Bonelli bags Gran Turismo World Series eSports win | FOS Future Lab | GRR
Brazil’s Lucas Bonelli has taken his first ever victory in the Gran Turismo World Series Nations Cup, in the first round of the 2022 championship. The race, at Watkins Glen, was the first in the new Gran Turismo 7 game, having switched from the GT Sport platform earlier this year. That meant that, despite the fact that the event consisted of the top 16 drivers from the 2021 World Final, previous form wasn’t necessarily a good guide.
That said, it was the original Gran Turismo world champion, Igor Fraga, setting the pace in the one-lap qualifying session. With all drivers using the new Suzuki “Vision Gran Turismo” concept car, 2018 winner Fraga was the quickest ahead of Bonelli who joined him on the front row. Defending champion Valerio Gallo could only place 14th after an error on his lap.
At the start of the race, Bonelli leapt into the lead almost immediately, having opted to start on a soft tyre compound while Fraga started on a hard set – all drivers being required to use at least two of the three grades available. Chaos broke out further back, as Coque Lopez didn’t get away properly, forcing Ryota Kokubun to take evasive action only to then be taken out in a first-turn incident caused by Gallo missing his braking point on cold, hard tyres; the stewards gave Gallo a two-second penalty for this multi-car collision.
Fraga was slipping back as those around him made their tyre advantage work, though both Matthew McEwen and Patrik Blazsan ended up in strife after similar overtake attempts on Baptiste Beauvois at the Inner Loop.
Having built a five-second lead with the soft tyres, Bonelli pitted on lap five only to emerge in traffic. As he tried to clear the slower cars, he contacted the rear of Kanata Kawakami and was given a one-second penalty as a result. That, combined with the slower out laps on hard tyres, allowed Beauvois to hit the front on new softs and build a gap of his own.
Beauvois, who won two of the Olympic Virtual Series live races in 2021, looked to be cruising to victory, but was pushing the soft tyres to the limit. Gallo had earlier got seven laps out of them before rapidly sliding back down the field. Sure enough, entering the Inner Loop on the final lap, the Suzuki span and dropped the Frenchman to fifth.
Bonelli retook the lead and held off Fraga – who’d switched to soft rubber later in the race – for the rest of the final lap to take the win. 2020 champion Takuma Miyazono took third after a solid race and staying out of trouble.
In the Manufacturer Cup, the team-based competition where drivers represent brands, it was Team Subaru that came away with maximum points, also at Watkins Glen. Once again, Fraga took pole position, pushing his Toyota two-tenths clear of Mehdi Hafidi’s Nissan, with Miyazono in the Subaru only a thousandth of a second further back.
Following a much steadier start, Miyazono defied expectations and dived into the pits to serve the single mandatory stop on the first lap of 14 – followed in by Adam Tapai of Jaguar. With clear air ahead of him, Miyazono then started putting in fastest lap after fastest lap, overtaking Hafidi as he pitted two laps later, and overtaking Fraga in the pits two laps after that. In fact Fraga emerged behind Hafidi too, and soon found himself in a battle with Nico Romero for newcomer team Genesis.
As Fraga’s pace fell away in the second half of the race, Romero made the overtake to get on the podium and then passed Hafidi who made a mistake in the final turn and contacted the outside wall.
Miyazono streaked away to win by four seconds, even after easing off on the last lap, taking the win for 2020 champion team Subaru, with Romero second for Genesis, and Hafidi third for Nissan. Fraga again lost out to Bonelli, as his countryman got Mercedes up into fourth, and just held on to keep Toyota fifth ahead of Porsche at the finish.
Elsewhere, the V10 R-League concluded with a controversial live final event from the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
Firm favourites – and local team – Yas Heat were eliminated by Mercedes in a bad-tempered semi-final that saw the stewards intervening repeatedly. One of the four races was rerun due to a technical fault, while another had the result reversed due to unspecified driver penalties.
That resulted in a 3-1 victory for Mercedes, despite Yas Heat originally winning the first three races. Heat did come through the third-place playoff with another of its trademark 4-0 clean sweeps over R8G.
Mercedes went on to face 2020 champion outfit Redline, and the teams played out a 2-2 draw – with the title going to Mercedes on the basis of more team points scored in the two Sprint races.
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