The V10 R-League is new take on esports, featuring eight teams of three drivers competing in various disciplines each week. At each event the teams are drawn against each other in four matches, with each team racing against every other one once by the end of the season.
Each match consists of three different events. There’s the Head-to-Head, which features the three drivers from each team racing one-on-one against their rivals and the first team to two points takes the win. That’s followed by the Relay, which is again a one-on-one format but the drivers must hand over to their next team-mate in a pit stop, the win going to the first team to cross the finish line after all three stints.
Finally there’s a Race event for all six drivers. Points are awarded in classic F1 style: ten for the win, then six, four, three, two and one, and the team with the highest points score at the end of the race wins. Every position and every overtake counts.
The racing takes place in Assetto Corsa, using a car exclusive to the series. It’s a fictional open-wheel formula car, with a 900PS V10 engine and a weight of 700kg, running at up to 220mph depending on the circuit.
This week’s first round at Monza saw match wins for Red Bull, Porsche, Williams and, a name perhaps not often associated with esports, Suzuki.
Porsche, officially known as Porsche24 Redline through its collaboration with renowned sim-racing outfit Team Redline, won its match against BMW 3-0. Despite some big names in its squad, including Kevin Siggy Rebernak and Coque Lopez, BMW lost 2-1 in the head-to-head, and again 15-11 in the feature race, as Atze Kerkhof, Ben Cornett, and Michael Smidl lead a rout.