Rogers’ Brands Hatch Win Tightens Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup Title Race

August 17th, 2020 by

Halfway through the 2020 season, the battle for the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup looked to be down to three drivers. Saturday’s thriller at Brands Hatch only drove the point home further.

The trio of Sebastian Job, Joshua Rogers, and Alejandro Sanchez entered the event in the top three spots in points, and filled all three podium spots in both races from the venerable British circuit. Sanchez took the sprint race victory, but Rogers made the decisive move in the middle of the 30-minute feature to take the overall weekend win, his second of the season, to tighten the gap to Job for the championship lead.

Rogers’ streak of five straight pole positions in qualifying was snapped after a half-spin coming to the finish line on his final time trial lap, allowing Dayne Warren to score his first career pole. The eight-car inversion before the sprint race played to Sanchez’s advantage, as he started on the outside of the front row, got past Jamie Fluke for first on Lap 2, and extended a more than four second advantage over the field. Job fought from seventh on the grid to second, getting around Rogers, who had a two-position advantage on the grid.

The feature was a different story. Sanchez once again jumped out to the lead, but Rogers would assert himself in second place and shadow the Spanish driver for multiple laps. Finally, on Lap 11 of 22, he made his move, taking advantage as Sanchez opened the door to the inside line. The drivers raced one another cleanly even as they took the corners side by side, and Sanchez proved he could match Rogers’ pace by finishing just .346 seconds behind at the finish.

Fluke and Yohann Harth completed the top five, while Maximilian Benecke retained fourth in the standings despite falling further back of the top three with a sixth place run. Warren was involved in an incident on the second lap that dropped him from seventh to 27th, but he fought his way back to 18th at race’s end and remains the top rookie driver in the standings in fifth.

In the Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge, which ran earlier in the day, former Supercup driver Peter Berryman took the checkered flag after leading all 14 laps. Moreno Sirica, winner of the previous two rounds, continued his podium streak in second, while Matti Sipila was third.

Full results from the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup feature at Brands Hatch were as follows:

Fin.

St.

No.

Driver

Laps

Interval

Led

Best

Pts.
1 3 92 Joshua K Rogers 22 12 1:24.162 74
2 1 47 Alejandro Sánchez 22 -0.346 10 1:24.019 70
3 2 22 Sebastian Job 22 -1.764 0 1:24.399 70
4 4 49 Jamie Fluke 22 -5.727 0 1:24.289 55
5 5 90 Yohann Harth 22 -7.576 0 1:24.405 50
6 6 11 Maximilian Benecke 22 -8.651 0 1:24.466 48
7 8 98 Kevin Ellis Jr 22 -9.094 0 1:24.588 47
8 10 58 Tommy Østgaard 22 -9.913 0 1:24.553 37
9 9 31 David Williams 22 -10.572 0 1:24.652 36
10 11 2 Jeremy Bouteloup 22 -11.145 0 1:24.656 32
11 12 33 Ricardo Castro Ledo 22 -12.178 0 1:24.569 29
12 14 7 Jeff Giassi 22 -12.399 0 1:24.590 25
13 15 14 Marc Perez 22 -13.134 0 1:24.761 22
14 17 16 Mack Bakkum 22 -13.571 0 1:24.676 18
15 16 3 Sindre Setsaas 22 -16.055 0 1:24.760 17
16 21 24 Mitchell deJong 22 -16.631 0 1:24.695 10
17 18 107 Tuomas Tähtelä 22 -22.009 0 1:24.742 12
18 7 57 Dayne Warren 22 -22.319 0 1:24.524 32
19 23 77 Valtteri Alander 22 -24.150 0 1:24.785 7
20 19 10 Jack Sedgwick 22 -24.559 0 1:24.803 8
21 26 42 Matti Kaidesoja 22 -24.881 0 1:24.727 5
22 32 5 Martin Krönke 22 -25.551 0 1:24.945 4
23 13 21 Graham Carroll 22 -25.920 0 1:24.573 11
24 22 83 Bobby Zalenski 22 -32.828 0 1:24.816 2
25 25 27 Patrik Holzmann 22 -36.470 0 1:25.393 1
26 30 28 Alexander Thiebe 22 -42.501 0 1:24.388 0
27 27 211 Thibault Cazaubon 22 -42.523 0 1:25.324 0
28 24 36 Joshua W Anderson 18 -4 L 0 1:24.909 0
29 31 110 Christopher Dambietz 17 -5 L 0 1:24.700 0
30 28 23 Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola 1 -21 L 0 0
31 29 43 Brian Lockwood 1 -21 L 0 0
32 20 29 Carl E Jansson 0 -22 L 0 1

 

Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup points through six rounds are as follows:

  1. Sebastian Job, 360
  2. Joshua Rogers, 346
  3. Alejandro Sanchez, 333
  4. Maximilian Benecke, 285
  5. Dayne Warren, 246
  6. Jeff Giassi, 209
  7. Kevin Ellis Jr., 189
  8. Tommy Ostgaard, 186
  9. Sindre Setsaas, 158
  10. Jeremy Bouteloup/Graham Carroll (tie), 139

The Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup season continues in two weeks’ time with a visit to the legendary Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. As always, the race can be streamed live on the iRacing Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube channels, with the Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge kicking off the festivities at 9AM ET. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

Images via Justin Prince

Share Button

You may also like...

Recommended
iRacing 101: The NASCAR iRacing Series and Other Year-Long Series

Recommended
Steven Wilson scores ‘wild’ eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series win over Minter and Honeycutt at Dover

Recommended
Could the Top 20 cut line affect the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series playoff picture again in 2024?

Recommended
This Week in iRacing: April 23-29, 2024

Interested in special offers, free giveaways, and news?

Stay In Touch

Ad