When the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 as a pandemic last March, the cancellations of all kinds of events followed suit. Concerts, conventions, and other high-density social events were abruptly cancelled or postponed, with even the Tokyo 2020 Olympics being rescheduled to 2021.
Sporting events are almost always mass gatherings, and there’s a long, long list of sporting events that were cancelled or postponed due to the onset of the current pandemic. You can’t have a game without hoards of fans by the bleachers, and you especially can’t allow events for contact sports like basketball and football to push through if the players would be put at risk. When you take into account the long distances that many professional athletes have to travel (especially those whose events take place in multiple countries) in order to participate in their sport, allowing sporting events to continue during a pandemic is just not a good idea.
There is one sport, however, that despite its events and athletes being based in multiple countries, managed to gracefully navigate cancellations and delays in order to continue providing some sports entertainment for the fans: Formula 1 racing.
With the Australian GP cancelled and almost every other GP postponed, it was a clever move for Formula 1 to launch the Virtual Grand Prix. The Virtual GP is meant to provide fans with some entertaining races while postponed races are rescheduled, so each Virtual GP race takes place during race weekends whose dates were originally allotted for the real Grand Prix races, up until the month of May.
While not all current F1 drivers are participating, there are a number of young drivers such as Charles Leclerc of Scuderia Ferrari, Lando Norris of McLaren, and Alex Albon of Red Bull Racing, who are familiar with the F1 video games. For some extra entertainment, some GP races also have guest drivers, like the Virtual Spanish GP which featured football players from FC Barcelona and Manchester City.
Due to the varying skill level of both the official F1 drivers and guest drivers when it comes to the video game, the races and controls are adjusted to allow everyone an equal opportunity to win, and it also makes the races more exciting to watch.
The official game being used for the Virtual Grand Prix is the PC version of F1 2019, which was developed by Codemasters, who are known for their racing games. It might seem like a big leap for professional F1 drivers to transition to driving in a video game, but most of them actually make use of racing simulators that are very similar to Codemasters’ F1 games, and if you’ve ever played a Codemasters Formula 1 game, you’d quickly realize how it might take a pro to figure out all the controls when playing on manual mode.
As for the actual GP races, there is still some rescheduling work to be done on Formula 1’s side, as many venues are still hesitant to host races even later in the year. Whether or not we’ll get to see any of the races push through this year, no one can tell for now. At the very least, all the Virtual GP races are available on F1’s official YouTube channel as full races and highlight videos, and if you ever run out of F1 content to watch on YouTube, there’s always the stellar Netflix docu-series, Drive to Survive.
Our Privacy Commitment
TV5 Network Inc. values and respects your privacy. We are committed to safeguarding your personal data in compliance with Republic Act No. 10173 or the Data Privacy Act of 2012 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations.
We have developed a Privacy Policy that adopts and observes appropriate standards for personal data protection. While our Privacy Policy sets out the general principles governing the collection, use, and disclosure of our users’ personal information, our Privacy Commitment seeks to inform you more about TV5’s privacy practices.
Why do we collect your personal information (as applicable)?
We may collect and maintain basic information about you as site user of TV5 sites for the following purposes:
Where do we get your personal information?
There are several ways we collect your personal information.
Information that you personally provided.
Most of the personal information we have are those that you have provided us when you:
Information we collect during your engagement with us
We also collect information as you use our products and services, like:
Information we collect from other sources
Other means of collection of information may be through:
When do we disclose personal information?
There may be instances when we are required to share the information you provided us. In such cases, we ensure that your personal information will be disclosed on a confidential manner, through secure channels and in compliance with the Data Privacy Act and other privacy laws.
We will never share, rent, or sell your personal information to third parties outside of TV5 except in special cases where you have given consent, and in cases described in our privacy policy.
In some instances, we may be required to disclose your personal information to our agents, subsidiaries, affiliates, business partners and other third-party agencies and service providers as part of our regular business operations and for the provision of our programs and services. This means we might share your information with our service providers, contractors, and professional advisers who help us provide our services.
How we protect your personal information
The integrity, confidentiality, and security of your information is important to us. We have implemented technical, organizational, and physical security measures that are designed to protect your information from unauthorized or fraudulent access, alteration, disclosure, misuse, and other unlawful activities.
We also put in effect the following safeguards:
TV5 will not collect, use, or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than those identified in this Commitment, your Service Agreement or our Terms of Service, and any other purpose that you may have given your consent for.
What are your choices?
We make sure that we have your consent to continue to collect, use, and disclose your personal information for the purposes that we have identified. We want you to know that you may object or withdraw your consent and/or edit your consent preferences at any time.
If you wish to have access to the personal information in our custody or if you think that the personal information you provided is incomplete, or otherwise inaccurate, you may get in touch with our Data Protection Officer through the contact details provided below. In some instances, we may request for supporting documents or proof before we effect requested changes.
Data Protection Officer
TV5 Network Inc.
Reliance corner Sheridan Streets
Mandaluyong City
tv5dataprivacy@tv5.com.ph
What happens when there are changes in our Policy?
From time to time, we may update our privacy policy and practices to comply with changes in applicable laws and regulatory requirements, adapt to new technologies and protocols, and align with the best practices of the industry.
You will be provided notices if the changes are significant and, if we are required by law, we will obtain your updated consent.