Six F1 drivers had their first round of the Race for the World ESports charity series along with other juniors, while All-Star ESports Battle had its fifth weekend.
Race for the World charity:
As the six F1 drivers announced, they held Round 1 of their ESports charity race to support World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 fundraiser. They had multiple youngsters joining them too along with few others, who have been regular in playing the game.
It was a quickly sorted charity event where they are just over 30 percent of their target with over 30 thousand dollars already collected from the first run under Race for the World banner. Williams’ Nicholas Latifi was at the forefront with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
They had Williams’ George Russell along with Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon, Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi and McLaren’s Lando Norris. They chose Yas Marina Circuit for the first race but it turned out to be a funny disaster.
They qualified and started the race but it was on ghost mode and so they had to redo all again as they opted for one-lap qualifying where Albon took pole from Renault’s Christian Lundgaard and Haas’ Louis Deletraz, while Norris was fifth.
Latifi qualified eighth with Leclerc ninth and Russell right at the back. With mayhem in the grand prix where they had multiple collisions and safety car messes, Albon took the win ahead of Real Madrid goalie Thibaut Courtius in a Mercedes.
Ferrari’s Arthur Leclerc ended up third despite running at the back for most, with his brother in fifth as Norris was seventh with Latifi 10th and Russell 11th. They did another race at Silverstone, where Lundgaard took pole in one-shot qualifying.
He had Arthur behind with Red Bull’s Luca Albon (Alex’s brother) in third ahead of Alexander and Charles, with Latifi in seventh and Norris ninth. The 14-lap race was eventually won by Arthur in the end ahead of Lundgaard.
Luca was third to round out the podium with Norris fourth from Charles, Latifi and Russell, while Alexander was way down in 16th. Both the racers were streamed by various drivers on their Twitch stream, where some of them are as follows:
Charles: https://m.twitch.tv/iamcharlesleclerc16/profile
George: https://www.twitch.tv/gr63
Lando: https://www.twitch.tv/landonorris
Louis Deletraz: https://www.twitch.tv/louisdeletraz
All-Star ESports Battle:
Taking place at Sebring, All-Star ESports Battle events returned this weekend, in different cars for both the Legends Race and the All-Star Cup, as the former was raced in period-accurate McLaren M23 F1 cars, and the latter involved LMP3 cars.
The first on-track activity – a qualifying session – surrounded the Legends race, which – as ever – had a star-studded entry list including Emerson Fittipaldi, Juan Pablo Montoya, Jenson Button, Dario Franchitti, Jacques Villeneuve, Tony Kanaan, Helio Castroneves, Emanuele Pirro, Jan Magnussen, Gil de Ferran, and Bryan Herta.
In this, Button got pole position, ahead of Andy Priaulx and Franchitti. The F1 champion and Priaulx got away well and maintained their respective positions, however, Franchitti got involved in a multi-car accident, which allowed Montoya to move up to third.
Montoya continued his forward charge and overtook Priaulx to take second place, but all the while, Button extended his lead, and he eventually took the chequered flag first. Montoya came second, and Priaulx came third.
Behind them, Herta came fourth, Brabham came fifth, Villeneuve came sixth- using XBOX controller – Tiago Monteiro was seventh and Daren Turner finished eighth. Despite his earlier incident, Franchitti fought up to ninth place, and Magnussen ended 10th.
Next came the Qualifying for the All-star Cup. This consisted of four races, in which the top five would go on to the final. In the first heat of these, the top five were Kevin Lind, Philipp Eng, Bruno Spengler, Tom Dillman and Esteban Gutierez.
In the second heat, the top five were Stoffel Vandoorne, Yifei Ye, Maximilian Guenther, Job Van Littert, and Mike Epps, and in the third, those who progressed were sim racers Jajovski, Terzic, Rudy van Buren, Kasdorp, and Bono Huis.
The fourth and final heat consisted of pro drivers who failed to get in previously. Here, it was Gabby Chaves, Ed Jones, James Calado, Jack Aitken, and Michael Benyahia that made up the top five, to progress for the final race.
Post this, it was back to the Legends trophy, this time for a reverse grid race. Due to his last place finish in the first Legends race, Emmanuele Pirro started on pole, and led into turn one, despite chaos behind with Castroneves, and Franchitti in Top3.
Franchitti had overtaken Max Papis in the final turn. And, despite a shuffling of positions in the middle of the race, the top three was the same at the end as it was at the start of lap two, as Pirro took the win ahead of Castroneves and Franchitti.
Priaulx came fourth, edging out Button and Villeneuve. Seventh was occupied by Mika Salo, and eighth by Magnussen. David Brabham came ninth and Papis rounded out the top ten after he lost a number of positions from the start to the end of the race.
One qualifying session later, the All-star esports finale began with Erhan Jajovski on pole. He got away well and maintained first position in the LMP3 car, but behind Lind and Van Buren got tangled in an accident.
This left Jajovski, Huis, and Wisniewski as the top three, and the trio finished in these positions. Kasdorp finished fourth, Chaves came home fifth, and Vandoorne crossed the line in P6. Benyahia came seventh, ahead of Guenther, Epps, and Mercedes reserve Gutierrez.
Here’s the video stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nviifExjwpg
Here’s details of the F1-centric charity ESports
Here’s what happened in the last All-Star Battle event