Grand Theft Auto Online’s latest racing event is Open Wheel Racing, aka the open-world criminal empire’s take on Formula One. OWR’s logo even looks like the 70th anniversary logo F1 is using this season, too. It’s available in Grand Theft Auto 5’s online mode right now.
Judging from the chassis and the engine note, and the fact there are no cockpit halos, we’re not getting the most modern cars here. The two on offer from Legendary Motorsport in Los Santos look like late 1980s to mid-1990s models, particularly in the liveries players may choose.
The Redwood Cigs-branded Progen PR4 is nakedly an homage to the 1991 MP4/6 that Ayrton Senna drove to a drivers’ and constructors’ championship for McLaren that year. That exact car is in F1 2019, but they can’t show the Marlboro logo because smoking’s bad.
The Ocelot R88 (in-world marketing copy: “Never choose between the poise of a ballet dancer and the aggression of a frenzied gorilla”) is made by the GTA world’s equivalent of Lotus. At least, that’s my impression because its base livery is very similar to that of Mario Andretti’s iconic 1978 Lotus 79, even if the chassis is about a decade more modern.
The Los Santos Customs shop has more designs, such as “Air Emu,” a nod to the Camel-branded 1992 Williams FW14B that Nigel Mansell took to both championships that year. Or players can build their own look with base and detail paints.
Players can also upgrade the car’s front and rear wings, brakes, tires (sorry, tyres), and engine. In competition, players may use a Kinetic Energy Recovery System — basically a rechargeable speed boost, although Formula One cars did actually have this sort of thing from 2011 until the hybrid engine era began in 2014.
The video below, from YouTube’s GTA Series Videos, shows the definitely-not-street-legal-but-who-GAF cars tooling around Los Santos, so they’re not just confined to the seven tracks that accompany the update. Rockstar Newswire, as always, has much more on the tracks and customizations available.
