Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team continues ESL R1 teams’ title defence

The series consists of both team and driver championships, with the three teams’ races having already taken place. Last year saw Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team win the teams’ championship in the ESL R1 x Gamers8 event in Riyadh. The online qualifiers for the teams’ championship started off strong with two race wins in the opening knockouts at Daytona, and the team placed fourth in the standings after the first round. The team went on to finish third after all three rounds.

Round 2: Orchard Road

The second circuit presented a distinctly different challenge to Daytona: From a high-speed track with long sweeping corners, to the tight and slow-speed street circuit of Orchard Road. Once again, three of the four drivers progressed through to the semi-finals. Dayne Warren was the only one to miss out after contact on the opening lap caused him to spin and from sixth to tenth. Despite a recovery drive, Warren missed out on the necessary top six places as he crossed the finish line in eighth. Mitchell deJong progressed through to the semi-finals, courtesy of a third place finish in the knockout, before making it through to the final with a fourth place result in the semi. Charlie Collins and Joshua Rogers both made it to the semi-final, with Rogers taking pole and winning his knockout event.

However, Collins qualified last for the semi-final and whilst Rogers lined up second on the starting grid, contact with Maximilian Benecke on the exit of Turn 1 caused Rogers to spin which created chaos on the opening lap. Rogers put in a spirited drive to climb up to sixth place, the final position that would qualify for the final, but the Australian was given a three-second time penalty post-race, preventing him from making the final. A seventh place finish for Collins meant he narrowly missed out on the all-important last race. DeJong, as the sole remaining Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team driver, lined up sixth on the starting grid for the final. That soon became fifth as he benefited from an opening lap collision that saw Team Redline’s Kevin Siggy drop to the back of the pack. The narrow streets meant the running order stayed largely unchanged from the end of the first lap, allowing DeJong to secure fifth place in the final, just over five seconds behind winner Benecke. Following that round, Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team maintained its fourth place in the teams’ championship, cutting the deficit to second-placed Williams Esports from 38 points after the first round to just 18 leaving Orchard Road.

Round 3: Monza

A return to a high-speed circuit also brought about a return to the team landing multiple race wins in the opening knockouts. Rogers and Warren were both victorious straight out the gate, and Collins also started off strong as he qualified third and finished second in his first race. DeJong started sixth, and dropping to eighth on the first lap, finished where he had started. However, the stewards gave him a post-race penalty time penalty which demoted the American by one position to see him narrowly miss out on the semi-finals. The first semi-final went well for Rogers and Collins, who started from first and fourth respectively. The pair ended up finishing line astern as Collins passed the Team Vitality driver of Marcell Csincsik for third on the inside of the first Lesmo on the final lap. At the same time, just ahead, Rogers lost his long-held race lead to Team Redline’s Luke Bennett. But second and third for Rogers and Collins gave the team some solid championship points and secured their place in the final. It was a difficult semi-final for Dayne Warren, who was the sole Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team driver in the following race. He qualified sixth but was swarmed by those around him in the opening few corners and was down to 10th by the end of the first lap. A mid-race time penalty further injured his hopes of progressing to the final, and he crossed the line 10th.

It was an encouraging qualifying session for the two remaining Porsche drivers, as Rogers lined up third on the starting grid, with Collins just one row behind in sixth. Collins lost a position in the first couple of turns, but ran as high as fifth as he benefited from incidents ahead before ultimately ending the running in seventh place. He was then handed a five-second time penalty for exceeding the incident points limit which demoted him to last place. Meanwhile, it was a much more successful event for defending champion Rogers. He and Bennett of Team Redline traded second and third places throughout the race, but a bold move around the outside of Parabolica on the final lap gave Rogers a quicker run to the chequered flag and he ended up securing the runner-up spot by a mere 0.01s. After all three rounds of the online qualifiers stage of the teams’ championship, Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team finished an impressive third out of 12 teams. The team’s strong results at Monza moved them ahead of Williams Esports, and behind only Team Vitality in second as well as the overall winners Team Redline. However the points standings will be reset once the competition progresses to the in-person finals held in Riyadh in August. Although Team Redline will get choice over the first few circuits in the next phase of the competition. Before then are the drivers’ championship online qualifiers. These will take place throughout the rest of June and into July, starting with the first round at Hockenheim on June 21. The second round is at Atlanta on June 28, followed by the third on July 5 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. All three rounds will be broadcast on the Porsche Twitch channel.