Geschrieben von A week removed from almost sweeping the opening round at Road Atlanta, Team Redline did just that for the second round of the 2023 IMSA Esports Global Championship, winning in both GTP and GTD classes at Watkins Glen International on Sunday. Both the #71 BMW M Team Redline GTP of Diogo Pinto and Chris Lulham and #170 Team Redline Ferrari GTD of Gianni Vecchio and Ole Steinbraten started second in their respective classes, and both were able to take the lead and avoid calamity and penalties in order to take the wins.
46 teams of two drivers took to the grid across those two classes for two hours and 40 minutes of racing in the series backed by IMSA, VCO, and Michelin.The GTP pole position belonged to the #89 BMW M Team BS+COMPETITION, with Niklas Beu setting the lap time and substitute Nathan Lewis joining him. In GTD, the #143 Altus Esports Porsche, qualified by Jordan Caruso with Dino Lombardi co-driving, took the top spot.
Up front, the GTP class got away mostly clean, but the #89 incurred a 10-second penalty off the start that would be accounted for post-race. That didn’t deter the Zebras, as they led for the majority of the first half of the event. The GTD start, on the other hand, saw a large incident between Turns 1 and 2. Many hopefuls, including the #116 Puresims Esports BMW, the #120 Dörr Esports Porsche, and the #103 Grid-and-Go.com eSports Lamborghini, received required repairs right away.
Just up ahead, the GTP class would lose one of their hopefuls in the #11 Williams Esports BMW, as the Inner Loop, also known as the “Bus Stop,” claimed its first victim among the wonky curbs that each team takes aggressively to gain time. Through the event, the Bus Stop claimed hopefuls such as the #92 VRS Coanda Porsche, the #18 WAVE ITALY Racing Team Porsche, the #95 XSET Cadillac, and this week’s Wildcard entry, the #17 Texaco Racing by TK BMW.
BMW M Team Redline’s #71 GTP took the lead for the first time at Lap 25 when the #89 pitted for their first stop. Through the first cycle, the #89 managed to get back to the lead, but on the second, the #71 capitalized on the overcut and took control, never looking back for the rest of the day. Their #170 GTD counterparts had taken control from the #143 team on the third lap, and they never looked back from there, leading through each cycle and through to the checkers.
The tighter battles were for the runner-up position in each respective class. After the #95 XSET team crashed out of second place and the #89 BMW M BS+COMPETITION team had fallen out of contention, the #4 CrowdStrike Racing Acura, driven by Samuel Michaels and substitute driver Sacha Gorlé, found themselves in the spot. Opening round winners Daniel Alves Lourenco and Dominik Hofmann, in the #90 URANO eSports Datagroup BMW, were in hot pursuit of the spot, looking to add a few more points to their tally to lessen the gap to the #71, but the #4 held on for second place.
Meanwhile, the GTD podium changed a few times in the closing laps. The #143 Porsche was fading fast, and there to take advantage were the other opening round class winners, the #101 Mercedes-AMG Apex Racing Team duo of Alejandro Sánchez and Luke McKeown. McKeown made easy work to get around Lombardi. In fact, the #143 fell to eventually finish sixth, as the #190 Mercedes-AMG URANO eSports entry of Luca Kita and Alexey Nesov managed to get by for a podium finish, as did the #114 Simufy eSports Porsche for fourth and the #196 BS+TURNER BMW for fifth.
IMSA Esports Global Championship GTP results from Race #2 at Watkins Glen were as follows:
Fin.
St.
No.
Team
Driver 1
Driver 2
Manufacturer
Pts
1
2
71
BMW M Team Redline
Diogo C. Pinto
Chris Lulham
BMW
382
2
11
4
CrowdStrike Racing #4
Sacha Gorlé
Samuel Michaels
Acura
340
3
9
90
URANO eSports Datagroup
Daniel Alves Lourenco
Dominik Hofmann
BMW
322
4
5
15
Race Clutch
Peter Zuba
Balazs Remenyik
Acura
306
5
6
99
Apex Racing Team
Maxime Brient
Peter Berryman
BMW
285
6
1
89
BMW M Team BS+COMPETITION
Niklas Beu
Nathan S Lewis
BMW
285
7
21
91
VRS Coanda
Michael Romanidis
Julien Soenen
Porsche
250
8
3
43
Altus Esports GTP
Edoardo Leo
Oscar Mangan
Cadillac
260
9
14
64
Satellite Racing
Alex Gal
Alex Ellis
Cadillac
237
10
12
16
Puresims Esports GTP
Daniel Craft
Robin Glerum
Acura
229
11
13
3
CrowdStrike Racing #3
Marcus Hamilton
Fraser Williamson
Acura
218
12
16
96
Obsidian Racing
Pablo Lazar
Samuel Graña
Porsche
205
13
18
62
HydroRace Geodesic Racing
Austin J Young
Graham D Sanders
Cadillac
193
14
15
46
Orion Race Team
João Vaz
Ilkka Haapala
Porsche
186
15
10
95
XSET
Owen Caryl
Casey Kirwan
Cadillac
181
16
19
18
WAVE ITALY Racing Team
Nathan Olson
Pablo Espes
Porsche
162
17
20
17
Texaco Racing by TK
Victor Miranda
Jackson Rezende
BMW
0
18
4
92
VRS Coanda
Zac Campbell
Ayhancan Guven
Porsche
158
19
7
11
Williams Esports
Matt J. Farrow
Josh Lad
BMW
144
20
17
7
PRIVATE LABEL Team Hype
Adam Blocker
Philip Kraus
Cadillac
124
21
8
69
Drago Racing
Jakub Maciejewski
Arturo Melgar
Acura
123
IMSA Esports Global Championship GTD results from Race #2 at Watkins Glen were as follows:
Fin.
St.
No.
Team
Driver 1
Driver 2
Manufacturer
Pts
1
2
170
Team Redline
Gianni Vecchio
Ole Steinbraten
Ferrari
382
2
14
101
Mercedes-AMG E-Sports Team ART
Alejandro Sánchez
Luke McKeown
Mercedes-AMG
337
3
10
190
Mercedes-AMG URANO eSports
Luca Kita
Alexey Nesov
Mercedes-AMG
321
4
3
114
Simufy eSports
Tristan Iglesias
Gabi Montoro
Porsche
310
5
7
196
BS+TURNER
Phil Denes
Rainer Talvar
BMW
284
6
1
143
Altus Esports Purple
Dino Lombardi
Jordan Caruso
Porsche
285
7
21
192
Mercedes-AMG URANO eSports
Alexander Thiebe
Sam Kuitert
Mercedes-AMG
250
8
8
199
Apex Racing Team
Salva Talens
Jimmy Antunes
BMW
253
9
23
144
Altus Esports Green
Simone Maria Marcenò
Yannick Lapchin
Lamborghini
228
10
9
188
VRS Coanda
Xander Reed
Oscar Py
Porsche
232
11
16
178
Maniti Racing
Maxime Mariotte
Tim Matzke
Lamborghini
215
12
24
111
Arnage Competition
James T Armstrong
Taylor Barnard
BMW
197
13
17
155
Mercedes-AMG Team Williams Esports
Alessandro Bico
Daniel Lafuente
Mercedes-AMG
194
14
19
163
DeltaSport
Carl Modoff
Gregory Hovesen
Lamborghini
182
15
13
175
Team75 Bernhard by SimRC
Jürgen Frank
Antti Ahola
Porsche
178
16
12
110
MAHLE RACING TEAM
Oskari Rinne
Felix Quirmbach
BMW
169
17
15
120
Dörr Esports
Damon Woods
Tim Jarschel
Porsche
156
18
20
162
Brabham Esports
Hunter McDaniel
Stephen McDonald
Lamborghini
141
19
11
153
Mercedes-AMG Team Williams Esports
Daniel Pásztor
Vasilios Beletsiotis
Mercedes-AMG
140
20
5
102
Virtualcoach.gg by GnG
Sven Haase
Nicolás Rubilar
Ferrari
136
21
6
171
Team Redline
Josh Thompson
Florian Lebigre
Ferrari
125
22
25
157
Impulse Racing
Matthieu Victorino
Adrian Frühwirth
Ferrari
96
23
18
169
Drago Racing
Ricardo Rico
Alexander Wolters
Ferrari
93
24
4
116
Puresims Esports GTD
Ross Macfarlane
Lukas Prada
BMW
98
25
22
103
Grid-and-Go.com eSports
Rico Wenzel
Gabriel Streitmatter
Lamborghini
69
Each class has a maximum of 385 points available per race, with 350 going to the class winners and an additional 35 points for the top qualifying team. Both Team Redline winners scored 382 points for winning from the second starting spot, leaving Watkins Glen as their respective class leaders as well.
Both winners from the first round at Road Atlanta, the #90 GTP and the #101 GTD, left Watkins Glen second in points after scoring podiums despite poor starting spots. The #90 GTP is 24 points behind the #71 and the #101 GTD is only eight points behind the #170 with two races remaining.
IMSA Esports Global Championship GTP points through Round 2 are as follows:
#71 BMW M Team Redline, 714
#90 URANO eSports Datagroup, 690
#4 CrowdStrike Racing #4, 590
#43 Altus Esports, 575
#99 Apex Racing Team, 531
IMSA Esports Global Championship GTD points through Round 2 are as follows:
#170 Team Redline, 734
#101 Mercedes-AMG Team ART, 722
#190 Mercedes-AMG URANO eSports, 601
#199 Apex Racing Team, 583
#196 BS+TURNER, 549
The IMSA Esports Global Championship will take two weeks off and return on December 3 for Round 3 at Sebring International Raceway. Another new venue to the series will test these drivers for two hours and 40 minutes of racing around the bumpy 17-turn, 3.71-mile mixed-pavement venue.
Each race of the IMSA Esports Global Championship will be broadcasted live on IMSA’s and iRacing’s YouTube, Facebook and Twitch social media channels with the “Countdown to Green” pre-race show beginning at 1:45PM ET.
For more information on the IMSA Esports Global Championship, visit iracing.com/imsa-esports. For more information about the Virtual Competition Organisation (VCO), visit vco-esports.com. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit iracing.com.