Why we are launching our Assetto Corsa EVO championship now

On 4 September at 8:30 pm, the 2026 Pre-season of the JOBARD Racing Academy Series gets underway at Brands Hatch: a French-speaking sim racing championship of eight rounds, running through to December, on Assetto Corsa EVO. This text is not an announcement — the announcement exists elsewhere. It is the reasoning behind three choices that underpin everything: the game, the format, the moment.

A championship is a commitment, not an event

Opening a championship has nothing in common with organising a race. A race asks for one evening; a championship commits you to four months — a calendar kept to, a set of regulations written before the first start, a race direction that answers for its decisions, and drivers who build something from round to round.

A commitment of this nature is not made by default. It is made for precise reasons, and you owe those reasons to the people from whom you are asking eight Fridays of their autumn. Here they are.

Why Assetto Corsa EVO

We chose this simulator for what it demands of the driver.

The legacy of Assetto Corsa is a style of driving that does not forgive approximation: a tyre physics model in which the limit is sought, found and lost, weight transfers that penalise impatience, a living track whose grip evolves throughout a session. EVO continues this work with a higher level of ambition — dynamic weather, tyre and fuel wear management, track conditions that reward race intelligence as much as outright speed. For a racing academy, this is precisely the raw material we were looking for: a simulator in which progression is visible, measurable and explainable.

The game is in early access, and we say so plainly: it is a game still being built. Version 0.9, which arrived in late August, further expanded the content and refined the physics; the roadmap is advancing towards the final release. We do not endure this evolving nature — we integrated it into the project from the outset. Our regulations provide for a freeze of technical conditions before each round, and our choice of car illustrates this.

The Mazda MX-5 ND Cup, the sole spec car of the Pre-season, is anything but a default choice. It is the quintessential training car: modest power, considerable rigour — every tenth must be found in positioning, clean use of downforce and momentum management, not in the data sheet. On a spec grid, the gap between two drivers can only be explained by driving. That is the condition of a talent identification championship worthy of the name.

The calendar, meanwhile, has been composed as a training programme: eight circuits, eight distinct lessons — the blind corners of Brands Hatch to open, Kyalami, the corkscrew at Laguna Seca, the Red Bull Ring, COTA, Imola, and Road Atlanta as the December finale. A driver who works through this calendar will have encountered virtually everything a track can ask of them.

What a season provides

An isolated race has no memory. A season does — and everything that gives motorsport its value lives within that memory.

The contact at the first corner in September still counts in December: in the standings, in the points licence that follows each driver, in the reputation built round by round against the same rivals. The regulations are written before the first start, public and enforceable: disputes are handled according to a text that everyone has had the opportunity to read. The calendar is known four months in advance: you prepare for a round, you progress between two events, you measure yourself against the same benchmarks. One round per fortnight leaves time to work — and to measure, data in hand, what has genuinely improved.

And because a grid brings together different levels, each driver also competes within a category assigned at registration: from newcomer to experienced, everyone has a standings table where the gap is fought against their peers — you can target a class victory long before targeting the outright win.

That is the difference between driving and racing. It comes down to nineteen drivers on a grid, a set of regulations upheld, and an organisation that answers for its decisions.

Why now: growing with the game

The question of timing remained. Waiting for the final version of the game would have been the comfortable choice. We did the opposite, for a simple reason: a championship is not launched finished either — it is built.

A start procedure is tested in real conditions. A race direction is formed on genuine incidents, not on theoretical cases. A debrief format is established, corrected and stabilised. All of this requires races to have been run, and each round of the Pre-season serves exactly that purpose: testing our methods with our first drivers, in conditions where everything can still be adjusted.

The game is being built; our championship grows alongside it. When Assetto Corsa EVO reaches its final release, the structure will already be mature: regulations proven across eight rounds, a race direction that will have ruled on genuine situations, established racing habits in place. Both maturities will converge — that is the wager of our calendar, and we own it as such.

Pre-season: the word is deliberate

You will notice that we do not call 2026 a "season". It is a Pre-season, and the word is as much a commitment to humility as it is a promise.

2026 serves to build: testing the regulations article by article, running in the race direction, establishing debrief methods, learning — alongside the drivers — what makes a round successful. Season 1, the real one, will be held in 2027, with an organisation that will already have turned eight times. The drivers of the Pre-season are not joining a finished product: they are building the championship with us, and that is reflected accordingly — their feedback carries weight in the 2027 regulations.

What this commits us to

The commitment we ask of you — eight Fridays, start at 8:30 pm, September through December — we apply first and foremost to ourselves, and beyond.

Eight rounds held on the announced dates. A race direction that handles every reported incident and gives reasoned decisions. Commentated coverage of every round. And a telemetry analysis tool that we are developing for our own drivers, made freely available to championship entrants — because a training championship is judged by what its drivers have learned, not only by who won it.

We commit to an organisation that treats its nineteen Pre-season drivers with the rigour of a professional field. That is our definition of premium: not what shines, but what holds.

Joining the grid

The full calendar and the format of the AC EVO league are on the championship page, the regulations are public, and registration is open on a rolling basis.

JOBARD Racing Academy — the Assetto Corsa EVO Pre-season 2026 championship: eight rounds, MX-5 ND Cup, Fridays at 8:30 pm.