Sauber signs Forza championship leader Phelipe Reis to Veloce squad

The 18-year-old Brazilian, more commonly known as 'Zoom', will join sim racing brothers Salih and Sonuc Saltunc as well as fellow 2017 F1 Esports finalist Allert van der Wal at the squad.

Sauber, which revealed a partnership with Jean-Eric Vergne's Veloce initiative in July prior to the F1 Pro Draft, has begun its planned expansion into other racing titles.

Williams is another F1 team that has taken a big stake in the virtual racing world, constructing a huge team over the last year, which contains over 20 drivers across games such as iRacing, F1 and Forza.

"Forza is a game that we're excited to be entering," Sauber Esports manager and Veloce co-founder Jamie MacLaurin told Autosport.

"Obviously, Sauber's history and our tradition is based in Formula 1, but it's important to be competing against big Esports teams.

"It's going to be cool to be competing against Williams, the other F1 team at the moment in Forza, I think we've got some exciting racing to come.

"In Forza, the fact we can have custom liveries, for our sponsors, it's really exciting as well."

Reis leads the second ForzaRC season ahead of next month's all-important playoffs in Mexico City.

"We're looking for young drivers, that we can put a lot of energy into and effort behind to help improve," MacLaurin added.

"We will be bringing him to the factory [Veloce's London HQ], and we'll also be doing something at the Brazilian Grand Prix with him, he's a big F1 fan.

"There's been a lot of very good Brazilian drivers so location played a big part as well in the decision.

"South America has a massive sporting fanbase, and specifically Esports is a huge area with lots of potential, which really excites us."