After a long off-season, the premier electric virtual racing category returns as eVirtual begins its 3rd season ever! There’s plenty of change across the grid as Thunder becomes Downton’s new lead driver, Jaguar field an all-new line up in collaboration with Formation Competition and champion McLaughlin gets a brand-new teammate to trash. There are new faces on the grid as well, along with new teams in Manziel (taking over from Fusion) and SininenTuuli, powered by Audi. After a long off-season, the premier electric virtual racing category returns as eVirtual begins its 3rd season ever! There’s plenty of change across the grid as Thunder becomes Downton’s new lead driver, Jaguar field an all-new line up in collaboration with Formation Competition and champion McLaughlin gets a brand-new teammate to trash. There are new faces on the grid as well, along with new teams in Manziel (taking over from Fusion) and SininenTuuli, powered by Audi. Q1Despite this being their first race weekend, SininenTuuli were fastest in their first proper session, thanks to the experience of journeyman Ellington who comfortably saw them through. OSM unsurprisingly got through with both drivers in 2nd and 4th, though newcomer and FV2 veteran Brzyski impressed by beating established team leader Matthews. Former Ingram junior Brynildsen also followed teammate Ellington through in 3rd, while BMW and Lamborghini just about got one car into the race – returnee Holzberg putting his Grey car in 5th ahead of one of the oval stars of 2021, Agostino – the pair through by less than 0.4 KPH. This of course left 4 drivers who would compete no further – the main story being Thunderhead missing out entirely on the race. Steffensen was unlucky with a gust of wind on his run while Brandon’s IndyVirtual experience didn’t come in handy as he was well off. Campos’ first run on ovals also ended in disappointment, only ahead of Brandon. But what caught most people’s eyes was Hutchinson’s struggle to 8th: the former FV star also struggled with Jaguar last year but was well behind teammate Holzberg, in a massive disappointment for the Austrian. Q2The wind that caught out Steffensen early on got stronger, and Q2 held plenty of surprises. When the flag fell at the end, three of the top drivers last year – Cesar, Hudson and McLaughlin – would find their session over in a massive shock, just 11th, 13th and 16th, as the top oval driver last year and the reigning champion stumbled at their first hurdle. Thunder was also a casualty in 18th – a former Indy champion, he made a major error on his best run in a very disappointing start to the season. Porsche was another to disappoint – their oval pace last year marked them as ones to watch, but Bergkvist was shocked to just miss out in 12th and a poor set up for Vocquelin left him languishing in 24th. Mitsubishi would also not compete in Q3 with Zarins only 20th on debut. Downton and Maserati did however get one car each to progress – Maxwell carried his pace from last year’s Australia edition to take 2nd with Yoshida doing well to take 4th. Jaguar also had no issues: van Snelheid 5th on his debut with the team alongside eV debutant, but no stranger to racing, Beckenbauer in 8th. Two teams put two cars into Q3 – Manziel and Zvironas continued their good form from last year to get through in 9th, but former Renault leader Einarsson was even faster in 3rd. He had moved there in a direct swap with the other Thunder, Kiara – who plopped her Renault in the top spot with a great run. K8ley’s Kasami, who put in some special quali’s last season, was the other driver to make it through in 7th. Both Thunder and Kasami’s teammates struggled hugely on the other hand. K8ley’s new driver and North Star junior Draper was 21st, while Renault’s Milkovich was unable to keep his tyres temps down over his run, ending up 25th. Arrow was the other team to put both cars in Q3 in a very impressive showing – Davenport using all his experience to take 6th with Spain’s RDLF backing him up in 10th. None of the Q1 teams made Q3, though Ellington was frustrated afterwards as he felt he had the better pace than 22nd but for a mistake. Brzyski once again beat Matthews with 17th, while Holzberg put BMW in the top 20. Most noticeably, Agostino put in a committed run up against the walls for Lamborghini to take a very impressive 14th. Q3The expectations going into Q3 was for Jaguar and Maxwell to fight for pole, though the performance from Thunder and Yoshida showed promise for a potential upset. That seemed more likely when both Jaguar cars went out first – and both tapped the wall on their 2nd lap. It was only a brief kiss for the pair, but it left them down in 9th and 10th. Einarsson was another who didn’t fulfil his pace, with the Icelander complaining over a lack of power which Manziel are still investigating as he was left to salvage 9th.
Thunder showed her Q2 pace was no fluke as she took provisional pole with another impressive showing. Neither could RDLF, but Davenport sent the Arrow garage wild as he flung his car to the top of the timing sheets, barely 0.1 KPH ahead of Thunder. That lap time was looking even rosier when Maxwell just was not fast enough, ending up behind Thunder. Zvironas however came out with the intent to take pole – he set the fastest individual lap on his first go, and while his next 3 weren’t that fast, he stormed to the top of the timing sheets. Yoshida looked like he may threaten it, but his last lap wasn’t up to quality and the Japanese had to settle for a still noteworthy front row. Kasami had felt a lack of braking power on his in lap in Q2 and so the team set out to fix it, leaving him running last in Q3. The Swiss driver is no stranger to pole position, after putting in the lap of the season last year in Imola, but even he couldn’t believe it when he finished his 4 laps and heard the words “pole position” over his ear. He hadn’t matched Zvironas, or Yoshida for that matter, over a single lap, but all 4 where in the 124.3 KPH range in a fantastic showing of consistency to give his team their second ever pole, leaving a shocked Zvironas to settle for 2nd. This sets up the grid perfectly for tomorrow, with series legends well out of place, an underdog on pole and several potential contenders for this year’s title all around him. Join us tomorrow to see who comes out on top – in the meantime, the full results are below.
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