Ayhancan Guven Scores First Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup Victory at Hockenheim

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.

1353Ayhancan Guven18131:38.64065
21121Graham Carroll18-1.99301:38.45355
3277Jeremy Bouteloup18-2.35551:38.73254
4644Diogo C. Pinto18-2.54901:39.26363
5937Cooper Webster18-2.74301:38.30346
61647Alejandro Sánchez18-2.93501:38.75036
7169Moreno Sirica18-3.34201:38.56241
82097Tuomas Tähtelä18-3.52601:38.66827
91579Oskar Biksrud18-6.30001:38.89930
102211Maximilian Benecke18-6.72701:38.66522
112649Jamie Fluke18-7.31201:38.63320
121790Yohann Harth18-9.81401:38.57122
13327Jeff Giassi18-11.71801:39.04916
14793Charlie Collins18-12.01601:39.13144
151840Julien Soenen18-12.38001:38.91015
16857Dayne Warren18-12.50701:38.38145
172315Zac Campbell18-12.87001:39.0589
182198Kevin Ellis Jr18-13.08601:39.1808
191950Peter Berryman18-13.46201:39.0839
202543Brian Lockwood18-14.04901:39.4576
213051Josh Thompson18-14.36501:39.2395
22522Sebastian Job18-15.19601:39.08126
231012Jordan Caruso18-15.90001:39.06014
24274Salva Talens18-23.86501:38.6042
253195Kamil Grabowski18-25.06701:39.0071
262428Sam Kuitert18-43.60101:39.6040
271483Bobby Zalenski18-44.36801:39.0057
282878Alessandro Bico18-50.57301:38.9210
293417Matti Sipilä18-52.38801:39.1670
30481Quentiin Vialatte18-56.41401:38.74318
311270Gianni Vecchio2-16 L09
321313Dino Lombardi2-16 L08
332910Jack Sedgwick2-16 L00
343331David Williams1-17 L00

 

Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup points after one round are as follows:

  1. Ayhancan Guven, 65
  2. Diogo Pinto, 63
  3. Graham Carroll, 55
  4. Jeremy Bouteloup, 54
  5. Cooper Webster, 46
  6. Dayne Warren, 45
  7. Charlie Collins, 44
  8. Moreno Sirica, 41
  9. Alejandro Sanchez, 36
  10. 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.