Category: Featured Other Series

With just two-races left to go, the FIA ABB Formula E Series continued their Race At Home Series on Saturday, by competing at the virtual New York for Round No. 6 of 8.

Both the Challenge Series and the Driver’s Grid, saw a incident filled race, while the competition was competitive and quite possibly, one of the best races that has taken place in the virtual Race At Home Series.

Challenge Series

After dominating last week at Berlin, BMW i Andretti driver, Kevin Siggy had high hopes of continuing his winning ways this week at the virtual New York.

In order to do so, Siggy among his other competitors, would have to have a decent qualifying starting position. For Siggy, he qualified on pole position with a time of 1:11.040. Lucas Mueller would place second, while Petar Brljak were the top three. Mueller did have the fastest lap for the moment, before Siggy took the top spot away narrowly edging Mueller by 0.125 seconds.

Coming into Round No. 6, Siggy had a 33 point lead over Brljak.

As the event went green, almost all the drivers made it through without an incident. However, Jacob Ried in the Venturi Racing entry, made a dive bomb move at the bottom in Turn 5, which caused an incident with a couple of drivers. After doing so, the series officials gave Reid a drive-thru penalty. Reid would continue to have issues throughout the race, as he would be credited with a 20th place finish.

Meanwhile, Mahindra Racing’s Markus Keller would end up spinning around by himself in one of the turns. Other sim racers, Joshua Rogers and Cem Bolukbasi also had troubles of their own by making contact with each other as well. A few laps later on lap 11, Bolukbasi ended up spinning again.

Despite these incidents, Siggy continued to pull away from the field with an impressive 10-second lead over second place. Eventually, the BMW i Andretti driver, would pick up another victory to his name in the Challenge Series. When Siggy crossed the finish line as the winner, he was 12-seconds ahead of second place finisher Jan von der Heyde. Siggy led wire-to-wire by leading all 15 laps.

By scoring the victory, Siggy increased his points lead over Peyo Peev and now leads the way with 53 points.

“The race was just about managing the pace and securing the extra point for fastest lap,” Siggy said. “I just pushed to the end to see how far I could go and fortunately it all worked out in the end.”

Driver’s Grid

As for the driver’s grid, Mercedes-Benz driver, Stoffel Vandoorne set the pace in qualifying by having the fastest lap time of 1:11.158 seconds. Vandoorne was looking for his first victory in the virtual challenge series, despite having four poles.

Before the race started, Mahindra Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein, had to give up his second place starting position, due to a collision the previous week with Maximilian Günther at Berlin. Therefore, Wehrlein was seen a five race grid penalty and started in the seventh position instead.

When the lights went out at the virtual New York, contact was made with several drivers in Turn 5. The unluckiest person being involved in the incident was, Günther who had taken over Wehrlein’s starting position in second. After the collision, Günther was sent all the way back to 19th.

Throughout the virtual event, there was more action seen everywhere in the racing field. On lap 3, Sebastien Buemi casually spun before getting it together after contact with drivers Oliver Turvey and Andre Lotterer. At lap 11, Wehrlein made a big slide with a bump from Oliver Rowland and Neel Jani, who was all over the back of Wehrlein. Like Buemi, Werhlein saved his vehicle from further incident.

After a close spin by Wehrlein, Rowland and Jani continued to battle for the podiums, making it a thrill to watch between the three drivers. Jani in the TAG Heuer Porsche, actually ended up spinning himself out in Turn 1 on lap 14 of 15.

While that was going on, this allowed race-leader, Vandoorne to stretch his lead and gap with the lead. The Mercedes-Benz driver would finally score his first checkered flag in the Race At Home Series Challenge, after once again, starting on the pole.

“It has taken a while before getting here to win a race!,” Vandoorne said. “Today was a perfect result; pole position, race win and also the fastest lap, so it has been a good day in the office. It has been coming for a long time, today we were just faster and did not have any problems. That was kind of 99 percent the job done.”

With the victory, Vandoorne leads over Wehrlein by one point in the championship points standings heading into the final two races next weekend, including the double points event at Berlin next Sunday.

By scoring the victory, Stoffel Vandoorne was also awarded the TAG Heuer fastest lap of the race.

Next weekend will mark the final events of the Race At Home Challenge hosted by the FIA ABB Formula E Series. The driver who ends up winning the championship in the Challenge Series, will get to drive a real life Formula E car on a race weekend. There will be two events slated for the entire weekend. The first on Saturday June 6 at the virtual New York, which will serve as the penultimate race. While, on Sunday June 7, Berlin will be the grand finale of the series, serving as a double header championship points event

Official Driver Grid Results

1. Stoffel Vandoorne
2. Pascal Wehrlein
3. Oliver Rowland
4. Antonio Felix da Costa
5. Neel Jani
6. Mitch Evans
7. James Calado
8. Sebastien Buemi
9. Oliver Turvey
10. Andre Lotterer
11. Ma Qing Hua
12. Maximilian Günther
13. Robin Frijns, OUT, Did Not Finish
14. Alexander Sims, OUT, Did Not Finish
15. Nyck de Vries, OUT, Did Not Finish
16. Brendon Hartley, OUT, Did Not Finish
17. Felipe Massa, OUT, Did Not Finish
18. Jean-Eric Vergne, OUT, Did Not Finish
19. Jerome D’ Ambrosio, OUT, Did Not Finish
20. Edoardo Mortara, OUT, Did Not Finish
21. Nico Mueller, OUT, Did Not Finish
22. Lucas di Grassi, OUT, Did Not Finish
23. Sam Bird, OUT, Did Not Finish

Official Driver’s Grid Points Standings

1. Stoffel Vandoorne, 105 points
2. Pascal Wehrlein, 104 points
3. Maximilian Günther, 73 points
4. Oliver Rowland, 58 points
5. Robin Frijns, 48 points
6. Neel Jani, 35 points
7. Nico Mueller, 29 points
8. Edoardo Mortara, 27 points
9. Antonio Felix da Costa, 26 points
10. James Calado, 25 points
11. Oliver Turvey, 22 points
12. Nick Cassidy, 19 points
13. Andre Lotterer, 13 points
14. Mitch Evans, 10 points
15. Sebastien Buemi, 9 points
16. Nyck de Vries, 6 points
17. Felipe Massa, 4 points
18. Jerome D’ Ambrosio, 2 points
19. Ma Qing Hua, 2 points
20. Alexander Sims, 1 point
21. Jean-Eric Vergne, 0 points
22. Lucas di Grassi, 0 points
23. Brendon Hartley, 0 points
24. Sam Bird, 0 points

Official Challenge Grid Results

1. Kevin Siggy
2. Jan von der Heyde
3. Joshua Rogers
4. Cem Bolukbasi
5. Peyo Peev
6. Kush Maini
7. Nuno Pinto
8. Arjan Veltens
9. Alisdair Irvine
10. Petar Brljak
11. Lucas Mueller
12. Niek Jacobs
13. Markus Keller, OUT, Did Not Finish
14. Ozgur Benzes, OUT, Did Not Finish
15. Scott Sovik, OUT, Did Not Finish
16. Ben Hitz, OUT, Did Not Finish
17. Axel La Flamme, OUT, Did Not Finish
18. Yifei Ye, OUT, Did Not Finish
19. Armando Iannaccone, OUT, Did Not Finish
20. Jacob Reid, OUT, Did Not Finish
21. Charlie Martin, OUT, Did Not Finish
22. Noah Reuvers, OUT, Did Not Finish
23. Mike Channell, OUT, Did Not Finish
24. Verena Mei, OUT, Did Not Finish

Official Challenge Grid Standings

1. Kevin Siggy, 129 points
2. Peyo Peev 76 points
3. Lucas Mueller, 73 points
4. Petar Brljak, 71 points
5. Joshua Rogers, 60 points
6. Jan von der Heyde, 50 points
7. Cem Bolukbasi, 24 points
8. Nuno Pinto, 23 points
9. Jacob Reid, 20 points
10. Niek Jacobs, 16 points
11. Ben Hitz, 15 points
12. Oli Pahkala, 12 points
13. Erhan Jakovski, 10 points
14. Marius Golombeck, 10 points
15. Kush Maini, 9 points
16. Arjan Veltens, 8 points
17. Remco Majoor, 6 points
18. Kuba Brzezinski, 6 points
19. Jim Parisis, 6 points
20. Markus Keller, 6 points
21. Alisdair Irvine, 4 points
22. Noah Reuvers, 1 point
23. Alex Lynn, 1 point

Coming into Round No. 5 of the virtual FIA ABB Formula E Series event, BMW i Andretti Formula E’s team were hoping for a better turnaround than last weeks event after failing to the finish the race at the virtual Hong Kong.

Speaking of the Berlin race track (Tempelhof Airport), Maximilian Günther was heading into his home racetrack and was seeking to provide a respectable finish in front of his fans. Günther, qualified in the fifth position with a time of 1:09.596, as qualifying was held prior the virtual race.

When the race went green, Günther managed track position and running inside the top-10. However, Mahindra’s Pascal Wehrlein and the Andretti’s Günther collided with each other. Due to the incident, Günther was sent into the wall and wounded up spinning out. The Andretti driver fell back to eighth in the running order, but was able to gain one more position in the final results, as the German native ended up finishing seventh at his home racetrack.

For Günther, it was all he could savage and looks forward to the next event.

“After qualifying and the start here, I was actually in a good position to reach the podium, but in my opinion it was an overly harsh action that cost me the race. My car nearly overturned after the collision with Pascal Wehrlein and it was severely damaged. Finishing seventh and scoring some championship points was the best I could do in that situation. It was damage limitation.”

His teammate, Alexander Sims, started 22nd after qualifying. Though, Sims had a difficult time working his way up through the field as track position proved to be key. The English native picked off several positions before the virtual event ended, but could not finish much higher than 15th as Sims ran out of time.

“It was nice to drive in Berlin this time. I felt more at home here than on other circuits and I had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, my speed is still not that good but my driving was more consistent this time and I improved by a few places. Just like in Hong Kong recently, I struggled again with some of the settings on my simulator. That is another consequence of my lack of experience but I think I’ll have it under control for the next race.“

Meanwhile, in the Challenge Series, team driver Kevin Siggy picked up the victory after dominating the race and leading all 15-laps.

The FIA ABB Formula E Series continued their virtual racing series Saturday afternoon in support of UNICEF (United Nations Children Fund).

This week the series came to Temelhof Airport, located in Berlin, and was the site for Round No. 5 of 8 for the Driver’s and Challenge Series grid.

Mahindra Racing driver, Pascal Wehrlein has dominated the virtual series the last couple of weeks by winning two consecutive races in a row. When the series arrived virtually at Tempelhof Airport, many thought Wehrlein would once again prevail and strike for a third consecutive win. Though, while Wehrlein was unable to score the victory, a familiar but a different name was on top.

Nissan e.dams driver, Oliver Rowland proved victorious for his second victory in the virtual series after he overtook Mercedes-Benz Stoffel Vandoorne (twice in the race). Vandoorne had a strong outing, as he would qualify on the pole and led for some parts of the race, before falling short and finishing second to Rowland. Despite the domination from Vandoorne and Rowland being class of the field, as well as Daniel Abt (more on that later), they had to survive and avoid another first-turn, first-lap chaos that pursued. Though, they were able to make it through the incident unscathed.

Afterward, Rowland had raced 15-clean laps en route to his second victory of the virtual series. Though, the English native notes that the last few weeks have not gone as he had hoped.

“After the last few weeks, I have been a bit unfortunate, so I was keen to just stay out of trouble,” Rowland said. “When they started fighting in front of me, I took the opportunity when it came! I was a little worried because Stoffel was so fast. I had to be perfect and then in those last few laps, I was so nervous. I was just trying to hold it together.”

Even though Vandoorne finished second in the event, he claimed the fastest lap of the day with a time of 1:09.249.

“A mixed bag with this race, for a couple of reasons. The pace was very good again. Julius Baer pole position number three, so picking up a couple of points for that. I had a fairly good start, getting into the lead but losing it through some aggressive fighting with car number 66. In the closing stages, I managed to catch up to the back of Oliver Rowland with two laps to go but there was not real opportunity to get past him cleanly. So, another P2 and a fastest lap as well makes this an overall good performance. Victory feels around the corner, I need to keep it clean in these races and finish off the job. On to the next one!”

While Rowland was victorious, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler’s Daniel Abt ran into trouble as he would be disqualified from the race for misconduct. In doing so, the German was stripped of all his points and will make a donation of E10,000 ($10,904 in U.S. dollars) to a charity of Abt’s choice.

“I would like to apologize to Formula E, all of the fans, my team and my fellow drivers for having called in outside help during the race on Saturday,” Abt said. “I did not take it as serious as I should have. I gone into this project on the part of the Formula E organization. I am aware that my offense has a bitter aftertaste, but it was never meant with any bad intention. Of course, I accept the disqualification from the race. In addition, I will donate 10,000 Euros to a charitable project.”

Meanwhile, in the Challenge Series that features some of the top sim racers in the world, also saw chaos during their race as well.

Lorenz Hoering, also saw a disqualification from the event, and was also disqualified for the remaining rounds of the virtual series.

While Hoering’s incident was unfortunate, BMW’s Kevin Siggy completely dominated the event as he would set the fastest lap in qualifying and led all 15-laps to victory.

“The Berlin track was a good addition to the competition, and it was fun to learn,” Siggy said. “I was really happy about my pace in qualifying. In the race, I managed to hold my pace in Turn 1, and I got lucky that I did not get hit or pushed wider than I did. I am a bit gutted that I did not get the TAG Heuer fastest lap as well, but next time I am hoping I do the same.”

While Wehrlein finished third in the event, the Mahindra driver still leads the Championship points standings over Stoffel Vandoorne by eight points, 86 over 78.

Official Driver’s Grid Results

1. Oliver Rowland, led 8-laps
2. Stoffel Vandoorne, led 2-laps
3. Pascal Wehrlein
4. Edoardo Mortara
5. Nico Mueller
6. Maximilian Guenther
7. Andre Lotterer
8. Antonio Felix da Costa
9. Mitch Evans
10. Neel Jani
11. Sbeastien Buemi
12. Robin Frijns
13. Felipe Massa
14. Alexander Sims
15. Oliver Turvey
16. James Calado
17. Ma Qing Hua
18. Jean-Eric Vergne
19. Jerome D’Ambrosio
20. Sam Bird
21. Brendon Hartley
22. Lucas di Grassi
23. Nyck de Vries- Disqualified for spinning Oliver Turvey intentionally
24. Daniel Abt-Disqualified

Challenge Series Grid Results

1. Kevin Siggy, led all 15-laps
2. Petar Brljak
3. Lucas Mueller
4. Peyo Peev
5. Marius Golombeck
6. Niek Jacobs
7. Jan von der Heyde
8. Jacob Reid
9. Markus Keller
10. Kush Maini
11. Jim Parisis
12. Ben Hitz, OUT
13. Alisdair Irvine, OUT
14. Cem Bolukbasi, OUT
15. Nuno Pinto, OUT
16. Noah Reuvers, OUT
17. Arjan Veltens, OUT
18. Chris Shepherd, OUT
19. Axel La Flamme, OUT
20. Archie Hamilton, OUT
21. Lionel O’ Connor, OUT
22. Scott Sovik, OUT
23. Charlie Martin, OUT
24. Lorenz Hoerzing, Disqualified

Championship Points Standings Driver’s Grid

1. Pascal Wehrlein, 86 points
2. Stoffel Vandoorne, 78 points
3. Maximilian Guenther, 73 points
4. Robin Frijns, 48 points
5. Oliver Rowland, 43 points
6. Nico Mueller, 29 points
7. Edoardo Mortara, 27 points
8. Neel Jani, 25 points
9. Oliver Turvey, 20 points
10. Nick Cassidy, 19 points
11. James Calado, 19 points
12. Antonio Felix da Costa, 14 points
13. Andre Lotterer, 12 points
14. Nyck de Vries, 6 points
15. Sebastien Buemi, 5 points
16. Felipe Massa, 4 points
17. Ma Qing Hua, 2 points
18. Mitch Evans, 2 points
19. Alexander Sims, 1 point
20. Jean-Eric Vergne, 0 points
21. Lucas di Grassi, 0 points
22. Brendon Hartley, 0 points
23. Sam Bird, 0 points
24. Daniel Abt, 0 points

Team Standings

1. Mahindra Racing, 88 points
2. Mercedes-Benz EQ, 84 points
3. BMW i Andretti Motorsport, 74 points
4. Envision Virgin Racing, 67 points
5. Nissan e.dams, 48 points
6. TAG Heuer Porsche, 37 points
7. ROKiT Venturi Racing, 31 points
8. GEOX Dragon, 29 points
9. NIO 333, 22 points
10. Panasonic Jaguar Racing, 21 points
11. DS TECHEETAH, 14 points
12. Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler, 0 points

Challenge Grid Championship Points Standings

1. Kevin Siggy, 102 points
2. Lucas Mueller, 73 points
3. Petar Brljak, 70 points
4. Peyo Peev, 66 points
5. Joshua Rogers, 45 points
6. Jan von der Heyde, 32 points
7. Jacob Reid, 20 points
8. Nuno Pinto, 17 points
9. Niek Jacobs, 16 points
10. Ben Hitz, 15 points
11. Olli Pahkala, 12 points
12. Erhan Jajovski, 10 points
13. Marius Golombeck, 10 points
14. Remco Majoor, 6 points
15. Kuba Brzezinski, 6 points
16. Jim Parisis, 6 points
17. Markus Keller, 6 points
18. Noah Reuvers, 1 point
19. Alex Lynn, 1 point
20. Kush Maini, 1 point

Up Next: The FIA ABB Formula E Series continues their virtual series next Saturday for Round No. 6 of 8.

The FIA ABB Formula E Series continued their “Race At Home Series” today at the virtual Hong Kong circuit. It was round No. 4 of 8 for the virtual series.

After scoring the victory in last-weeks virtual series challenge, Mahindra Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein was hoping to keep his impressive performance streak going. However, when the series arrived at the virtual Hong Kong, Mahindra Racing E-sport driver Lucas Muller and Wehrlein completely set the standards for the Formula E field, as Muller went on to win the Challenge Series that features some of the top E-Sports drivers in the world, while Wehrlein won his second consecutive race.

Challenge Series

Before the actual race, qualifying took place in wet conditions, but the race was run in dry conditions. However, it wasn’t all Muller as Porsche’s Joshua Rogers qualified on the pole position. When the lights went out, the event was mainly a clean race barring a couple of incidents. Up until the last-lap, Rogers had lead every lap, before Muller made a dive bomb move going into Turn 1 on the last-lap of the race. Rogers could not catch Muller, as Muller would set the pace and drive away from Rogers to take the win in at the virtual Hong Kong.

“I’m still a little bit speechless,” Muller said in the YouTube broadcast following the victory. “I can’t quite believe what happened, because I didn’t expect to fight for the win. I think he (Joshua) Rogers did a mistake in the chicane and after that, I was just closing in and getting faster. I thought it (taking the win) couldn’t happen, but it did.”

Drivers Series

Like the Challenge Series, qualifying was seen in wet conditions, while the race only saw dry conditions. For qualifying, Edoardo Mortara of Venturi Racing qualified on the pole position with a time of 1:11.523.

Though, unlike the Challenge Series, where the race was mostly clean, the driver’s grid saw multiple incidents throughout the 15-lap event. In fact, the virtual Hong Kong saw a total number of 307 incidents. As the race went green, the drivers dove down into the first-turn of the race like they always do. However, many of the drivers except the first two positions went crashing into Turn 1. Due to the small corners and chicanes of the track layout, a lot of driver were stuck and piled into each other which created a big mess. Two drivers had difficulty off the start. One, was the championship leader, the 22-year old Maximilian Günther jumped the start and was given a drivers penalty. Eventually, Jean-Eric Vergne also had troubles of his own. After the accident, Vergne suffered too much damage to continue on and was regulated to a 24th place finish, last on the grid.

Until lap 5 of the race, it was all Venturi’s Mortara who had held the lead after the lap 1 chaos. However, he had an incident of his own, where missed the chicane. This allowed last-weeks winner, Pascal Wehrlein to take the lead. While Wehrlein took the lead and held the pace, Günther continued to experience difficulty as he would crash in one of the chicanes. This saw the Venturi driver fall all the way back to 19th and eventually eliminated due to the Battle Royal format. Since Günther was unable to finish, he would lose the championship points lead for the virtual series.

Meanwhile, Wehrlein stretched his lead and eventually took the checkered flag at the virtual Hong Kong. It was the second consecutive victory for Wehrlein in this series.

“Today was a bit special with qualifying in the wet conditions,” Wehrlein said in the YouTube broadcast. “That was unexpected for everyone, but in the race, it was a bit chaotic at the beginning. My car was actually a bit damaged, the steering wheel was to the left. I was fast in dry conditions as well and I brought it (the win) home.”

With the victory, Wehrlein has taken over the Championship Points Standings from Maximilian, as Wehrlein leads the German over five points with 70 total points currently. Günther fell to second and has 65 points overall in the Championship standings.

Official Results of the Driver’s Grid Challenge

1. Pascal Wehrlein, led 11-laps
2. Stoffel Vandoorne
3. James Calado
4. Nyck De Vries
5. Edoardo Mortara, led 5-laps
6. Antonio Felix da Costa
7. Robin Frijns
8. Oliver Turvey
9. Sebastien Buemi
10. Oliver Rowland
11. Qinghua Ma
12. Mitch Evans
13. Daniel Abt
14. Nico Mueller, OUT, Suspension
15. Andre Lotterer, OUT, Suspension
16. Neel Jani, OUT, Suspension
17. Jerome D’ Ambrosio, OUT, Suspension
18. Felipe Massa, OUT, Suspension
19. Maximilian Günther, OUT, Suspension
20. Sam Bird, OUT, DNF
21. Lucas Di Grassi, OUT, Suspension
22. Alexander Sims, OUT, Suspension
23. Brendon Hartley, OUT, Suspension
24. Jean-Eric Vergne, OUT, Accident
    

Official Challenge Series Results

1. Lucas Mueller
2. Joshua Rogers
3. Kevin Siggy
4. Peyo Peev
5. Petar Brljak
6. Nuno Pinto
7. Jan von der Heyde
8. Jim Parsis
9. Niek Jacobs
10. Ben Hitz
11. Lorenz Hoerzing
12. Alisdair Irvine
13. Noah Reuvers
14. Axel La Flamme
15. Marius Golombeck
16. Scott Sovik
17. Markus Keller
18. Gareth Paterson
19. Charlie Martin
20. Jacob Reid
21. Jeol Eriksson
22. Zexuan Liu
23. Remco Majoor, Did Not Start

Up Next: The FIA ABB Formula E Virtual Series continues next Saturday with Round 5 of 8 of the Race At Home Series Challenge.

Formula 1’s French team, Renault DP announced today, that current driver and Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo will not be apart of their driver lineup following the 2020 F1 season and beyond.

The team was unable to reach to a new contract to keep Ricciardo in its current place with the team. Renault’s Engineer, Cyril Abiteboul says that despite the news, their current goals for the season has remain unchanged should Formula 1 be able to get on-track this season.

Ricciardo took to Twitter and discussed his comments about not being with the team moving forward.

I am so grateful for my time with @renaultf1team and the way I was accepted into the team. But we aren’t done and I can’t wait to get back on the grid this year. My next chapter isn’t here yet, so let’s finish this one strong. Merci pic.twitter.com/YFfzbwrgD7

— Daniel Ricciardo (@danielricciardo) May 14, 2020

Since the news broke, Formula 1’s McLaren made an announcement that Ricciardo instead will be apart of their new lineup in 2021, as their current driver Carlos Sainz JR departs the team for the empty spot at Scuderia Ferrari with Sebastian Vettel announcing early week he will not be at the team following this season as well.

During his time with Renault, Ricciardo has earned 21-starts that came last-year in 2019 and a best finish of fourth at Monza.