Job wins to take Porsche Esports Supercup fight to final round | GRR
Sebastian Job has kept himself in the title hunt for the Porsche Esports Supercup by taking victory in the feature race in the penultimate round.
Job took pole position for the sprint race ahead of Kevin Ellis Jr. at the 8.8-mile Circuit de la Sarthe by a relatively large 0.116 seconds, with championship leader Diogo Pinto in sixth.
However, the long straights at the circuit often turn these races into slipstream battles, and it wasn’t long before Job was staring at the back of both Ellis and his Apex Racing team-mate Alejandro Sanchez.
Disaster almost struck for Job when he was tagged by Dayne Warren at the second kink on Pierre Baud. Warren drifted off the apex and hit Job’s rear corner, but a second contact with the front right straightened Job back up – although he still lost two positions.
Things settled down for the second lap, as the front seven closing up again for the final tour. Sanchez slipped past Ellis, giving his team-mate a tow, while Coanda team-mates Warren and Jeremy Bouteloup tried to find a way past along with Job, Charlie Collins and Pinto.
Warren and Job clashed again in the Porsche Curves, but this time it was Warren heading sideways, and into the wall. Nobody could catch Ellis though, with Sanchez in second from Bouteloup, while Collins took fourth ahead of Job and Pinto.
Rookie Red Bull driver Cooper Webster would start the reversed-grid feature race on pole, sprinting away from Salva Talens. Talens then found himself fending off championship leader Pinto, but as they fought through Porsche Curves, Job passed both at once to leap up into second.
Although the gap to Webster at the front was over 1.5 seconds, it didn’t take long for Job to close it, and the two Red Bulls then worked together to give each other a slipstream to escape Pinto and Zac Campbell behind.
Pinto broke the resistance on the penultimate lap, getting past Webster through Indianapolis and Arnage with a robust pass that saw Webster graze the tyre wall. That sent him off after Job, and after closing up on the leader he tried the same pass again.
However, Job hung it round the outside and dropped Pinto back into Campbell’s clutches, forcing him to defend for the final half lap. That gave Job his second feature win and sixth race win of the season.
Only one round remains in the PESC season, with a maximum 85 points still available. Pinto leads the way by 37 points from Ellis, with Job 11 further back, and Campbell still in with an outside chance 25 more points behind.
The works Lamborghini esports team has taken victory in the first race of the new-format Intercontinental GT Challenge Esports series, the Bathurst 12hr.
IGTC replaces the individual Europe, Asia, and Americas endurance races for the GT World Challenge, bringing all three regions together for one championship.
Reigning European champion Scuderia Ferrari Velas team would return intact, but both the America and Asia champion squads were split into different cars in a remarkably strong 48-car field.
It was Lamborghini, courtesy of 2021 Real Race champion Jordan Sherratt, that took pole position ahead of the Williams Mercedes, with an all-BMW second row of G2 Esports ahead of BS+Competition - while the Ferrari team could only place 15th.
Giorgio Simonini’s initial pace in the Lamborghini was lightning fast, as Daire McCormack gradually lost touch in the Williams car and lost his second position to Robbie Stapleford in the G2 BMW in the first hour. Stapleford couldn’t close the gap at the front either, as the Lamborghini remained two seconds up the road.
A technical issue with the Williams Mercedes saw it drop to seventh at its first pit stop, promoting James Baldwin’s Veloce McLaren onto the podium. Simonini though, double-stinting, pulled further away from Charlie Crossland as the G2 car was caught up behind traffic.
Ferrari had made some decent progress, but it ended just over two hours in. As De Salvo passed the Rocket Simsport Honda NSX on the Conrod Straight, the two cars collided and both spun into the wall.
BS+Competition would take second place just shy of the halfway mark, as Arthur Kammerer robustly passed Crossland at The Chase, but the G2 squad managed their stops better to retake the spot in the final hour.
Lamborghini was uncatchable though, winning by almost 30 seconds from G2, with BS+Competition two seconds back in third.
In the Silver class, the #999 GTWR R8G Academy car took pole in sixth overall, but crashed out in the third hour as Andrea Miatto spun braking into the Esses.
Instead, victory went to the AIA McLaren, with Jura Petritchenko taking the class lead with four hours remaining. They cemented the win when Igor Murdasov crashed the rival SMP Mercedes 45 minutes from the end. West Competition and FFS Racing would take second and third in class.