until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Erhan Jajovski became the fourth different winner of a ticket to BMW’s SIM Live event at the end of the year, and claimed €1000 for winning the one-make race around the 24-Hour layout of the Nurburgring.
The Triple A esports driver started the BMW M2 CS Racing Cup race from pole position but was quickly overtaken by two-time race winner Michal Smidl, who made the move at the first corner.
Fellow Triple A driver Risto Kappet maintained his position off the start but a minor mistake of running wide on the exit of a corner and driving on the grass sent him spinning and down from third to ninth.
Two laps into the only five-lap, albeit 45-minute, race, Jajovski reclaimed first place with a simple slipstream-induced move down the long Dottinger Hohe straight.
Smidl didn’t give the position up for good as he took the lead back with a brave move on the right-hand side of Jajovski at the high-speed and narrow Kesselchen section of track.
For the second lap in a row though, Jajovski used the draft from Smidl’s car to take the lead back down the back straight. From there Jajovski slowly pulled away from the rest of the pack, eventually beating Smidl by three seconds and third-placed Kuba Brzezinski by eight seconds.
Brzezinski ended the race as the highest-finishing Williams esports driver but all four of the drivers from that team had their own separate scrap for third.
Jack Keithley had been leading the Williams pack, but was passed by Brzezinski at the northern end of the circuit. Things then got worse for Keithley as he dropped from the front of the Williams train to the back of it within a few minutes.
Brzezinski was able to pull far enough away from his team-mates to secure third place. The remaining Williams drivers, led by Nikodem Wisniewski, fought for fourth on the last lap but with Wisniewski leading the group down the back straight, he lacked the tow from slipstream to keep his position.
Moritz Lohner was the big winner from that situation as he finished the race in fourth, followed by Keithley and Wisniewski.
While the racing up at the front was clean, further down the order it wasn’t the case as the Green Hell claimed quite a few victims.
The biggest crash came only a few corners into the race with multiple drivers getting caught up and cars rolling over. Nico Barclay also rolled over entirely by himself as he rode the kerb too aggressively and got his BMW M2 onto two wheels.
Only 15 drivers finished the race, despite 29 having qualified.
The next event in this 10-race championship on June 17, with a 60-minute race around the same circuit but with mixed weather conditions.
