Barna in Witvoet take 2022 WTCR Esports shootout wins | GRR

After an 18-month break, the five-round season will run from January to March 2023, with up to 32 drivers on the grid in each of the ten races aiming for a share of the €10,000 prize pot. 20 of these will be “permanent” drivers, qualifying through the three-round, three-week shootout season.

The Nurburgring Grand Prix circuit hosted this week’s action in the Shootout, itself making a debut in the series, and it was Gianmarco Fiduci who’d set the fastest time in an exceptionally tight qualifying session.

Fiduci beat newcomer Yuvel Rosen by just under a hundredth of a second, with the entire 31-car grid – including experienced names like Florian Hasse, Jack Keithley, Alessandro Ottaviani, and 2018 champion Bence Banki – covered by six-tenths of a second.

Experience seemed to count for little though on the opening lap, with Ottaviani jumping the start and receiving a drive-through penalty. Keithley’s first lap was even worse, ending up on the outside of almost every incident. He’d eventually end the lap in 30th, having started seventh, courtesy of the gravel trap on the outside of the final turn.

Though it was Audis that dominated the grid, the breakaway front five included two Hondas as Petr Pliska and Max Pfeifer just about kept in touch with Fiduci, Rosen, and Barna, while building a small gap to Banki in sixth.

Barna would overtake Rosen for second starting the second lap, passing up the inside of the first turn and running Rosen out wide to prevent the cutback. Two laps later, Barna was past Fiduci, making the same move at the same turn to hit the front. The race quickly settled into four groups, with Barna and Fiduci dragging clear of the three chasing cars, then Banki and Grega Hudjek running clear of a gaggle of five cars.

As the tyres began to go off though, Rosen became a cork in a bottle. An impatient Pliska got caught out on the run through turn five, with the slightest of slides allowing both Pfeifer and Banki past, before Pfeifer got the job done on Rosen through the Mercedes Arena section. Further back an issue for Hudjek briefly held up the pack behind him, giving Witvoet the chance to creep up from 11th to ninth.

Despite a final lap challenge from Fiduci, Barna was able to hold on for the win, with Pfeifer rounding out the podium.

With the top ten reversed for the second race, it would be Belgium’s Axel Vermeylen starting on pole from Witvoet. After a relatively quiet start Fiduci, having crept past Rosen, seemed to be caught out by the pack ahead braking for turn three and steamed into the side of Pfeifer.

The Italian ceded the place back to the German driver, but kept hold of eighth, running three wide with Rosen and Barna. Fiduci would eventually make it back past Pfeifer with a lunge into the final corner on lap four.

Four corners later Witvoet made a lunge of his own, seizing the lead from Vermeylen after getting a better run through turn three and sending it up the inside of turn four.

Fiduci though was on the move still, taking sixth after a slow-down penalty for Hudjek saw him slip back out of fourth spot. He’d take fifth from Pliska later in the race with another final corner attack.

With the lead six running almost nose-to-tail onto the final lap, Banki went for a pass on Marvin Mackenberg for the final podium spot. Not only did it not come off, Banki left himself open for Fiduci to come in and claim fourth. That became third as the Italian got a better run through the final turn and snatched the podium by just 9 hundredths.

Pending any stewarding decisions, Fiduci leads the way on 49 points, with Barna second on 43, and Witvoet in third on 32.

Moritz Lohner and Lucas Muller (Dorr Esports) have taken the first win of the five-race 2022/23 Digital Nurburgring Endurance Series, coming home 11 seconds ahead of the Walkenhorst Motorsports car of Alexi Elomaa and Sami-Matti Trogen after some late-race drama.

Trogen had qualified the BMW on pole position, by just four-tenths from Lohner’s Porsche, and aside from pit stops led almost the entire three-hour race. However Elomaa spun at Brunnchen, gifting the lead to Muller.

Walkenhorst would hold onto second, ahead of the Unicorns of Love Mercedes. Jurgen Frank and Marvin Strehl won the Cup2 class for Timo Bernhard’s Team75, with BS+Competition winning the SP10 GT4 class courtesy of Ruben Bonga and Felix Quirmbach. The SP3T category for this year replaces the Audi TCR cars with new Hyundai Elantra N vehicles, with Corentin Guinez and Felix Luding taking the win for SimRC.