Author: altusesports

Mr “Mamma Mia” Simone Maria Marcenò and Vedran Kralj put together an excellent performance in the final round of the Sports Car Open Series of 2018-19. Starting from Pole Position, Simone lead the field away and built a strong 10 second lead by the end of the first stop.

Where our strategy was to run as long as possible and over-cut, the bulk of the competition opted to put with an even tyre strategy, stopping on the hour and undercutting us. This was put to good effect by Thrustmaster Mivano Racing and ROKiT Williams Racing Esports, and the differences in strategies would prove to make it a fascinating contest, with the lead changing hands throughout the race.

Simone and Vedran shared the car for the first half of the race before Simone went on a rampage, tearing through the field determined to make the strategy work. In the end one of the pivotal moments where we knew things were looking very strong, was at our second last pitstop we came out ahead of the Mivano Ford, when they had just a few laps before their final stop.

We knew that with Mivano requiring around 25 minutes more fuel than us at the next stop, which would give us a nice buffer to run to the line. Simone did an excellent job of managing risk, and crossed the line to take the victory, our first in Sports Car Open. WINNERS!

With the victory came another excellent achievement, the Sports Car Open GT Runners Up for Simone, Simon and Vedran. To finish in 2nd place after only being able to compete in the second half of the series, is an absolutely fantastic result. 2nd, 2nd & 1st Places were our results in those three races, which if you look at that second half alone, we finished behind Williams Esports 66 points to 65… a great battle with another top Sim Racing team.

With Sports Car Open finished, and NEO coming to a close later in March, attention is quickly turning to the VRS GT World Championship for our GT drivers. Before then though, we have a championship to fight for at the NEO Endurance Le Mans 24 Hour. Bring it on! 🙂

Having topped the Pre-Qualifying phase, the team was optimistic of a good result. However with the largest and toughest field entering the qualifying stage, the top split would always be an intense affair, especially around the streets of Montreal.

Leading the way for Altus Esports was Dayne Warren, Sam Blacklock and Ethan Warren, with team manager Simon Feigl also squeezing into the top split of 40. Having been thrown a curve ball with a different time of day than originally planned, this appeared to rattle the new crew with all testing taking place in the afternoon conditions ahead of the race. This would prove difficult for all teams however, and in the case of Altus, we didn’t adapt as well as others and fell short of our expected performance. We would find ourselves in 8th (Dayne), 11th (Sam), 14th (Ethan) and 27th (Simone) on the grid.

All cars would get away to a strong start in the opening few corners, however following nose to tail brought across a slight touch from Sam, which had a cascading effect into the helpless Ethan Grigg-Gault of ERT. From that moment, things escalated further with the field being compressed with racers serving slowdowns in one of the tightest sections of the course. This unpredictability caused Ethan to inadvertantly push Sam off course, and then get caught up in the following pack. Those first couple of laps would become significant, ultimately ending Sam’s race as penalties were handed out.

Simon got away to a brilliant start, gaining 9 places on lap one to sit inside the top 20, then be Top 15 by lap 3. Ethan was also putting on a strong showing before the first safety car came out, and with many in the field unaware of this due to a communications drama from race control, Ethan was smashed into rear and thrown into the wall, essentially ending his race on Lap 4.

Left in the race was the ever fast Dayne, and Simon who would battle on in a car he rarely races. Dayne started the race very strongly indeed, picking off drivers at will in the early phases, however it became apparent in these conditions that the car did not have the longevity required to maintain pace across the stint. Poor rear traction and braking performance would cripple his late stint run, before being the fuel not start entering the car on his first stop, he would lose 13 seconds to his rivals and dropping back to 25th place.

Dayne would have to drive around the issues with the car and carve his way through to limit the damage. Ultimately he would have a great final run to finish in 12th place at the end of the race, but far from where his potential looked.

For Simon, inexperience with the car and the pit strategy would prove to make the race difficult. He would cross the line in 22nd place, but feels a top 15 went amiss through unforced errors in strategy.

It certainly wasn’t the debut performance we wanted in the V8 Supercar Online Premier Series, however we will fight on, we will improve in these areas, and we are looking forward to a cleaner Sunday evening of racing next time.

After three days and 18 hours of pre qualifying, The V8 Supercar Online Premier Series has broken records for the largest field to ever attempt to qualify for tonight’s round sitting at more than 160 entrants. The nature of the series is that only the top 80 will compete on Sunday, with the top 40 making the featured Top Split race.

Sitting at the top of the pile, on an Altus Esports V8SCOPS debut was Dayne Warren, being the only driver to dip into the 1:33s. Sam Blacklock and Ethan Warren have been very strong all week, and both sit within the top 13.

With Adam Zeitinger not yet able to race, Simon Feigl don the racing suit in a V8 for the first time since Bathurst 2017, and grinded out a top split start, setting the 31st best time

It’s going to be a thrilling opening round at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with a lot of anticipation for how this will actually turn out. Be sure to tune in to the iRacing Esports Network tonight to catch all the action LIVE

BROADCAST LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywvc6T8exJg

Logitech G Altus Esports has taken the win in Round 5, making it back-to-back NEO Endurance Series round wins in the ultra competitive GT class. As with the Suzuka round, Simone Maria Marcenò put the AE Porsche on pole position, and led the race from the front foot managing the traffic well in the afternoon sun.

Yannick Lapchin would take over the car and carry through car through from sunset into the darkness of the Ardennes forest. This would provide another challenge given the lack of track lighting on circuit, but would be one challenge Yannick was ready for. He was able to extend the gap back to MSI Esports and clinch the victory in what was a flag to flag race win.

With the championship points being calculated, Altus Esports jumps up to 2nd place in the championship, a mere 5 points behind championship leaders MSI Esports. The final round has become a real showdown, and the scene of the finale is the NEO 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Can. Not. Wait!

The iRacing Bathurst 12 Hour was a tough race and one full of attrition as it often is. Both the Logitech G and ASTRO Gaming Ferrari’s were caught out in a few incidents across the journey, and we wore the battle scars as many did when the chequered flag fell.

In the case of the Logitech G car, a front row start and setting the fastest lap of the race from Andrew Kahl showed the potential was there, however you also need a bit of luck to win at the mountain. Incidents would hit the team predominantly in the fourth hour when avoiding lapped traffic, and again later in the race where aero damage would kerb our available performance. In the end it was a very good recovery, to claim 7th place when dropping to around 20th and multiple laps down was a great achievement, as is making the finish of such a tough event. Congrats to Andrew, Simon & Vedran on this performance.

For the ASTRO Gaming Ferrari it was the debut in the top split of a special event, and the goal at the start of the race was to finish. They had their troubles particularly early on, but showed great grit and determination to see the race through and be rewarded with a top 15 finish of the 31 cars that competed in GT3. Well done to Dayne, Ethan and Sam on a job well done and achieving the goal set.

Big congratulations to the class winners Pure Racing Team & Williams Racing Esports, and to all podium finishers.

Last weekend the GTE Pro Qualifying Series took to the land of the Rising Sun, where Yannick Lapchin and Marin Čolak would compete in Race 1, and Vedran Kralj joining Yan for Race 3.

The first Race would boast a 6k strength of field however undeterred, Yan would dominate Qualifying proceedings with a Pole Lap almost a tenth and a half clear of Thrustmaster Mivano Racing who would join him on the Front Row.

Yan would build up an early 5 second lead over the first stint before a shortfill from second placed runner Vendaval Simracing Yellow would give the ASTRO Gaming car company for the second stint. The final pit stop would go to plan as Marin Colak would take the wheel of a second Porsche in 2 weeks at Motegi; swapping his 911 Cup car for the RSR. Sadly an intermittent hardware failure plaguing Marin’s gear selection would force the Team to drop behind Vendaval, but with a big enough margin; were able to secure Position 2 and 348 vital Championship Points. Needless to say, after the race

Race Three would see Yan go one better in qualifying; a staggering 0.25sec quicker than the Williams Esports car. Yan would once again do a phenomenal job through his stints fielding a tremendous amount of pressure being applied by McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris. Yannick led 65 of his 67 laps and handed the car to Vedran in the best place possible. However great pace from McLaren’s Simulator driver Rudy van Buren would see the ASTRO car relegated to P2 with just 13 laps to go; but after 3 hours of intense racing; just 4.1 seconds behind Team Redline’s “McLaren” team at the chequered flag.

These fantastic Podium results promote the ASTRO Gaming Altus Esports Team to 16th in the Championship; almost 10 spots clear of the Promotion Cut-Off into the World Championship in just a few months time. Next up sees the Team fly to Brazil; where NEO and SCO both produced great results previously so fingers are crossed for a Hat-Trick of Results at Interlagos.

The pair of Simone Maria Marcenò & Simon Feigl would drive together once again, looking to back up their second place finish on debut in the series, as achieved at Circuit of The Americas. On this occasion, the battleground would be Autódromo de Interlagos in Brazil with familiar foes Williams Racing Esports, Virtualdrivers by TX3 “Iracing” and CoRe SimRacing.

Simone would do an excellent job in qualifying, which would see them line up P4 on the grid. It was a fairly solid start for Simone before going on to make moves up the order. The boys decided to go for the safer even tyre strategy, thinking that the afternoon sun would be punishing for the tyres in the final hour, and gaining an undercut early and building a lead. As such, this turned out to be the alternative, with almost all teams opting to go long-long-long-short across the four hour race, taking no tyres for the final stint. This alternate view kept everyone guessing just how it would all turn out, with projections looking very even for both.

Simone would take the lead after the first hour and gaining the benefit of the undercut, before handing over to Simon with the final two hours remaining. Unfortunately for Simon, technical gremlins and an early 4:30am start would prove to make his morning eventful, with no iRacing spotter and no comms with teammate Marcenò. It wasn’t until the final pit stop with one hour to go that the radio was able to be resolved, and luckily they remained unscathed.

The final hour is when the two strategies would meet, and by the time that main competitor Williams Racing Esports at the hands of Alexander Voß had pitted, the challenge was set. 34 minutes and 20 seconds to claw back – a very difficult task.

Despite his valiant efforts, Simon able to bring the gap down to 6.3 seconds by the chequered flag, with traffic causing difficulties for both cars throughout the stint. While the win was not achieved, it was a fantastic race and thoroughly entertaining across the 4 Hours. Congratulations to Williams Esports on the win and CoRe SimRacing on their podium finish. Now onto 8 Hours if Silverstone in a few weeks time!

After a solid night’s racing in the Qualifiers, Tim Ryan would line up in P7 on the grid for the 55 lap finale. The pre-race warmup was perfect with Tim setting the fastest laps of the warmup, and confidence was high.

Within just a few laps had been able to climb up two places before the first caution on lap 2, and then climbed a further two places into 3rd place before an ambitious Aiden Purdue would hit into the side of Tim putting him into a spin. Whilst Aiden did get an immediate end of line penalty for the incident, unfortunately the damage caused from the contact gave Tim a meatball flag and ended his race on Lap 5.

A disheartening result for what looked like an exciting night’s racing, as the pace certainly looked to be there to challenge for the win. Congratulations to Cole Cabre and Driven Sim-Sport on taking the win.