Esports World Cup champion aiming for real world of motorsport

Eight weeks, hundreds of competitors across multiple events and a multi-million pound prize pot – but this wasn’t any sports tournament.

Luke Bennett is coming home from the first Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia as a world champion.

Not only that, the 19-year-old from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire is also returning £100,000 richer after bagging the top prize in sim racing (short for simulated racing).

“It’s pretty surreal,” Luke tells BBC Newsbeat. But now he’s hoping he has a chance to make it properly real with a career in motorsport.

Luke’s part of Team Redline – an offshoot of Red Bull’s F1 team which boasts Belgian-Dutch racing driver Max Verstappen among its alumni.

“It’s just like racing a car in real life,” Luke says of sim racing. “But on a computer.”

The team was founded more than 20 years ago but Luke says people are still surprised when he talks about what he does.

He says people are shocked when he tells them about the prize money involved.

“It shows it’s getting bigger and bigger and it can be a career for some people.”

Team Redline dominated at the Esports World Cup, never finishing outside of the top four once in the grand finals of the tournament.

“It’s been a rough few months,” says Luke. “Every day – practice, practice, practice.

“All that weight has been lifted off our shoulders now.”

Luke isn’t just fast on the virtual track. He says his career is moving at top speed as well.

“I started driving with just a £100 steering wheel on the desk and having a bit of fun,” he says.

Not long after, fellow competitors noticed his potential and his parents helped him buy a better simulator.

“That’s when things really took off,” he says.

“I joined Team Redline and after that it’s just been up and up and up until this point right now.”

Esports tournaments are still “quite niche and quite new,” he says.

“It’s not been long since all this prize money started coming through and all these big competitions started so there’s not many stories of people going all the way.”

In that sense, he’s a pioneer, admitting “the future is a bit uncertain” for esports champions.

But as uncertain as it might be, the industry received another boost last month when it was announced from next year there would also be an Olympic Esports Games.

Like the Esports World Cup, the Games will be held in Saudi Arabia as part of a 12-year partnership between the Kingdom and the International Olympics Committee.

Before the World Cup, players, streamers and fans were divided by the decision for it to be hosted in the Arab country – which also funded the prize pot – due to its record on human rights.

Homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia and it has faced criticism over its stance on LGBT relationships as well as lack of rights for women.

Critics condemned it as “sportswashing” but the decision was defended by organisers who told Newsbeat no-one would face discrimination at the event.

Luke says the country was “a really cool setting” for the event and now has his eye on winning more tournaments and making it to the Olympics – something he says would be “unbelievable”.

“I think I’d find it a bit weird calling myself an Olympian because I really don’t feel like one,” he says.

“But it’s something that would be very cool.

“The dream is still the same – we may be world champions but there’s always more.

“We want to be world champions in everything, so we’ll keep going.”

And if he can be a pioneer in an online esports career, Luke sees no reason he can’t be a pioneer offline too.

“I hope one day to get into the real world of motorsport,” he says.

“I see more and more people get a way in through sim racing now, and hopefully that does happen.

“If not, I’ve got plenty of time to decide what I want to do as I’m still only 19.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.