Jack Nicholls on sim racing and commentating

Jack Nicholls was the Formula E commentator for the first two years of the championship before being promoted to commentate for Formula One on BBC Radio 5 Live.

On Saturday, he’ll get behind the mic once more as the 20 Formula E stars do battle with 10 of the best sim racers in the world for a share of the one-million-dollar prize fund that’s made the Visa Vegas eRace the richest sim race in history.

Nicholls has a deep respect for sim racing as he competed in many leagues in years gone by.

"I’ve been playing since I was a kid on Grand Prix 2,” he says. “In about 2008 – after playing rFactor for a couple of years offline – I discovered that you could play online with people. And I found a league and I entered, which was Formula Sim Racing, and I was like ‘On my God, this is amazing!’

“I joined a team called AeroF1. There was a section on the forum called ‘Looking for drivers’ and they were looking for someone in the amateur division. For my first race, I qualified about 15th, but I’d made the grid – there were something like 30 drivers – so that was really pleasing. I did alright in some of the other races, I think I missed a couple, but then the Monaco race was just after the Easter holidays.

"So during the holidays, I had nothing to do all day but test and I stuck it on pole, but I spun twice and finished second. But I’d discovered that it was awesome. I think the races started at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, so your whole day would build around it. I won a race at the end of that year in Brazil – my only ever win.”

Nicholls asked to commentate on some of the races and when he did, sent them to Channel 4's current F1 commentator Ben Edwards who gave him words of advice.

“He replied very promptly with a stock answer, and he said some nice things, said I had a good voice for it and to get in touch with your local circuits, so that’s what I did.

"And that’s how I got in touch with Ian Sowman and Ian invited me along to a 750MC meeting. My first commentary was on FFord 1600 race at Mallory Park in July 2009, and it was won by Martin Galpin, who’s now a simulator engineer for Red Bull. And then through Ian I started doing the Mazda MX5 TV commentary and away we go.”