35 of the world’s best sim racers kicked off the 2022 Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup season on Saturday at the Hockenheimring, but only one could kick off the campaign on the top step of the podium. That driver was Ayhancan Guven, who forced his way past Jeremy Bouteloup on Lap 6 of the 18-lap feature and led the remainder of the way for his first career series victory.
Some late-race argy-bargy for the second spot enabled Guven to pull away at race’s end, but up until a few laps to go, most of the top cars were within a second of one another. Graham Carroll and Bouteloup were the beneficiaries, with Carroll jumping from sixth to second in the final three laps and Bouteloup recovering from fifth to return to the podium in a side-by-side battle between them. Diogo Pinto and Cooper Webster would complete the top five.
But for every driver who benefits, there’s another who drops through the order, and Dayne Warren may have had the worst luck at race’s end. After posting the top time in qualifying, Warren won the nine-lap sprint race to set the feature grid, where he’d start eighth after the inversion at the front of the field. While he would climb to fourth in the closing laps, he and Charlie Collins would both receive incident penalties before reaching the checkered flag, dropping to the middle of the pack as they served their penalties.
In the All-Star race preceding the Supercup action, Porsche junior driver Laurin Heinrich was the driver to beat, passing defending series champion Emily “Emree” Jones on Lap 6 and leading the final 10 laps of the race. The win followed the top time in qualifying and a heat race victory. Jones would hang on for second, with Borja Zazo completing the podium.
Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup feature results from Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg were as follows:
Fin. | St. | No. | Driver | Laps | Interval | Led | Best | Pts. |
| 1 | 3 | 53 | Ayhancan Guven | 18 | 13 | 1:38.640 | 65 | |
| 2 | 11 | 21 | Graham Carroll | 18 | -1.993 | 0 | 1:38.453 | 55 |
| 3 | 2 | 77 | Jeremy Bouteloup | 18 | -2.355 | 5 | 1:38.732 | 54 |
| 4 | 6 | 44 | Diogo C. Pinto | 18 | -2.549 | 0 | 1:39.263 | 63 |
| 5 | 9 | 37 | Cooper Webster | 18 | -2.743 | 0 | 1:38.303 | 46 |
| 6 | 16 | 47 | Alejandro Sánchez | 18 | -2.935 | 0 | 1:38.750 | 36 |
| 7 | 1 | 69 | Moreno Sirica | 18 | -3.342 | 0 | 1:38.562 | 41 |
| 8 | 20 | 97 | Tuomas Tähtelä | 18 | -3.526 | 0 | 1:38.668 | 27 |
| 9 | 15 | 79 | Oskar Biksrud | 18 | -6.300 | 0 | 1:38.899 | 30 |
| 10 | 22 | 11 | Maximilian Benecke | 18 | -6.727 | 0 | 1:38.665 | 22 |
| 11 | 26 | 49 | Jamie Fluke | 18 | -7.312 | 0 | 1:38.633 | 20 |
| 12 | 17 | 90 | Yohann Harth | 18 | -9.814 | 0 | 1:38.571 | 22 |
| 13 | 32 | 7 | Jeff Giassi | 18 | -11.718 | 0 | 1:39.049 | 16 |
| 14 | 7 | 93 | Charlie Collins | 18 | -12.016 | 0 | 1:39.131 | 44 |
| 15 | 18 | 40 | Julien Soenen | 18 | -12.380 | 0 | 1:38.910 | 15 |
| 16 | 8 | 57 | Dayne Warren | 18 | -12.507 | 0 | 1:38.381 | 45 |
| 17 | 23 | 15 | Zac Campbell | 18 | -12.870 | 0 | 1:39.058 | 9 |
| 18 | 21 | 98 | Kevin Ellis Jr | 18 | -13.086 | 0 | 1:39.180 | 8 |
| 19 | 19 | 50 | Peter Berryman | 18 | -13.462 | 0 | 1:39.083 | 9 |
| 20 | 25 | 43 | Brian Lockwood | 18 | -14.049 | 0 | 1:39.457 | 6 |
| 21 | 30 | 51 | Josh Thompson | 18 | -14.365 | 0 | 1:39.239 | 5 |
| 22 | 5 | 22 | Sebastian Job | 18 | -15.196 | 0 | 1:39.081 | 26 |
| 23 | 10 | 12 | Jordan Caruso | 18 | -15.900 | 0 | 1:39.060 | 14 |
| 24 | 27 | 4 | Salva Talens | 18 | -23.865 | 0 | 1:38.604 | 2 |
| 25 | 31 | 95 | Kamil Grabowski | 18 | -25.067 | 0 | 1:39.007 | 1 |
| 26 | 24 | 28 | Sam Kuitert | 18 | -43.601 | 0 | 1:39.604 | 0 |
| 27 | 14 | 83 | Bobby Zalenski | 18 | -44.368 | 0 | 1:39.005 | 7 |
| 28 | 28 | 78 | Alessandro Bico | 18 | -50.573 | 0 | 1:38.921 | 0 |
| 29 | 34 | 17 | Matti Sipilä | 18 | -52.388 | 0 | 1:39.167 | 0 |
| 30 | 4 | 81 | Quentiin Vialatte | 18 | -56.414 | 0 | 1:38.743 | 18 |
| 31 | 12 | 70 | Gianni Vecchio | 2 | -16 L | 0 | 9 | |
| 32 | 13 | 13 | Dino Lombardi | 2 | -16 L | 0 | 8 | |
| 33 | 29 | 10 | Jack Sedgwick | 2 | -16 L | 0 | 0 | |
| 34 | 33 | 31 | David Williams | 1 | -17 L | 0 | 0 |
Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup points after one round are as follows:
- Ayhancan Guven, 65
- Diogo Pinto, 63
- Graham Carroll, 55
- Jeremy Bouteloup, 54
- Cooper Webster, 46
- Dayne Warren, 45
- Charlie Collins, 44
- Moreno Sirica, 41
- Alejandro Sanchez, 36
- Oskar Biksrud, 30
The 2022 Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup season continues on February 19 at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where Sebastian Job posted a dominant victory last year. As always, the action kicks off at 12:30PM ET with All-Star competition, before the Supercup goes green at 2PM ET, and all the action streams live at twitch.tv/Porsche. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.
