Akkodis wins Fanatec Esports GT Pro Series | FOS Future Lab

With Barcelona hosting the final round of the Endurance series on 2^nd October, the virtual Catalunya circuit – with the pre-2022 turn ten – staged the digital finale, with a slightly unusual leaderboard. Beechdean AMR still led the way on 11 points despite the team withdrawing from the series after the third round. That meant Beechdean could still win the title, but five other teams were looking to overhaul them. However none of them would claim pole position for the race; instead it was Iron Lynx, with Nicklas Nielsen the only driver under the 1:43 mark. Akkodis lined up second with Daniel Juncadella again driving, with a second row consisting of runaway Silver class leader Attempto and Alex Aka ahead of 2021 champion Emil Frey and Arthur Rougier.

After a relatively clean start, much of the pack was held up by an incident in that old-layout turn ten which created a significant gap between the top 13 cars. It was the front five that were the closest though, with Nielsen leading a pack covered by just 1.1 seconds – though only Juncadella and Luca Ghiotto (Tresor by Car Collection) were in with a shot of the overall title.

With the pit window open, Rougier was first to pit having lost a spot to Dries Vanthoor (Team WRT) in the opening exchanges. Vanthoor himself had a disaster of a stop, coming in two laps later and not getting the Audi slowed down by the pit lane line. That brought an automatic 30-second stop-go penalty, and the team retired the car.

In the brief period that Vanthoor remained on circuit following his stop, he was harrying Juncadella for second. That allowed Nielsen to escape two seconds up the road and brought Rougier back onto the rear wing of the Akkodis Mercedes. Juncadella then closed back up on Nielsen, but looked like he was going to run out of time to battle for the lead. However Nielsen took too much kerb in turn one on the very last lap, bringing the Mercedes right back onto the back of the Ferrari.

Despite fighting for the entire last tour, it would be Nielsen who’d hold on for Iron Lynx’s first win of the season, with Juncadella only 0.13 seconds behind – closer than they’d been in qualifying. With four points for second place, Akkodis took the Esports GT Pro Series title by three from the withdrawn Beechdean. Nielsen’s win saw Iron Lynx shoot up the table to third.

The Silver class race was a little more cut and dried. Attempto led the table by five points from Akkodis going into the race, and nothing but an Akkodis class win with Attempto failing to score would change the destination of the title. In addition, Team WRT could wrap up the overall GT World Challenge Europe Silver title if Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer could place third or better while Attempto failed to score. Both looked difficult after qualifying, with Aka (Attempto) lining up third overall, Tommaso Mosca (Akkodis) second in class in fifth, and Simmenauer way down in 17^th. Running into turn one though, Aka found himself in trouble and on the grass as the Pro drivers ahead fought. Aka though came through unscathed and while Simmenauer escaped that turn ten melee, Mosca was at the heart of it and ended up last on the road.

A mixture of pace and general attrition did see Mosca recover to third, behind Simmenauer, but neither could come close to Aka as Attempto – the only team in either class to score points in all five races – won the title by seven clear points from Akkodis, with Haupt Racing third overall.

Ferrari has a new British driver, as Jonathan Riley won the Ferrari Velas Esports Series to claim the prize of a paid professional drive for the team in 2023.

Riley was one of three European representatives after the six-month competition, facing three drivers from North America in an in-person grand final in Maranello over a series of driving competitions.

The British driver took an early advantage by winning the Indianapolis hot lap competition, from Merick Leveque and Chris Severt. However a poor performance in the consistency test – with drivers aiming to stick to a set lap time – saw him drop to third overall.

Severt took the win in the Nürburgring wet race, just ahead of Riley, to see the top four covered by just four points ahead of the final double-header. Riley won from Severt in the first race before quickly scything through the reversed-grid race, passing Brandon Hawkin for the lead in the final third to top the points table. Riley also scored well with the judges – including Arthur Leclerc and 2021 winner Kamil Pawlowski – to secure the title.

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