It’s Europe. Right?

If you follow any global sim racing series you know the most competitive region is always Europe.

The interesting question is who’s their nearest rival?

Competing in the FIA Global Esports Rally Tour recently got me thinking. The leaderboard was split into 6 regions covering the world and not all regions were equal. So which regions are the most competitive? Where is it easier to qualify for such global events?

The FIA Global Esports Rally Tour utilized Assetto Corsa Rally and featured an open leaderboard to qualify. In each region the top 8 drivers would qualify for a trip to compete in a live regional finals (in Europe it was top 16 since they have the most FIA motorsport orgs/are the most competitive). The qualifier was a single stage that you could repeat as many times as you liked, your fastest time counted. Plenty of motivation for the best of the best to get involved and put the hours in practicing.

My method for comparison; look at the times of the bottom qualified drivers. This gives a good indication of how hard it is to be competitive and race in these events. Just looking at the top time might show there’s one super quick driver while the rest of the region isn’t as competitive.

Thankfully they provided the global leaderboard online. This is how the regions stacked up by the end of it.

• Fastest time - Middle East and South Africa: 6:08.832

• 8th in Europe: 6:10.407

• 16th in Europe: 6:11.521

• 8th in Asia-Pacific: 6:13.903

• 8th in North America: 6:16.205

• 8th in South America: 6:16.226

• 8th in Africa: 6:18.418

• 8th in Middle East and South Africa: 6:19.141

So there it is, Europe far and a way the most competitive region with APAC the second most competitive. Had I been competing from America, Africa, or the Middle East I would have qualified for the regional final (I set a 6:14.105). But by the same token there are lots of European drivers missing out who would be fast enough anywhere else in the world.

It’s also clear that the fastest driver in the region is not a reflection of the region as a whole. Sami Joe from Lebanon is just an absolute master able to achieve remarkable things in rally sims.

Naturally the next thing I was wondering: is this a trend that continues across all sim racing.

Full results from the official leaderboard, filtered by each region:

The other sim racing event I managed to find that could compare across regions is the Logitech McLaren G Challenge (LMGC). LMGC is a global series split into 4 regions that was running on Forza Motorsport. With a prize pool worth $100,000 there’s plenty of motivation for drivers to get involved and do their best.

LMGC is notorious for being terrible at publicizing the finals and especially the results (particularly through their Forza Motorsport era) but if we look back at the Winter Series from 2025 we see the qualifying results from the finals during the event broadcast. Here’s how the regions stacked up in qualy for race 2 (race 1 qualy wasn’t shown):

• Fastest time - EMEA: 1:19.291

• 8th in LATAM: 1:20.358

• 8th in EMEA: 1:20.894

• 8th in NA: 1:21.105

• 8th in APAC: 1:21.528

That certainly paints a different picture. APAC are last, and Europe isn’t even the most competitive!

In qualifying for race 3 we saw:

• Fastest time - LATAM: 1:23.076

• 8th in LATAM: 1:24.109

• 8th in EMEA: 1:24.299

• 8th in NA: 1:25.029

• 8th in APAC: 1:25.167

Reflecting on this perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Rally and track racing often have a different crowd. Also LMGC running on the widely disdained Forza Motorsport means it would not draw the crowd of more popular sims.

Sourced from the Winter Series 2025 finals broadcast.
Qualifying results for race 2 (showing top 8 of 16).

Qualifying results for race 3 (showing top 8 of 16).

So LMGC has forced me to throw my theories out the window. While I still believe there are trends on each specific game when you look across sims Europe is not always the top and there’s no real regional hierarchy across sims. Perhaps it reflects how popular the underlying discipline is, Europe being the center of rally (while it’s also popular in APAC), with generic circuit racing being popular across the globe. I’d expect F1 to be equally Europe centric, with Nascar dominated by North Americans. I’m off to search for more global sim racing results to verify.

I would love to find more global esports series to compare regions like this. If you have ideas send them my way so I can update this article.