Sonoma Raceway in California was the host of the seventh round of the eSports WTCC, the virtual racing championship of the FIA WTCC on RaceRoom. Division 2 opened the event, and Frenchman Alexei Bisson showed a dominant performance. The Volvo driver scored his first win of the season, almost 7 seconds clear of fellow Volvo driver Michel Gauch. The Portugese Manuel Alves rounded out the podium in a Chevrolet Cruze. For the main races of Division 1, the Volvo drivers went into the race as the favourites. And Kévin Leaune, winner at the Slovakiaring, performed well in qualifying, taking the pole position ahead of championship leader Alexander Dornieden in his Honda. Disaster already struck at the start though. David Nagy, third on the grid, slammed into the back of the two leaders in the first braking zone, leaving Leaune in the gravel trap and Dornieden dropping back a few places. Nagy reported brake problems later on. Title contender Jan Stange took the lead ahead of Bence Bánki, but on lap 3 already, Stange made a small mistake in the first sector which opened the door for Bánki, who capitalized immediately. Stange tried to stay close to the Slovakian Citroen driver, but Dornieden behind him was applying lots of pressure. In the end, Bánki scored his first win of the season, ahead of Stange and Dornieden. Gergo Baldi was classified fourth ahead of Márk Nándori, Norbert Leitner, Gaetan Goarant and Guillaume Theot. In the battle for 9th, it looked like Kévin Leaune would recover well, but an incident between him and Cristian Moisescu meant that both drivers dropped back, and so the top 10 was rounded out by Maxime Delsaux and Aelcio Junior. The start of the second race, the reverse grid race, was not much calmer: Baldi and Stange made contact even before the first turn, while Leaune got into the back of Dornieden in the first braking zone. Out of the first sector, it was Junior leading Goarant, Delsaux, Leitner and Moisescu, who started 16th. Delsaux got straight past Goarant again on the first lap, while Junior, on only his second appearance in the championship, started to gap the field. Goarant lost a few positions after a mistake, while Leitner started closing in on Delsaux. At the bottom of the top 10, a large battle was forming up including Stange, Dornieden and Bánki. Junior was dominating the first half of the race, but after 10 minutes, his tyres started dropping off. Leitner made the pass stick against Delsaux in the middle sector and started to chase the Brazilian. Moisescu meanwhile had to defend against championship contenders Nándori and Stange, eventually having to let both of them through. At the end of the race, Leitner closed the gap and was right behind Junior in the final corner, but he couldn't make the move stick. Aelcio Junior therefore took his first victory of the year, a quthe first win for a driver who is not from Europe. His performance is even more impressive considering he only qualified 17th. Leitner was 2nd ahead of Delsaux, who was also on only his second appearance in the championship. Nándori, Stange, Moisescu, Dornieden, Pinczes, Bánki and Goarant were the remaining cars finishing in the points. With these results, Alexander Dornieden is still in the lead of the championship, 16 points clear of Jan Stange. Márk Nándori dropped to 3rd, but is only one point behind Stange. With three rounds to go, Gergo Baldi in fourth might still have an outside chance to win the online title, while for Norbert Leitner in fifth, the gap is already quite big. The next stop of the eSports WTCC in Shanghai, in five weeks, on October 8th. If you have missed the Sonoma broadcast, make sure to rewatch it here: English Stream: French Stream (Maxou): German Stream (P1 Media):
Unfair move from Nagy on Dornieden and Leaune, race one, lap one, turn 2, imho... At least from a TV viewer point of view... Maybe I'm wrong, but he brakes very late...