Huttu wins IEM World Championship

[Danny Asbury]

Team Redline's Greger Huttu further solidified his unofficial title as the world’s greatest sim racer by winning the iRacing.com Intel® GP Series World Final. Bastien Bartsch also made a strong appearance in the 30 lap race at Laguna Seca making it a one-two for Team Redline sponsored by Fanatec.



At first it was Bastien Bartsch setting the pace in practise and qualifying. The Frenchman posted an impressive lap of 1:17.990 around Laguna Seca’s 11 turn, 2.238 mile layout. Indeed, Bartsch was the only sim racer to break the 1:18 mark as Huttu posted a best lap of 1:18.080, .3s better than Williams. Florida’s Ray Alfalla (1:18.422) and New England’s Jake Stergiois (1:18.447) completed the top five qualifiers ahead of Wyatt Gooden (Ohio), Mitchell McLeod (Australia) and Ian Lake (Australia).

The start was a clean affair with Bastien making a strong getaway with HUttu. With few passing opportunities on the fast sweeping track Bartsch seems destined to win the event. Things were to change on lap 2 however, Bartsch made an uncharacteristic driving error by turning in marginally too early at turn 6, he had to get out of the throttle thus allowing Greger to get a run at him into the corkscrew - which he duly did.

From there, Huttu managed to control the race, Bartsch stayed close throughout and was ready to pounce on any mistake - none came, the iceman remained calm to claim the $4000 first prize. Bastien came home just 0.9 behind and claimed $2500!

IEM broadcast - http://www.own3d.tv/video/81800/IEM_...ship_-_iRacing
PSRT broadcast - http://psrtv-iracing.s3.amazonaws.co...dFinal-720.wmv
Series page - http://www.iracing.com/intel-gp-series/
Intel Extreme Masters - http://www.esl-world.net/masters/

Team Redline - http://www.teamredline.co.uk/

Authored by Erwin Zeemering

March 4th, 2011. Hannover, Germany.

 

[Yann Laprevotte]

Great coverage, shame the race was a bit dull, might be because of the small grid, but I guess inviting more would've been a bit costy

 

[Keith Barrick]

Considering how much money is behind the event....why they only had 9 racers in the "World Championships" is beyond me.

Commentating was a bore aswell.... If this is the highest level of iRacing they can keep it.

 

[Mtommi Tam]

Great news,Team Red Line is crazy fast team.

 

[Francisco Villar]

Agree with Keith, 9 racers competing for such a prize money in a so called "World Championship" seems rather artificial.

 

[Damian Henderson]

There was a a big pre qualifying with only 9 being able to go through in the end.

 

[Danny Asbury]

Well, they took 1 guy from each region. To qualify, you have to beat a ton of other drivers in your regional. Take the U.S. for example, 16 drivers qualified for the final held in New York. Only the winner went to Germany for the grand finale. So although the final only has 9 drivers, you have to go through a lot to get there.

 

[Keith Barrick]

I agree that the level of competition was insane....but from a publicity stand point and the fact that they had money behind it with sponsors....to have a broadcasted event with only 9 drivers competiting on track for the race just seems ludacris. I am sure the cost to fly everyone everywhere would be high, but still if it is a show you are looking to put on....put it on

 

[Danny Asbury]

I'm with you Keith, let more drivers into the thing. But it's like you said, it cost money to fly them out there. Not to mention hotels, food, more sim-rigs to set up, and all sorts of stuff I can't think of. Either way, those extra drivers would pretty much be cannon fodder anyway, as I don't think they would challenge for any of the top spots.

 

[Yann Laprevotte]

Agreed with Keith for the dull commentary aswell. I said the coverage was great, well, technically speaking it was, but commentators were so-so. But that's common stuff with iR streams I'd say...

 

[dc67]

Maybe they could have padded the field with people willing to pay their way.It's good to see these competitions anyways.Hope video games get more excepted and then it will be huge.