining both historically in gaming. So I think this new version will just improve that. The base was very good and what we experienced with GRID over the last decade has been good. So this is just another step forward on that direction.
Thank you so much for your time again and good luck with the Dakar."

"Thank you."

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