Ahead of the festive break, the fifth round of the inaugural E1 Championship took place Thursday at Spa-Francorchamps and for GT Radial Eurasia Motorsport, the Belgian round of the series saw an upswing in form, culminating in a fine podium position in the Sprint race.
Inigo Anton and Joaquin ‘Wakkeen’ Garrido maximised their own chances during the evening of e-sports competition, the former setting the pace in final practice before claiming a sensational pole position at the head of the field.
Having practised his race starts well in the week ahead of the event, the pressure of having the field behind him perhaps played a small role Anton running in too deep into La Source at the start. The young Filipino racer got his head down having dropped to fourth position and was then embroiled in a great battle for position with Yevan David. Anton ultimately got the better of his rival in the closing stages to record a strong virtual podium position.
Garrido meanwhile qualified in 11th position and the 15-minute Sprint race saw him move into the top ten, before recording a solid ninth-place finish to give him fourth position for the 30-minute reverse grid race.
With the tyre wear multiplier turned up to four, there was some doubt that the E1 racers could complete the race with just one stop. Both GT Radial drivers achieved this, with Anton pushing through from tenth position on the grid to finish in sixth, while Garrido enjoyed his opening lap to run in second position.
A late-race puncture, however, denied him a stronger result, but ultimately the timing of the issue was somewhat fortunate in that he was able to pit for tyres and continue the race to finish in 13th position.
The championship takes a break for the Christmas period now, resuming in January with the final three rounds of season zero.
Mark Goddard, Eurasia Motorsport Team Principal
“Inigo did a great job to secure the pole position; his pace was very impressive. A small mistake at the start dropped him down the order, and perhaps we lacked a little in pure race performance pace. Still, the third position, and then the sixth position in the reverse grid race was a much more positive outcome compared to Imola.
“Wakkeen was both fortunate and unfortunate with his puncture. It’s unfortunate it happened at all, but it occurred at the end of the lap and not at the beginning, so he was able to pit within the tyre window for fresh tyres.
“We had a pretty good setup on the cars, less downforce but not as low as some of the others, so, all in all, it was a good team effort and both drivers continue to learn a great deal about working with the data, something so important for both e-sports racing as well as real-life competition.”
