Esport Minute | A Round-Up Of Sim Racing Esports Action

Paul Jeffrey

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Happy weekend! Friday is upon us once more, the sunshine has departed for much of Europe (hopefully temporarily) and the lure of the TV screen remains as strong as ever...

Motorsport is slowly coming back on stream once again, with a few tentative steps already being taken by a number of circuits and championships around the world. With much of the planet still in some form of lockdown, the future of real world live motorsport as we once knew it is still a little further away than would be ideal, so to keep those juices flowing, the emergence of esport broadcasts remain as strong as ever - with plenty happening in the days and weeks ahead..

Last Week

Controversy wise, the week just gone was one of the less high profile ones in terms of silly behaviours with significant consequences - and let's be fair, it's about time after the various shenanigans we've been witness to over the past months start to die down and we focus on what matters - the racing!

The very impressive GT Rivals America series came to a close last week after what has been a largely positive season for the Americas based championship. Somewhat fittingly, the final round was a home victory for long time Assetto Corsa Competizione fan David Perel - the South African taking his Ferrari 488 GT3 to victory on his local Kyalami Circuit after an intense final lap battle with the Nissan GTR of Bryan Heitkotter. While Perel and Heitkotter provided much of the entertainment up front, SRO America have promised to be back again for a second season of their enjoyable championship, regardless of the real world equivalent kicking back into life again this July.

Keeping with the SRO theme, last week was a busy one as all three of the official SRO GT World Challenge Europe categories were in action. For the PRO and SILVER class, the field would be taking to the Spanish Circuit de Cataluya-Barcelona for their penultimate round of action, and the action was plentiful!

In the PRO series, a category exclusively for real world GT World Challenge drivers, Porsche would come up trumps for the first time this season, thanks to a commanding drive by the 23-year-old Louis Deletraz, the Swiss taking his and the German brands first series victory after convincingly converting his Pole Position across the 60 minute encounter. Sadly convincing can't be the words used to describe the start of the PRO race, as major contact in the opening corners resulted in many cars out of position and scattered across the circuit. With the leading bunch breaking free for the chaos behind.

Over to the SILVER series, for esport professional drivers, it would be Arthur Kammerer who took his McLaren 720s to overall victory against Patrick Selva and Nils Naujoks rounding out the podium finishes in his sister McLaren.

In the AM Series, a category specifically designed for community sim racers, the field would be heading to the German Nurburgring circuit for our third race of the season, and the action produced by the field was again of the highest order. With a strong start and some superb racecraft, young Italian Dani Savini managed to escape up front in his Porsche 911, leading a tightly knit bunch of drivers in the chasing pack behind.

Next Week

This coming weekend sees plenty of action from multiple different racing disciplines. In the world of open wheelers, the Formula E squad are out in force again with events for real world drivers and a separate race for esport professionals and influencers, as the field take to one of the brand new Formula E street circuits in the Gen2 rFactor 2 virtual machines.

Kicking off proceedings on Saturday, the first race weekend of the new Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland in RaceRoom Racing Experience is set to take place at the digital version of Autodrom Most. The series is a new venture into the world of sim racing for the Porsche brand, and will feature a number of high profile real world Porsche drivers the likes of Timo Bernhard, racing in the same 30 minute double header events as esport stars and YouTubers Rudy van Buren and David Karapetian.

Keeping to the theme of high performance brands, the Lamborghini 'The Real Race' will begin in their first ever virtual championship on Sunday, having already enjoyed a successful launch event at Lamborghini HQ, this Sunday will be the first opportunity for viewers to check out the the new series in serious competitive action, as the qualified drivers hit the Monza circuit for what will be the first of five special event races.

in GT racing news, Saturday is the fourth round of the SRO E-Sport GT Series AM Championship, the penultimate race in what is proving to be an exceptional closely fought season of racing for our community AM drivers. As always in our RaceDepartment broadcasts, we have some seriously cool stuff to give away to our viewers, and this weekend in absolutely no exception. On Saturday we will be giving away a GT Omega Titan cockpit and seat via our Jardier competition, as well as an excellent Prosimu T1000 cockpit as part of our broadcast giveaway - so get tuned in!

Summary of Events:

I'm sure plenty more is happening in the week ahead too - feel free to let us know about any good entertainment in the comments section, and I'll be sure to add them to the list for future roundup articles.

Stay safe, stay inside, stay sim racing!

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The W Series Esports League starts on Thursday 11th June at 19:00 BST. The first race will be on the Monza circuit, and there will be a race every Thursday at the same time until the final race on 13th August. The races will be streamed live on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook. It will be presented by Lee McKenzie, commentary by Luke Crane and David Coulthard , with Billy Monger as a race pundit.
 
The race have a new series starting Saturday. The triple crown series. First event is Monaco. No prizes for guessing what the next two events will be!

Great idea. Looking forward to it.
 

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