Jordan Caruso takes Esports Supercup lead | FOS Future Lab

Caruso has been a surprise package in this year’s championship, taking two pole positions in the first three rounds, but he had to settle for a second-row start at COTA after Alejandro Sanchez set the fastest time in qualifying. 

Sanchez would beat Sebastian Job by just three-hundredths of a second, with Caruso a hundredth behind and alongside Sanchez’s ART Stormforce team-mate Yoann Harth. Championship leader Charlie Collins could only qualify in eighth, just ahead of defending champion Diogo Pinto.

Unfortunately Caruso, the only driver this season to fail to convert a pole position to a race win, again had a poorer start than those around him and was only just able to fend off Lasse Bak to hold onto fourth as Harth snuck past into the first turn.

With the more generous track limits than the last event at Long Beach, the race quickly settled into a regular PESC sprint rhythm. Sanchez and Job were pulling away from Harth behind, but holding station less than half a second apart. Further back, Pinto caught Collins napping into turn one, slipping up the inside as Collins stared at Maximilian Benecke’s rear wing to claim that crucial eighth spot.

Sanchez would keep Job at bay to win the eight-lap race by a little over half a second, with his team-mate comfortable in third from Caruso.

Round 4 Sprint Race Results

1. Alejandro Sanchez (ART Stormforce) – 8 laps

2. Sebastian Job (Red Bull Esports) – +0.562s

3. Yoann Harth (ART Stormforce) – +2.373s

With the top-eight finishers reversed for the feature race, defending champion Pinto would start on pole position alongside Benecke – who’s had quite an average season in PESC thus far despite his success in ESL R1. After a largely clean start for the front three rows, Caruso made a bold pass on Bak into turn one – even using the pit-lane exit – to climb into fourth, but having survived the first turn the mayhem soon unfolded.

Job became the first high-profile casualty of the race as, running three-wide with Harth and Sam Kuitert, he was tipped into a spin across the infield. The car was undamaged though, and he was able to resume in 29th place. Danish rookie Bak was the next to fall. Following a quiet mid-race spell, Sanchez outmuscled Bak into turn one, but rather hung him out to dry on the outside. Squirrelling back across the track, Harth rear-ended the Fyra driver, before an unsighted Gustavo Ariel hit him broadside and retired both cars on the spot. That helped the front four break away a little, with close to a second from Caruso back to Sanchez after the squabble, but as the laps ticked away Caruso clearly wanted more.

Catching Jamie Fluke unawares, Caruso snatched third at turn 11 and began to chase down Benecke. It took just over a lap and a half before he took that spot too, with a classic turn one overtake, but just one lap later Benecke was facing the wrong way as Fluke attempted a similar pass only to tag the Mouz car’s rear and spin him. That also allowed Sanchez to pass the British driver and climb up onto the podium.

It all soon came alive at the front as Caruso had been taking chunks out of Pinto’s lead, with the defending champion forced to weave on the straights to hold off the Australian. Caruso though made the pass for the lead into turn 11, only to see Pinto latch onto his rear and robustly recapture the spot through turn 12.

That set up a thrilling final lap which saw the lead change twice more, as Pinto locked up into turn 11 and let Caruso past before sending the same move into turn 12. With a determined defence over the final eight corner, Pinto held on for what’s remarkably his first ever feature race victory. All of that was enough to move Caruso to the head of the championship from Charlie Collins – who managed to claim fifth in the feature race. Pinto sits third overall, just clear of Job after a remarkable recover drive to 14th for the 2020 champion.

Round 4 Feature Race Results

1. Diogo Pinto (Team Redline) - 16 laps

2. Jordan Caruso (Altus Esports) - +0.177s

3. Alejandro Sanchez (ART Stormforce) - +1.066s

After scoring more regular season wins than any other driver in 2022, Steven Wilson has finally got off the mark for 2023 – at the circuit where he took his first ever win 12 months ago.

As with the real thing, the virtual Atlanta Motor Speedway has been reprofiled, and it was Ryan Luza who’d be quickest in qualifying. 

A relatively clean race early on erupted in a spate of yellow flags with only a quarter of the 100 laps remaining, eventually running into overtime. That was extended when Garrett Lowe moved across into Vicente Salas defending the lead, causing the biggest crash of the race.

Eventually it finished at the second time of asking, with Wilson running a perfect restart and holding on to the line to join Michael Conti and Tucker Winter on one win apiece.

Race 3 Results (Atlanta)

1. Steven Wilson (Stewart-Haas Racing) - Ford Mustang – 105 laps

2. Kollin Keister (eRacr) - Chevrolet Camaro – +0.035s

3. Michael Guest (23XI) - Toyota Camry  – +0.112s