Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup Preview: Le Mans

Just two rounds separate Sebastian Job from the lion’s share of a $200,000 prize pool, as the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup returns to Circuit de la Sarthe for the penultimate round of its 2020 season on Saturday. The world’s best road racers on iRacing will hit the track for a four-lap sprint race and eight-lap feature, hoping to score plenty of valuable points and improve their championship standing before next month’s season finale at Monza.

But for anyone to add their name to this season’s winners’ list as the fifth driver to take a checkered flag in the main event, they’ll have to get around Job. After a strong 2019 campaign that nonetheless wasn’t quite enough to challenge Joshua Rogers for the championship, the Red Bull Racing Esports driver has turned the tables this season with four wins to Rogers’ two. He’s also finished in the top five of every main event except for the second round of the season at Barcelona, a performance which he nonetheless bookended with wins in the opener at Zandvoort and third race of the year at Donington.

At this point, the championship itself appears to be a two horse race, with Alejandro Sanchez’s disappointing DNF last time out at the Nurburgring Nordschleife knocking him more than 100 points out of range of the lead. Rogers’ 84-point deficit will be a tough margin to make up, but stranger things have happened; after all, Job’s overall win at Spa-Francorchamps was worth 85 points thanks to his performance throughout the entire event, while plenty of drivers go home pointless every single week. Even if Rogers is back to his dominant ways of last season in the final two rounds, though, Job only needs to put in the same characteristic performances he’s had all season to lock things up.

The most compelling battle to end the year, then, might be for the 20th and final guaranteed license in the 2021 season. Mitchell deJong is currently the first driver on the outside looking in, as Ricardo Castro Ledo and deJong are separated by just seven points for the bubble spot. But while only one other driver is within 40 points of deJong, that same points range separates the bottom eight drivers who would be locked into next year if the season ended today. deJong’s most recent performances have shown a return to the speed that brought him to fourth in points last year; if he can maintain that without facing any more unlucky incidents, any one of the drivers ahead of him could find themselves the odd man out.

Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup action from Circuit de la Sarthe begins on Saturday at 10AM ET. As always, the race can be seen live on the iRacing Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube channels. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

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