Red Bull’s Sebastian Job season seems to have finally got underway as the British driver won races in both the Porsche Esports Supercup and Carrera Cup GB championships.
The racing moved to Silverstone but it was a repeat result in qualifying from last time out at Interlagos as Job set the fastest time by two-hundredths from Maximilian Benecke, with championship leader Diogo Pinto in third.
Once again the drivers had one eye on the feature race, as the sprint race played out to a similar result to qualifying. That meant Job became the first driver to win twice this season, after seven races.
As usual, the main event was a little more frantic. First Carroll almost beat reverse-grid pole-sitter Sanchez off the line before having to settle for second, only to then slip to third behind Charlie Collins. Collins then hit the front with an almost identical move through the Village corner, and Dayne Warren found himself rather rudely shuffled down and out following contact with Pinto. Carroll slipped back further, as both Pinto and Benecke passed – robustly – either side of the Red Bull driver through Vale and Club. With championship-chasing team-mate Job now right behind, Carroll opted to drop one further spot.
That all allowed Sanchez and Collins to escape down the road, and with a gap of almost three seconds behind him, Sanchez made a push to retake the lead. What turned out to be the race-winning move came into Stowe, six laps from the end, though Collins curiously backed out of any defence. Despite shadowing Sanchez for the rest of the race, Collins couldn’t find a way past again for his first PESC win. Sanchez took the flag first, from Collins and Zac Campbell.
The results mean Pinto stretches his championship lead, as main rival Jeremy Bouteloup failed to score. Campbell now sits second, 20 points back on 198, with a gaggle of British drivers just behind – Ellis, Jamie Fluke, and Job, on 168, 168, and 167 points respectively.
Job was in similar form for the latest round of the Porsche Esports Carrera Cup GB, at Oulton Park. Just as with PESC, he was the man to beat in qualifying, taking pole position by a large margin in sim-racing terms – 0.2 seconds – from Red Bull team-mate Carroll. The front two rows had a very familiar feeling, with Job and Carroll joined by Ellis and Peter Berryman for the fourth successive event.
The opening exchanges saw Job stretch out an advantage over his team-mate, but the front four held firm until Ellis tried to pass Carroll into Hislop’s at half distance. Ellis found himself hung out to dry and as his own team-mate Berryman backed out to avoid a collision, Josh Thompson took advantage to jump up into fourth. With two minutes left on the clock, Ellis made an uncharacteristic mistake, dropping a wheel off at Island and spinning. That dropped him down to eighth. Job would win – and take the fastest lap – from Carroll, with Thompson third and William Chadwick fourth, ahead of Berryman and Jamie Moone, who’d start the reverse grid race on pole.
Unfortunately, Moone made a dreadful start, falling down to seventh, with Berryman hitting the front from Chadwick and Thompson. Ellis also passed Moone, as he sneaked into sixth. That was effectively the last we saw of Berryman, who used the cars of Thompson and Chadwick as rear gunners while he built a comfortable lead. As the two behind him scrapped for position, the narrow Oulton Park track was blocked to any progress behind, leaving Carroll, Job, and Ellis nowhere to go. Despite Chadwick’s best efforts he couldn’t find a way up into second, and the pack finished in the order they took the second corner of the race.
It tightens up the championship battle considerably though, as Ellis now leads Carroll only on countback, with Job making huge gains across the weekend to sit just six points further behind.
Piotr Stachulec has qualified for the F1 Esports Pro Draft from the PC edition of F1 Challengers, after a pair of podium finishes in the fifth round. Stachulec will join championship leader Tomek Poradzisz, who won the race at Monza, although Samuel Bean’s win at COTA means Poradzisz can’t claim the overall title just yet.
Joost Noordijk meanwhile won both races in the PlayStation version of the series, to take the overall Challengers title with a round to spare. Duncan Hofland and Matthew Alder are tied for second, and still need the right results to qualify in the final round.
Tom Manley underlined his dominance of the Xbox platform with two more wins to make it eight from ten races as he confirmed his own championship win. Ryan Jacob, who sits second in the table and finished second in both races, has also now qualified.
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