Clutching the steering wheel of a Formula One car is a fantasy for virtually all motor sports enthusiasts, but only a tiny minority have been lucky enough to fulfill that dream.

For those that haven't, the Formula One E-sports Series is about as close to the real racing experience as they can get, with gamers competing in a driving simulator, complete with steering wheel and pedals. Players in the series are sometimes real-life auto racers, such as Italian Enzo Bonito.

This year's launch of the F1 E-sports Series China Championship has allowed Chinese gamers to join the grid.

Beginning in early August, the series has visited six cities across the country, with over 3,000 enthusiasts taking part in the preliminary round to fight for a ticket to the ongoing regional competitions.

The top 20 players in each of the four regional rounds, along with another 20 invitees, will battle it out in January's final in Shanghai, with the champion and the runner-up joining the 2020 F1 E-sports Pro Draft.

"The first edition of the F1 E-sports Series China Championship has been progressing smoothly," Dong Liangliang, the deputy general manager of organizer Shanghai Juss Intellisports, told China Daily at the northern regional competition in Beijing on Sunday.

"The result so far has met our expectations in terms of the fans we attracted at the preliminary round, the high quality of the regional competitions and the positive feedback we received from the online broadcast of the championship."

Becoming an F1 e-sports player is not as straightforward as mastering a regular motor sports gaming titles. Much like actual racers, gamers must have excellent driving skills, while the price of the simulation equipment does not come cheap.

"To allow more people to have a chance to participate in F1 e-sports, we chose to stage many offline activities and competitions in places that have a high flow of people, such as shopping malls," Dong added.

"We bring the simulators to the fans via the offline activities, making it possible for many people to try F1 e-sports for the first time, which has also helped us to find talent. We now have players who never played before. They only tried it for the first time at our activities and then made into the regional competitions.

"In terms of the game's difficulty level, we lowered it for the preliminary round by opening the assistance system (which signals turns etc.) because many of the participants were just regular fans who never played before. But the regional competitions and the final will be much harder."

Gamer Zhang Jialin is one of those thrilled to have tested his skills behind the wheel of one of the simulators.

Sixteen years of playing F1 games paid off for Zhang after he was crowned champion of the eastern regional event in Shanghai last month.

"After all, this is my hobby and I personally enjoyed it very much," said Zhang. "We spend hours and hours in front of computers driving the same car on the same track just try to improve a few seconds. For others, it's boring. For us, the few seconds that we improve bring us a huge sense of achievement.

"I played the F1 video game for the first time in 2003 and back then I knew nothing about the concept of e-sports. It felt great to win the regional title, but I also recognized the gap between me and the top drivers. I will try my best to improve in the short time I have to prepare and be more competitive at the final next year."