Benecke Back on Top in Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup at Barcelona; Verstappen Cracks Podium

It’s been a wild year thus far for Maximilian Benecke, one of iRacing’s top road racers and a top threat for this year’s Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup title. After switching to Team Redline in the offseason and some strong performances prior to the championship opener last week at Circuit Park Zandvoort, Benecke’s Porsche season opened with a zero in the points column. But he made up for it in a big way on Saturday at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya by sweeping both the sprint and feature race, reminding the field just how formidable of a force the German driver is.

Benecke’s Team Redline teammate Max Verstappen finished second, giving the team a long-sought after 1-2 finish in the feature race. The Formula 1 superstar, who earned his place in the championship with strong qualifying series results over the winter, worked his way up from 10th place in qualifying to seventh in the sprint race, and got past five other cars in the 30-minute main event to earn his first podium of the season. Sindre Setsaas completed the feature race podium.

Defending series champion Joshua Rogers and Zandvoort winner Sebastian Job posted the top two qualifying times, but found themselves in the heartbreak hotel after early trouble in the sprint race. Rogers would claw his way to 15th in the feature after starting 37th, while Job would gain 10 places of his own to finish 26th, but neither could build on the strong points performances of the season opener.

In the Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge race preceding the Supercup round, Thomas Gibson led all 11 laps from the pole to take the victory over Cooper Webster and Peter Berryman. Zandvoort winner Simone Maria Marceno did not finish the race.

Results from the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup feature at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya were as follows:

Fin.

St.

No.

Driver

Laps

Interval

Led

Best

Pts.

1111Maximilian Benecke170171:46.36175
2769Max Verstappen17-0.60101:46.34359
323Sindre Setsaas17-2.17301:46.74562
4557Dayne Warren17-2.61701:46.54557
5394Jarrad Filsell17-6.99601:46.57954
6943Brian Lockwood17-7.54301:46.49943
71098Kevin Ellis Jr17-8.32601:46.76739
81314Marc Perez17-8.55801:46.75834
9157Jeff Giassi17-13.54701:46.76430
101736Joshua W Anderson17-13.67501:46.83926
112118Antoine Higelin17-14.62201:46.90420
1216110Christopher Dambietz17-15.17901:46.77123
1325107Tuomas Tähtelä17-15.47901:46.99116
141912Marcus Jensen17-16.45101:47.03916
153792Joshua K Rogers17-16.82601:47.14522
162983Bobby Zalenski17-19.36301:46.87610
172477Valtteri Alander17-19.61801:46.8809
18344Marin S Colak17-20.33601:46.9638
19823Aleksi Uusi-Jaakkola17-21.30801:47.04120
202631David Williams17-22.02501:46.8406
213827Patrik Holzmann17-22.63801:46.9665
22647Alejandro Sánchez17-22.91901:46.47625
231829Carl E Jansson17-23.41401:46.6266
24458Tommy Østgaard17-24.42701:47.07422
252310Jack Sedgwick17-24.77701:46.8031
263622Sebastian Job17-28.16401:46.6138
272090Yohann Harth17-29.24101:47.4831
283916Mack Bakkum17-30.06501:47.2390
292228Alexander Thiebe17-40.17201:47.4600
30322Jeremy Bouteloup17-42.05201:47.4750
313542Matti Kaidesoja16-1 L01:50.6240
32145Martin Krönke8-9 L01:46.8357
3333211Thibault Cazaubon3-14 L00
343021Graham Carroll2-15 L00
351149Jamie Fluke2-15 L010
363170Gianni Vecchio1-16 L00
371233Ricardo Castro Ledo1-16 L09
382824Mitchell deJong1-16 L00
392766Greger Huttu0-17 L00

 

The third round of the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup season will see the series make its debut on Donington’s Grand Prix layout, capping off one of two months with three championship rounds this season. The event can be seen on Saturday, May 23 at 9:15AM ET on the iRacing eSports Network, starting with the Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.