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 |
| 1 | 2 | 22 | Sebastian Job | 26 | 0.000 | 26 | 1:19.257 | 64 |
| 2 | 4 | 93 | Charlie Collins | 26 | -0.436 | 0 | 1:19.138 | 61 |
| 3 | 7 | 12 | Jordan Caruso | 26 | -0.815 | 0 | 1:19.052 | 62 |
| 4 | 9 | 37 | Cooper Webster | 26 | -1.116 | 0 | 1:19.036 | 49 |
| 5 | 3 | 90 | Yohann Harth | 26 | -4.345 | 0 | 1:19.368 | 49 |
| 6 | 11 | 77 | Alessandro Bico | 26 | -4.923 | 0 | 1:19.246 | 41 |
| 7 | 8 | 27 | Simone Maria Marcenò | 26 | -5.307 | 0 | 1:19.172 | 53 |
| 8 | 13 | 10 | Christopher Dambietz | 26 | -17.037 | 0 | 1:19.661 | 34 |
| 9 | 15 | 81 | Quentiin Vialatte | 26 | -17.183 | 0 | 1:19.597 | 30 |
| 10 | 1 | 83 | Bobby Zalenski | 26 | -17.886 | 0 | 1:19.691 | 35 |
| 11 | 10 | 3 | Kevin Nielsen | 26 | -18.434 | 0 | 1:19.676 | 31 |
| 12 | 14 | 69 | Moreno Sirica | 26 | -19.023 | 0 | 1:19.729 | 25 |
| 13 | 20 | 16 | Luca Kita | 26 | -19.326 | 0 | 1:19.646 | 17 |
| 14 | 21 | 28 | Sam Kuitert | 26 | -20.450 | 0 | 1:19.667 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 33 | Alexey Nesov | 26 | -21.330 | 0 | 1:19.630 | 17 |
| 16 | 25 | 40 | Julien Soenen | 26 | -21.655 | 0 | 1:19.575 | 10 |
| 17 | 12 | 92 | Mathias Stokbæk Jensen | 26 | -22.486 | 0 | 1:19.435 | 18 |
| 18 | 27 | 1 | Diogo C. Pinto | 26 | -23.110 | 0 | 1:19.408 | 8 |
| 19 | 22 | 21 | Gustavo Ariel | 26 | -23.620 | 0 | 1:19.518 | 7 |
| 20 | 19 | 5 | Oskari Rinne | 26 | -24.734 | 0 | 1:19.471 | 8 |
| 21 | 6 | 47 | Alejandro Sánchez | 26 | -25.937 | 0 | 1:19.438 | 25 |
| 22 | 26 | 99 | Oscar Mangan | 26 | -27.961 | 0 | 1:19.430 | 4 |
| 23 | 23 | 11 | Maximilian Benecke | 26 | -28.146 | 0 | 1:19.223 | 3 |
| 24 | 30 | 4 | Salva Talens | 26 | -28.585 | 0 | 1:19.541 | 2 |
| 25 | 17 | 49 | Jamie Fluke | 26 | -31.339 | 0 | 1:19.462 | 5 |
| 26 | 18 | 15 | Zac Campbell | 26 | -32.355 | 0 | 1:19.572 | 3 |
| 27 | 28 | 97 | Tuomas Tähtelä | 26 | -53.859 | 0 | 1:19.513 | 0 |
| 28 | 29 | 24 | Lasse Bak | 9 | DNF | 0 | 1:19.882 | 0 |
| 29 | 5 | 46 | Bryn Collins | 2 | -24L | 0 | ——— | 18 |
| 30 | 24 | 70 | Gianni Vecchio | 1 | DNF | 0 | ——— | 0 |
Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup points through three rounds are as follows:
- Charlie Collins, 197
- Jordan Caruso, 194
- Diogo Pinto, 146
- Sebastian Job, 146
- Cooper Webster, 120
- Alessandro Bico, 106
- Zac Campbell, 103
- Yohann Harth, 93
- Alejandro Sanchez, 83
- 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
