until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
World’s Fastest Gamer winner Rudy van Buren won the GT Pro Series feature race at Imola, as Williams Esport’s Nikodem Wisniewski was victorious in the earlier sprint race.
Peyo Peev took pole position for the sprint but proved to have greater single-lap speed than race pace.
Peev dropped behind Wisniewski and McLaren’s Kevin Siggy, and on the run to the Piratella corner Red Bull esports’ driver Joni Tormala pulled alongside and pushed Peev off track.
That aggressive move gave Erhan Jajovski space on the left of the circuit to pass Peev and Tormala and take what would go on to be the final podium place, behind winner Wisniewski and Siggy.
The feature race uses a reversed-grid of the top 10 from the sprint race, and Kevin van Dooren passed Manuel Biancolilla for 10th place by the slimmest margins on the run to the finish line to secure the feature race pole, ahead of van Buren.
That overtake was crucial not only in terms of championship points, but also as it gave van Dooren pole position for the main race and with van Buren in second it was a Team Redline top two at the start.
However, after being passed by van Buren, Van Dooren established an unchallenged second place before his engine failed late in the race.
That left van Buren as Team Redline’s only points scoring driver and he beat the real world Lamborghini factory driver Dennis Lind – five seconds adrift in second – ahead of Arne Schoonvliet.
Despite his sprint race win, things didn’t go to plan for Williams’ Wisniewski. Peev – following his sprint race drama – backed up a train of cars battling for fifth place.
As more and more cars lined up behind Peev the close proximity running eventually led to crashes and spins.
Wisniewski and Tormala came together at the Tamburello chicane with both cars trying to make the first apex and Tornala was sent off into the gravel and down from seventh to 16th.
However, Wisniewski was not let off the hook, as he was given a drive through penalty, likely for that crash. He was eventually disqualified from the race for not serving his penalty.
After Siggy had beaten Jajovski in the sprint race, the roles were reversed in the feature as Jajovski headed home Siggy for the second equivalent race in a row.
Jernej Simoncic was another involved in drama as his second attempt to pass Peev in the feature race led to a spin, but he still recovered to seventh.
Next week the GT Challenge Series, the feeder championship to the Pro Series, will have their round at the Imola circuit.
After then both championships will start their penultimate round which will be held around Sebring, with the GT Pro Series race being shown in two weeks live on The Race YouTube channel.
