Sebastian Job Returns to Top of Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup Podium at Long Beach

The past couple years of Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup competition haven’t always been kind to Oracle Red Bull Racing Esports driver Sebastian Job. After winning the 2020 series championship, Job’s luck has been a lot more up and down the past two years, with more than a dozen combined sprint and feature wins but enough DNFs to keep him from repeating. Saturday, though, was another positive, as he scored his first feature win of the young campaign by leading all 26 laps on the streets of Long Beach.

It was anything but an easy win, though. By his own estimation, Job didn’t have the pace of drivers like polesitter Jordan Caruso or first-time sprint race winner Simone Maria Marceno of Altus Esports, but he still had enough speed to qualify seventh and finish there in the sprint race. With the eight-car invert before the feature, that put him second on the grid alongside VRS Coanda Esports’ Bobby Zalenski, but a bad start for Zalenski gave Job the opportunity to grab the top spot and not look back.

With so many talented drivers fighting for podium places behind Job, it wasn’t until late in the race that Coanda driver Charlie Collins, Caruso, and his own teammate Cooper Webster were in position to go for the lead, but to no avail. Still, the quartet were separated by just 1.116 seconds at the line. With Collins’ pair of top-fives on the day and an early wreck for defending series champion and incoming points leader Diogo Pinto, the points lead changed hands once again; Collins now has three in hand on Caruso, and 51 each on Pinto and Job, coming out of the event.

In the All-Stars event, real-world Porsche pro Laurin Heinrich and defending eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series champion Casey Kirwan were the names to watch. Kirwan posted the top qualifying time, but Heinrich grabbed the lead off the line and weathered Kirwan’s challenges throughout the sprint race. In the feature, Dave “Davecam” Cameron took advantage of the full-field invert to win from pole, but he’d have to hold off a hard-charging Heinrich and Kirwan, who worked their way through the entire field to score second and third in a thrilling finish.

Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup feature results from the streets of Long Beach were as follows:

Fin.

St.

No.

Name

Laps

Interval

Led

Best

Pts

1222Sebastian Job260.000261:19.25764
2493Charlie Collins26-0.43601:19.13861
3712Jordan Caruso26-0.81501:19.05262
4937Cooper Webster26-1.11601:19.03649
5390Yohann Harth26-4.34501:19.36849
61177Alessandro Bico26-4.92301:19.24641
7827Simone Maria Marcenò26-5.30701:19.17253
81310Christopher Dambietz26-17.03701:19.66134
91581Quentiin Vialatte26-17.18301:19.59730
10183Bobby Zalenski26-17.88601:19.69135
11103Kevin Nielsen26-18.43401:19.67631
121469Moreno Sirica26-19.02301:19.72925
132016Luca Kita26-19.32601:19.64617
142128Sam Kuitert26-20.45001:19.66714
151633Alexey Nesov26-21.33001:19.63017
162540Julien Soenen26-21.65501:19.57510
171292Mathias Stokbæk Jensen26-22.48601:19.43518
18271Diogo C. Pinto26-23.11001:19.4088
192221Gustavo Ariel26-23.62001:19.5187
20195Oskari Rinne26-24.73401:19.4718
21647Alejandro Sánchez26-25.93701:19.43825
222699Oscar Mangan26-27.96101:19.4304
232311Maximilian Benecke26-28.14601:19.2233
24304Salva Talens26-28.58501:19.5412
251749Jamie Fluke26-31.33901:19.4625
261815Zac Campbell26-32.35501:19.5723
272897Tuomas Tähtelä26-53.85901:19.5130
282924Lasse Bak9DNF01:19.8820
29546Bryn Collins2-24L0———18
302470Gianni Vecchio1DNF0———0

 

Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup points through three rounds are as follows:

  1. Charlie Collins, 197
  2. Jordan Caruso, 194
  3. Diogo Pinto, 146
  4. Sebastian Job, 146
  5. Cooper Webster, 120
  6. Alessandro Bico, 106
  7. Zac Campbell, 103
  8. Yohann Harth, 93
  9. Alejandro Sanchez, 83
  10. Simone Maria Marceno, 78

The 2023 Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup season rolls on in two weeks with a visit to Circuit of the Americas, the second of three United States-based tracks on this year’s schedule. Coverage will kick off on Saturday, March 18 at 18:00 GMT (2PM ET) with the All-Star action, before the pros do battle at 19:00 GMT (3PM ET).

For more information on the 2023 Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup season, visit www.iracing.com/pesc. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

Images via Porsche Motorsport