Romain Grosjean has made his esports debut by representing his own recently launched R8G team in the third round of the BMW SIM 120 Cup.
He shared his BMW M8 GTE with sim racer Carlos Diegues in the two-hour-long race using the Nurburgring on iRacing.
Diegues drove in the first stint of the race as well as in qualifying, lining the team up in 21st position out of 45.
He avoided the early race crashes and spins to move up to 12th place after 10 minutes.
By the time Diegues pitted to hand the car over to Grosjean, he had slipped down to 22nd.
Despite only getting back into sim racing a matter of weeks ago after a 10 year break, Grosjean proved to be quicker than his team-mate and set about making up some of the lost positions.
He first overtook Alexander Wolters in the Triple A Esports White car, the organisation that R8G esports is in collaboration with, for 21st.
Other drivers pitting and retiring, as well as an overtake on Alex Palou of Team Fordzilla Spain, promoted Grosjean into a high of 17th.
While Grosjean did briefly run in 16th place by overtaking the Astro Gaming Altus Esports team, he ran wide at the exit of the Turn 14/15 chicane and took all four wheels off the circuit.
That gave Grosjean a slowdown penalty and dropped him to 19th, but a later successful overtake on the Astro Gaming car as well as a disqualification for Pure Racing Team meant Grosjean finished in 17th place, gaining five positions during his one hour long stint.
Max Verstappen also took part in the race, and achieved a podium finish alongside his Team Redline Black team-mate Max Benecke – who had denied him a Porsche Supercup victory earlier in the weekend.
Up at the front it was a BS COMPETITION 1-2 finish with the number 89 car leading the majority of the race, but a spin with seven minutes to run handed first place over to the number 7 car.
They swapped positions back at the start of the final lap, as a slowdown penalty for the number 7 car, piloted by Nils Koch, for track extending at the final chicane allowed the 89 car back through and into the lead.
Car 89 drivers Laurin Heinrich and Alexander Voss won $1200 each for finishing first while Kay Kaschube and Koch in the number 7 car earned $600 each.
Verstappen was unable to catch up to either BS COMPETITION car during his stint, and crossed the line in third place and 15 seconds off the win.
The BMW SIM 120 Cup is one of two esports championships run by BMW, with the other one being the BMW SIM M2 CS Racing Cup on rFactor 2.
In both championships the podium finishers win prize money and the winners bag themselves a spot in BMW’s SIM Live in-person event to be held at the end of the year.
