Formula E started its online gaming series with a trial round as All-Star ESports Battle and Veloce’s Not The GP…Versus continued on for another weekend.
Formula E Race at Home Challenge:
The trial Formula E Race at Home Challenge round kicked-off at Monte Carlo with their two races, one dubbed as the Challenge Grid, where the grid saw a mix of sim racers and real racers along with some Youtube personalities, driving the latest racers.
Formula E used the rFactor 2 game with Envision Virgin’s Graham Carroll taking pole and eventually winning the Challenge Grid race over the 15 laps that took place, ahead of BMW Andretti’s Kevin Siggy and Nissan’s Marc Gassner in the Top 3.
The main Formula E grid had BMW Andretti’s Maximilian Gunther on pole from Mercedes’ Stoffel Vandoorne with Porsche’s Andre Lotterer in third. The German had a clean start to lead from the Belgian as DS Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne moved to third.
There was chaos in the middle of the pack but Gunther held on the lead to win the trial race from Vandoorne and Lotterer after he managed to get the better of Vergne, who dropped to eighth, in an elimination race where only 10 finishers were classified.
The remaining drivers to be classified were Envision Virgin’s Nick Cassiy in fourth, GEOX Dragon’s Nico Mueller fifth, Nissan’s Oliver Rowland sixth, Jaguar’s Mitch Evans seventh, while Nissan’s Jann Mardenborough was ninth and NIO’s Oliver Turvey 10th.
Here’s the full Formula E Race at Home Challenge race to watch:
Here’s where donations can be made towards UNICEF: https://tiltify.com/@formula-e-official/raceathome/donate
All-Star ESports Battle:
Also in rFactor 2, the All-Star ESports Battle was on for the sixth weekend running, and in the first race of the ‘Legends Trophy’ it was Jan Magnussen who barley pipped out Jenson Button at Lime Rock Park in the United States of America.
Third place was occupied by another ex-F1 driver Mika Salo, who led Emanuele Pirro and Tony Kanaan, who rounded out the top five. Meanwhile, the reverse grid version of this competition was an IndyCar one-two, as Juan Manuel Montoya won from Dario Franchitti.
This time, third place went Pirro, who led Salo, and Magnussen. In the All-Star Cup, Erhan Jajovski, Nikodem Wisniewski, and Kuba Brzezinski were the podium finishers, while Maximilian Guenther came seventh, and Esteban Gutierrez came tenth. Of the other big names, Jack Aitken was 14th and Ed Jones 16th.
Here’s where you can watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9cNPkX2X_Q
Veloce Not The GP… Versus:
In the Veloce ESports ‘Not The GP… Versus’ series on F1 2019, which returned for only its fifth week, the format was a one on one battle. The first of which being between Jamie Chadwick (Williams), and Louis Deletraz (Haas).
In this showdown at the Red Bull Ring, which took place across two two-person races, Chadwick won. The second face-off was between Lando Norris (McLaren) and Callum Illott (Ferrari), where the Brit took the win after two races in a best of three.
Enzo Fittipaldi (Ferrari) and Sacha Fenestraz (Mercedes) went up against each other next, with the Brazilian winning. After them, Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) made his debut against Aarava (Alfa Romeo), where the Ferrari driver came out on top.
Another Williams vs Haas race came after, with Nicholas Latifi (Williams) facing off Pietro Fittipaldi (Haas), with the Canadian taking the winning honours. The next race run pitted Alexander Albon against footballer Thibaut Courtois.
Both of these drivers were in Red Bulls with the Thai winning as the final round was between Ferrari’s Benjamin Daly and Arthur Leclerc. In this series of races, it was the Monegasque that secured his spot in the next round, beating the former.
Moving on to the quarterfinals at the Circuit de Gilles-Villeneuve, the first battle was between Norris (McLaren) and Chadwick (Williams). Across the multiple races, the McLaren racer was the more successful of the pair despite the hard fight from the Williams.
Next up was Leclerc (Ferrari) went against Fittipaldi (Ferrari), with the Monegasque moving forward. Interestingly, the third round of the quarterfinals saw the Williams duo of Russell and Latifi go against each other, both driving the Grove-based team car.
However, they went to a tiebreaker race, and in this, Russell drove a Mercedes, but lost to Latifi, who stayed true to Williams. The final event of the second round was between Albon (Red Bull) and A. Leclerc (Ferrari), with the Thai winning the fight.
Real world rivals Leclerc and Norris, were pitted against each other in the first semi-final at Circuit of the Americas. Of the two, the Monegasque was the one to progress to the finals. The second event took place between Latifi and Albon.
Despite Albon being the favourite, Latifi won this head-to-head as he progressed to the final against Leclerc at Silverstone. The first heat of the finale saw the Monegasque taking an early lead at Luffield, with the Canadian unable to challenge again.
Initially in the second heat, the racing looked much the same, and despite a sector one mistake, Leclerc came back at Latifi. The two ultimately collided, and the Canadian took the win as the Monegasque let him by.
In the final heat, though, this didn’t matter as the Leclerc pipped his rival to win the competition overall after Latifi spun early on. He took the win after Norris did it the last time. The Veloce had the ESports event with donations on for UNICEF.
Here’s the video recap:
Here’s what happened the last time
Here’s Charles Leclerc winning Race for the World
The story was co-written by Darshan Chokhani
