By March 2021, he had dropped his weight from 100 to 76 kilograms. He also did intermittent fasting and ate only from 1pm to 7pm. By January 2021, he began working out for four hours a day, playing badminton and spending hours in the gym.

“It became clear that it was time for me to get into the car and show what I’m capable of,” says Dillon. Towards the end of 2020, real racing slowly started making a come back. Dillon helped Armaan and Aditya with streaming, commentating, and even hosting of lobbies (a lobby is where participants meet up to race. When real racing came to a standstill in 2020, and the pandemic grew increasingly severe, Aditya and Armaan launched a charity eSports event called Ultimate E, with celebrity guest drivers like Arjun Maini, Kush Maini and Narain Karthikeyan. The duo, however, soon began to explore eSports too. They were impressed by his talent, but also told him that he needed to lose weight and be much fitter, pointing out that driving a real race car was physically much more demanding than a simulator. The two met Dillon over a couple of weekends, and watched him drive on a simulator. Here he was introduced to two of India’s best known racers: Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim, founders of the X1 Racing League. He participated and was one of the youngest and fastest drivers, winning the Delhi leg. In 2019, he saw a social media post about the XI Racing eSports League. He fell in love with car racing, playing for hours on end. Usually, a racing driver progresses from gaming to karting and only then onto full fledged single seater race cars.ĭillon’s journey began three years ago, when his brother bought a steering wheel for their PlayStation 4 - to play Formula 1 2018. His passion and dedication for motorsport will take him a long way.” From his first win in the X1 eSports series to his first podium in the Formula 1600 in only two years is a big achievement. An eSports driver, this was just Dillon’s second race weekend in a race car.Įxplaining why this finish was unusual, Aditya Patel who drives for Audi India Motorsports says, “Dillon has come a long way in a very short span of time. As the black race car roared across the finish line this Sunday, at 180 kmph, the driver could hardly believe what he had just done.ĭillon Zachariah, 18, had finished third in his debut race in the prestigious MRF National Championship, held at the Madras Motor Race Track.

Stock car games