Author: altusesports

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that Cube Controls has become an official partner of Logitech G Altus Esports. Cube Controls are a premium steering wheel rim manufacturer from Italy, and provide exceptional quality shifters and switches to suit high performance racing.

Also used by McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris, selected Altus Esports drivers will using the Cube Controls wheels for their iRacing exploits, including the super impressive brand new Formula CSX wheel rim.

Be sure to check out the Cube Controls website at https://www.cubecontrols.com find a wheel that suits you, and watch out for our review on the Formula CSX wheel once released in March.

We are completely speechless! WE DID IT!!! We won the iRacing 24 Hours of Daytona in TWO classes, the GTE and GT3 classes. Amazing! To make it even sweeter we got the trifecta in both classes too!

Pole Position – ACHIEVED
Fastest Lap – ACHIEVED
Race Win – ACHIEVED

It was a truly fantastic team effort from all involved, with this being the first Special Event win for any member of the team, and the first Special Event win by any Australian based team, including the first 24 Hour Official race win for an Australian and an Italian before. A massive milestone for our humble team! Also to do it on the first event with Day/Night transitions… that is something we won’t forget as well. What an experience – well done iRacing!

Individual congratulations to each of our winning drivers today.

Logitech G Altus Esports – Ferrari 488 GTE
Andrew Kahl
Simon Feigl
Yannick Lapchin

ASTRO Gaming Altus Esports – Mercedes-AMG GT3
Simone Maria Marcenò
Beau J Albert
Zachary Hanlin

This is a win, or wins, that we will celebrate for many days to come! Many thanks to our wonderful sponsors and partners:

Logitech G
ASTRO Gaming
Motum Simulation
Confederation of Australian Motor Sport – CAMS

Congratulations also to Coanda Simsport on winning the other class victory today, with the DP class. A dominant display from start to finish! Many thanks also to our rival competitors, who made the race enjoyable, and were also respectful throughout the race – Williams JIM Ξsports, Team Heusinkveld & Team Buschfink Racing.

With only a short time until the Chili Bowl, Sprint Car World Champion Tim Ryan has been busy tuning what we called ‘Black Beauty’, grinding lap after lap in the pursuit of perfection. But it is about time we dressed it up, and gave it the ILiveries treatment. Now this beauty is stunning!

We’re really happy with how it has turned out, and as part of a 2019 update, we’ve also decided to bring across the contour lines from our GT cars onto all of our Dirt cars too.

So tell us… what do you think of the new car? Reacts or comments encouraged!

After having an excellent 4th place at Belle Isle, in the first round of the Porsche Pro Qualifying Series, the story would prove to be a little more difficult. iRacing put through a change to how the type would be used on the car mid season, meaning that there would need to be an adjustment made to the car for it to suit the conditions.

Marin didn’t feel too confident entering the race, however would put that all aside to qualify the car in 8th place. An early squabble including some contact on the rear of his Porsche from some others, and this would ultimately cause Marin to drop behind Team Redline driver Guven, however as the race progressed he was able to open a cap to the car behind, as well close the gap to Guven in front.

He was never close enough to make a move though, and in the end would finish the qualifying race in 8th place. This latest finish sees Marin climb up the leaderboard slightly, despite lower than expected results. Marin now sits in P12 after 2 rounds and is well within the Top 20 to go through to the Porsche World Championship Series later in 2019.

Onto Motegi’s East course this week for what should prove to be another tight battle!

Round 4 of the NEO Endurance Series saw the Logitech G Altus Esports team head to the 6 Hours of Suzuka, and the first time the NEO Endurance Series has ever gone to the circuit. Altus would get off to a great start with many thanks to Simone Maria Marcenò, who put in a couple of storming laps towards the end of the sessions, to take Pole Position for the big race.

Simone would then get off to a good start in the very early morning start, and lead from the front opening a gap to the cars behind before the constant flow of LMP1 and LMP2 cars would come through. However despite the traffic, the chasing pack, and some deciding to try double stinting tyres earlier, Simone would hold firm and end each hour leading the race of his triple stint.

Andrew Kahl would then take over for the final triple stint, with the Australian looking to back up his last NEO outing with the win at COTA. He didn’t disappoint, as he was able to open a gap to the cars behind, and with the track a bit more clear was able to set some blistering times despite the warmer afternoon sun. Andrew would cross the line for another famous win for Logitech G Altus Esports, our second of the series.

Not to be outdone, the team achieved the Hat Trick, by obtaining Pole Position, Fastest Lap of the Race and the Race Win. An utterly dominant performance!

This latest win for the team, has revived hopes of the championship, by sitting in 4th place overall and only 9 points away from the championship lead held by MSI Esports. Despite a DNF in race 1, and an unlucky incident in Race 3 netting the team almost no points, the two race wins have kept them in the hunt with it all to play for!

Congratulations to the other class winners, and all podium finishers. See you at Spa for Round 5!

Having received an invite into the series just a short time before Round 4, and on an extremely busy weekend with lots of activity, we went into our first Sports Car Open race with our eyes on many other areas also.

However, having won the NEO Endurance Series race at COTA prior to the Day Night transitions update, we felt we had a strong baseline setup with the car and would only need to tweak slightly for it to be adaptable across the different conditions we would face. Also the winning duo on that occasion with Yannick Lapchin and Andrew Kahl, however due to availability in this race we would field an entirely new duo of Simone Maria Marcenò and Simon Feigl. For both, it was their first time driving together in almost a year, however the pairing was strong as if no time had passed.

Simone did an excellent job in qualifying setting the pole position time early, however as the weather changed late in the session those times were able to be eclipsed and we found ourselves sitting P7 on the grid. Simone found himself on the edge of a multi-car melee at Turn 1, but despite the damage was able to climb up the order in his double stint, scything through the pack and ultimately handling over the car in P2.

From that point, Simon would take over for the remainder of the race with the intention of double stinting the tyres to the finish line. However again Turn 1 would prove to be unfavourable, as upon Simon exiting the pits there was an altercation between a lapped GTE car and a LMP2 car, and we would be hit despite being an innocent bystander. With roughly a minute worth of repairs on the car, we were able to continue with our strategy, and drive a smooth first stint, followed by an even smoother second stint to take a comfortable 2nd place finish. Congratulations to Williams Racing Esports on taking the deserved win and pole position.

It was an excellent debut for the team in Sports Car Open, a series we are aiming on automatically qualifying for in our couple of races remaining. This second place finish however is a great start to achieving that goal.

In the second of our updates on one of the busiest weekends for the team, the ASTRO Gaming Altus Esports Ford GT was out racing at Monza, for Round 2 of the VRS GT Pro Qualifying Series, the road to the World Championship. On this occasion, it would be the debut for Yannick Lapchin in the series, and would be paired up with the experienced Vedran Kralj.

The pair had a bit of a scrappy first race by their own admission, including getting turned around when entering the pit lane, however it came together nicely in Race 3. Yannick put in an excellent job of getting the car towards the front group before handing over the Vedran for the final stop.

For Vedran, being a Montenegrin this was Christmas Eve for him, and the wish for a solid race came true with a run to the flag for an 8th place finish, however with P4 being only a few seconds up the road the pair could only think of what may have been.

Nevertheless, a strong result at Monza is in the bank, and the team is now sitting 12th overall after two rounds, and well within the Top 27 that would qualify into the World Championship later this year. Next up is Brands Hatch… bring it on!

Marin Čolak put together an exceptional result on Saturday in the Porsche Pro Qualifiers. This is the qualifying series with those who qualify will vy for a shot at the $100,000 USD prize pool later this year.

The very tricky Belle Isle race circuit would be a tough opening round for all involved, with the pressure on the nail that all important qualifying lap. Marin’s experience really came to the fore here, with a very strong 4th place on the grid, in what was a 7.5K SOF race.

As is the case with street circuits, the walls are closer, and the racing can often be bumper to bumper. Marin found himself sitting behind Pure Racing Team’s Alex Thiebe for the duration of the race, with pressure coming from Williams Racing Esports’ Moritz Löhner. The racing was ultra clean though, despite being perilously close to bumping eachother on several occasions, let alone the proximity to the walls. Ultimately Marin would hold onto the 4th place, and a very strong result in his highest SOF race ever.

Such is the competitive nature of the series, and many races being run with high SOF due to a very peculiar qualifying system implored by iRacing, Marin sees himself in 14th place with a little over a day to go. Solidly inside the Top 20 that qualify.

The next race is on the small Tsukuba circuit, where Marin will be looking to back up this performance with another strong showing. With no drop rounds in the 9 round series… there is very little margin for error.