DTM held the first round of its E-Sports Classic Challenge on Sunday, with two fifteen minutes race in a virtual Circuit Zolder in Belgium.
The races, held on online racing platform RaceRoom, were run with 1992 DTM cars from manufacturers Audi, BMW, Ford and Opel. The field was comprised of a number of real-life DTM stars and professional racers including the likes of reigning DTM champion Rene Rast, Fuji Dream Race winner Nick Cassidy, ADAC GT Masters champion Kelvin van der Linde and double DTM champion Gary Paffett. The field was completed by a number of e-sports racers, who were selected from the top 100 qualifiers for the event.
Robin Frijns took pole position for the opening race, but could not convert that into a win. The Dutchman started off well, but soon found himself under pressure from the quickest of the public qualifiers in Brodie Steen. Steen, racing a Ford Mustang, put the pressure on Frijns and ultimately managed to get past him.
Behind, the professional racers from Audi’s camp contested a fierce battle for the rest of the podium positions. Rast did battle with Van der Linde and narrowly secured the final podium spot when Kelvin van der Linde ran wide at turn one in the final stages. The South African briefly regained third, but was ultimately lost out and finished fourth behind Steen, Frijns and Rast. Robin Rogalski, who took part in Audi’s most recent rookie test, came home ahead in fifth ahead of Mike Rockenfeller, Nico Müller and Ferdinand Habsburg.
The top ten was completed by BMW’s Sheldon van der Linde and Nick Cassidy. Cassidy had been looking at a possible podium finish before he spun out halfway through the race.
The at times chaotic first race set the stages for an-all out scrap between the Audi stars for the second round. Race one winner Brodie Steen was nowhere to be found in qualifying due to connection issues, leaving him starting from the back. Kelvin van der Linde found his way to pole position for the second race.
The GT star led his Audi colleagues into the lead on the opening lap, but did not hold on to the lead for long as contact with his rivals allowed Nico Müller to slip through. The 2019 championship runner-up did not hold onto the lead for long, as Rene Rast soon made his presence felt and took the lead in a three-car scrap.
The German then got involved in an incident of his own as he was hit from behind by Müller under braking for the final chicane and was seen shooting through the gravel. He subsequently had to slow down for cutting the corner, dropping him down to fifth and handing the lead back to Müller. Müller was able to open up something of a gap and ultimately win, but behind him, carnage was far from over.
Kelvin van der Linde looked set for second place, until he ran wide on the exit of turn 3 and when rejoining, the 23-year-old managing to catch his sliding Audi in a drift that wouldn’t look out of place in a Fast and Furious movie, but it did result in him dropping out of the podium spots. He was able to recover in a final few laps that also saw Mike Rockenfeller get spun round and finish third behind Müller and Frijns.
Rast took fourth, ahead of Lucas Auer and Brodie Steen, who had an impressive recovery drive after his absence from qualifying to finish sixth ahead of Mike Rockenfeller.
The DTM E-Sports Classic Challenge resumes next week, when the races will be contested in cars from DTM’s 2013 campaign.
