Charles Leclerc makes another esports win in virtual Chinese GP – FOS Future Lab

Leclerc made his debut only two weekends ago, in the Formula 1 Virtual Grand Prix at Melbourne, but has thrown himself into esports since. The Monegasque set up his own series, involving a six-race tournament that included almost a third of F1’s real drivers, in aid of the WHO COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund – in which he duly took an overall victory.

This weekend saw Leclerc competing in two more live esports events, with both an F1 Virtual Grand Prix at China’s Shanghai circuit, and some head-to-head racing in the Veloce Esports Not the… GP Versus series.

Veloce’s event came first, on Saturday. This series sees 16 drivers – from pro F1 drivers to well-known YouTubers in the esports field – race one-on-one through a series of knockout events, until just one remains as the winner. In an all-F1 semi-final line-up, Leclerc beat Lando Norris – a seasoned sim-racer – while Nicholas Latifi dispatched Williams team-mate George Russell. Over a best-of-three final round, Leclerc emerged victorious.

Shanghai proved to be normal service, with Leclerc taking both pole position and the win – although he had to scrap with Red Bull’s Alex Albon to achieve it – for his fourth consecutive esports title.

IndyCar’s iRacing event headed to the unusual venue of Japan’s Twin Ring Motegi, where Simon Pagenaud made it back-to-back wins, after last week’s victory at Michigan. That makes Pagenaud, an Indy 500 winner and IndyCar champion, undefeated at ovals. NASCAR counterpart William Byron managed to also record back-to-back wins with a victory at Richmond on Sunday.

2003’s World Rally Champion Petter Solberg and double BTCC champion Jason Plato both made their esports debuts in The Race’s Legends Trophy this weekend, driving McLaren M23s at Lime Rock Park, with mixed results.

Jan Magnussen won the first race, by under a tenth of a second from Jenson Button, and while Solberg took pole position for the reverse grid race he wasn’t able to capitalise. A poor start saw the Swedish driver tangled in an enormous crash, which allowed Juan Pablo Montya to simply disappear down the road for the win. Plato meanwhile came home in the top ten in both races.

Pro Formula E driver Maximilian Guenther had an unusual weekend too. The BMW driver won a pre-season test race for Formula E’s own esports event, the Race at Home Challenge, before also winning his heat in the All Star Cup at Lime Rock barely two hours later. Although sim racer Erhan Jajovski took the overall victory, Guenther is in a three-way tie for leading pro driver in the series, with one race remaining.

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