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Formula 1

Tonizza wins Ferrari’s home F1 Esports race at Monza

by Nathan Quinn
3 min read

Defending F1 Esports champion David Tonizza won his and Ferrari’s home event at Monza, taking his second race victory in the 2020 F1 Esports Pro Series.

Tonizza took pole position for the ninth race of the season with championship leader Jarno Opmeer also starting from the front row.

Most of the top qualifiers started the race on the soft compound tyres, with fifth-placed driver Brendon Leigh the highest placed driver on the mediums.

That choice cost him two positions in the first two laps, with Opmeer’s nearest championship rival Frederik Rasmussen and then Alvaro Carreton passing him to put Leigh down to seventh on track.

Earlier pit stops for Carreton and Rasmussen meant they also jumped Leigh’s Mercedes team-mate Bono Huis.

Once Leigh switched over to the soft tyres the first driver he had to clear was Huis who put up little resistance.

On lap 10 of 19 Leigh overtook both Carreton, on the run to the Rettifilio chicane, and then Rasmussen on the inside of the della Roggia chicane.

Tonizza’s Ferrari team-mate Enzo Bonito – who started third – was Leigh’s next target and, since the Italian had dropped outside of DRS range from the two ahead of him, it was another easy move for two-time champion Leigh.

On the faster tyres Leigh was able to close down the two second gap to Opmeer in second to get within DRS range.

Despite both Leigh and Opmeer looking to pass the driver ahead of them, neither were able to as Tonizza held onto first place and took his second race win in this year’s Pro Series.

Leigh finished on the podium for the first time this year, but crucially championship leader Jarno Opmeer outscored all of his closest championship rivals.

Red Bull’s Rasmussen maintains second place in the championship as a final lap pass on Bonito meant he crossed the line in fourth and scored 12 points.

The other Red Bull driver of Marcel Kiefer was the slowest driver in Q3 and only gained two positions over the course of the race to grab eighth, meaning Alfa Romeo outscored Red Bull at Monza.

F1 Esports 2020 Monza Tonizza, Opmeer, Leigh Pic 1

The two point swing in the Italian team’s favour comes even after Daniel Bereznay started the race from last on the grid after failing to set a representative lap time in Q1 due to exceeding track limits at the Parabolica.

Bereznay ended the race down in 16th place and drops even further out of championship contention.

Another driver who had an outside chance at the drivers’ championship was Nicolas Longuet, however he was demoted from 9th to 12th in the race classifications due to a time penalty for breaching track limits.

It’s the second race in a row he’s received a penalty, the other a retrospective one given to him for contact with Tonizza in the race at Spa on Wednesday.

Having crossed the line in fourth place, the three-second penalty meant he actually finished the race in ninth and dropped 10-points.

Longuet, Rasmussen get F1 Esports wins – Opmeer’s lead cut
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With only one event left in the 2020 F1 Esports Pro Series, Jarno Opmeer has 153 points which is 19 points more than Rasmussen in second and 32 points over the other Red Bull driver of Kiefer.

No other driver has a triple figure points tally as Longuet and Bereznay both failed to score points at Monza.

Red Bull have maintained the constructors’ championship lead with 255 points, which gives them a 32 point advantage over Alfa Romeo with three races remaining.

The championship is set to head to Suzuka and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico on December 16, with the final race of the season – at Interlagos – the following day.

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