Gaming

Simoncic and Kasdorp become Sim Masters’ first oval winners

by Nathan Quinn
3 min read

Jernej Simoncic and Yuri Kasdorp won at Indianapolis in The Race All-Star Series – Powered by ROKiT Phones’ as the Sim Masters championship made its oval debut.

Williams Esports driver Michael Romanidis started from the front as he set the fastest time in qualifying by 13 thousandths of a second, while Simoncic was a consistent frontrunner at first having started in fifth place.

Contact between Simoncic and Monaco race winner Lucas Blakeley, who had worked his way up to fourth from 17th on the grid within four laps, isolated a leading pack early on.

Sim Masters

Simoncic cut in front of Blakeley’s car, which sent the F1 Esports driver spinning into the path of polesitter Romanidis and taking both out of race win contention.

The top two of Alen Terzic and Kamil Pawlowski were joined by Simoncic and later Erhan Jajovski caught up too to make it a four way scrap for the race win.

Pawlowski dramatically dropped away from the front pack as he lost control of his car at the final corner on lap 15 of 18 and speared into the right hand side wall, dropping him to eighth.

Jajovski was the next frontrunner to spin out as he wobbled when powering through Turn 2 on the penultimate lap and over corrected, resulting in a spin in which he narrowly avoided T-boning Simoncic’s car.

At the start of the final lap Terzic had the lead, but Simoncic took to the inside of the second to last corner to get ahead of him and win the first oval Sim Masters race.

Terzic ran so wide at Turn 3 that Mike Epps was also able to go to his inside for second place, and Terzic’s loss of momentum meant he didn’t even finish on the podium as the championship leader after Monaco, Liam de Waal, took third place away from him on the run to the line.

Pawlowski recovered to cross the finish line in fifth place, albeit over seven seconds behind race winner Simoncic.

The reversed-grid race gave Jajovski and Blakeley a second opportunity to win at Indianapolis.

With Jajovski starting in second and Blakeley in fourth, they were both able to maintain their spots near the head of the pack and both had brief stints in the lead.

Compared to the opener, the reversed-grid race featured far fewer spins and crashes as even halfway into the race the top nine drivers were separated by under two seconds.

Blakeley and Jan von der Heyde, the two race winners in Monaco and the only Sim Masters drivers still able to win $25,000 for completing the Triple Crown, touched one another with just over two laps to go.

The contact cost them enough time and momentum that they weren’t able to compete for the race win.

At the start of the final lap it was Jajovski leading but Kasdorp passed him at the inside of the first corner to take first.

Jajovski threatened to re-overtake him on the run to the finish line, but missed out by the smallest of margins.

Muhammed Patel crossed the line in third with Lars Brugman and Maciej Mlynek demoting Blakeley to sixth as the Scot ran wide on the exit of the final corner and made contact with the wall, costing him fourth position.

Von der Heyde, the only other Sim Master driver who could have completed the virtual Triple Crown, finished the reversed-grid race in eighth.

De Waal still holds the championship lead, with Patel two points behind him and Kasdorp a further six adrift.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • More Networks