James Baldwin Wins World’s Fastest Gamer Competition

British gamer James Baldwin has won the World's Fastest Gamer competition. He'll make the transition from virtual to reality next year with a full-time real-world race drive valued at more than US$1 million.

Following a win in the final race in Las Vegas, British racer James Baldwin has been crowned as the winner of the World’s Fastest Gamer competition.

The victory, combined with his sim racing win in downtown Los Angeles, fast lap times throughout the competition and willingness to learn and work within a team made the decision an easy one for judges – two-time Indy 500 winner, Juan Pablo Montoya; World’s Fastest Gamer Season One winner, Rudy van Buren; Japanese Super GT star and former gamer Jann Mardenborough; World’s Fastest Gamer founder, Darren Cox; plus surprise guest judge, F1 legend Rubens Barrichello.

As the World’s Fastest Gamer, Baldwin earns a real-world race drive 2020. He will soon begin an intensive driver development program in the UK to prepare for his professional race debut next season.

“It feels surreal to be the World’s Fastest Gamer,” James Baldwin said. “I don’t believe it yet, and I won’t believe it for a few days. My whole career, my whole life almost have revolved around racing. This makes it all worth it.”

Though he had prior racing experience in karting and Formula Ford, Baldwin had shifted his focus to sim racing full time after being unable to raise the funds necessary to continue his on-track career. But, his lifelong dream of being a professional racing driver never subsided.

“One of the things that really drove me, personally, to decide on James personally is that he was just a little more complete,” head judge Juan Pablo Montoya explained of his decision.

“He’s grown a lot over the course of this competition. The big thing with him is that he really wanted to learn. He takes advantage of everything you tell him and applies it and that made a big difference.”

The 2019 World’s Fastest Gamer competition took 10 gamers from PC, console and mobile platforms with the goal of finding the quickest racer – regardless of the platform. This year’s competition was the first to have the winner graduate to a real-world race seat.

World’s Fastest Gamer season one winner Rudy van Buren became a full-time simulator driver with McLaren in 2017.