The third round of the E1 Championship eSport series took place at the impressive and unforgiving Watkins Glen circuit today in the USA. For GT Radial Eurasia Motorsport drivers Inigo Anton and Joaquin ‘Wakkeen’ Garrido, it proved to be their most competitive combined showing of Season 1 to date. The former claimed a strong fourth and sixth positions, while the latter recovered brilliantly in the second race to gain 11 positions to claim a top ten result.
Inigo was right on the pace from the outset, recording the second-best time in practice before taking the provisional pole position. This time, however, his fourth pole eluded him, as gains right at the chequered flag consigned him to third position, albeit just 0.089 seconds from the pole.
With the series organisers opting to provide all competitors with a standard setup on the FRX-17s, something normally the team work incredibly hard to hone to the individual preferences of the driver, circuit, and specific strategy requirements, it was naturally a close double round in the USA.
The 15-minute Sprint saw Inigo maintain his third position from the start, despite a slowdown penalty for track limits having been pushed wide by a rival. This rather odd decision enabled the leading duo to make a break and work together to extend their advantage, courtesy of a highly effective triple DRS rule in this event. The race settled into groups all running DRS, therefore making it difficult to move further up the order.
Inigo maintained his position but heading into the final lap, was powerless to stop Ayman Aqeem from gaining the position. The fourth position was however his best result of Season 1 to date and set the stage nicely for race two.
Wakkeen, meanwhile, had a quiet first race to finish in 14th position. Unluckily for him the reverse grid for the second race ran from 13th, so there was no gain for the main 30-minute race. While the opening laps didn’t go as hoped, the middle and end of the 30-minute were impressive as he gained 11 positions in as many laps to record a top ten finish for the team.
Inigo started the final race from tenth and ran in the top eight for much of the time. A late-race push however did see him gain positions to finish in a fine sixth place for the GT Radial team.
Mark Goddard, Eurasia Motorsport Team Principal
“Inigo qualified third for race one, demonstrating once again he has good speed. He was unfortunate to be given a two-second slow down penalty after being forced wide in T1 and that lost him ground to the leaders. He enjoyed an exciting race with DRS-trains, and he did well to finish fourth. In the second race Inigo started 10th on the reversed grid race and he did well to finish sixth whilst Joaquin moved forward in both races gaining a top ten finish. It’s been a reasonable haul of points for GT Radial Eurasia Motorsport, and we now look forward to the next round at Suzuka.”
