PESC : S.Setsaas Finishes In Top-10 / PESPC : T.Gibson Secures Another Podium!
Round Three of the Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge series took place at Donington Park. Riding high in fourth in the standings after an incredible podium position last time out at Catalunya, Sindre Setsaas would continue his form with a solid 17th in qualifying. Unfortunately, after an slide on the exit of T1 on his fastest lap, Jansson would qualify in 34th, just 0.5 off pole sitter Joshua Rogers. Race one would prove a congested affair in the midpack, and Setsaas made a solid start in the opening laps, narrowly missing out on a multi-car collision in turn one. And despite a push into the grass from Team Redline’s Alexander Thiebe could make strong progress to eventually cross the line in 14th place. Carl would have even greater success and avoided the chaos to make his way up to 24th, including a fantastic overtake on Dane Marcus Jensen in the penultimate corner. Both CoRe drivers were showing strong race pace in the opening race of the day so were hoping to carry that momentum across into the second and all-important Feature race.
Sadly, you could copy and paste my sentence to describe Carl’s feature race from all three rounds to date. The swede would once again be an innocent victim of a mid-car pileup, and his car would be severely damaged in the opening lap. Sadly, the damage could not be fixed within the 30 minute race limit and Jansson would retire the car and spend the remaining 28 minutes of the race admiring his new i30N from out his window. Setsaas could once again nail his start and made his way through by three-time world champ in Martin Krönke, and multiple world championship race winner in Mack Bakkum and set about Brazilian Jeff Giassi for 9th place. Setsaas tried to make his way through on lap 4, but Giassi put up an extremely strong defence and kept the Norwegian behind. Despite all of Sindre’s efforts, he had to settle for 10th position, after Giassi showed impressive and consistent pace to hold of the #3 CoRe machine for the entirety of the race. Setsaas would exit Donington in 7th in the overall standings, and Jansson will hope his luck changes for the next round in a months’ time at the Le Mans circuit.
Also both Samuel Libeert and Thomas Gibson were looking to consolidate their position in the overall standings. Gibson entered the third round just shy of compatriot Peter Berryman in the overall standings, and Libeert with an unfortunate incident in round two found himself in 11th. As ever, qualifying was pivotal, and Gibson came up clutch once more with a strong 3rd place on the grid a mere 0.015 off Camillo Pezzoli pole position laptime. Libeert, who had very little preparation time for this round did well to qualifying solidly in 13th.
As the race commenced, Libeert did well to avoid the inevitable mid-pack carnage and make his way up to 8th, while Gibson settled in P2 behind Altus’ new recruit Cooper Webster. It was role reversal from last time out, with Webster out front and Gibson applying the pressure from behind. The young aussie did tremendously to hold on for the victory, as Gibson despite all his pressure could not find an opening. With one eye on the championship, Thomas settled for 2nd place after late pressure from Prologue React’s Mikkel Gade. Libeert on the other hand only had eyes in front, and crossed the line in an extremely impressive 7th place, taking further advantage of some of the fierce battling that was going on ahead of him. An extremely strong round for both drivers has paid dividends for the overall standings, with Gibson now with a comfortable 20 point lead at the top of the standings, with Libeert making solid progress in 7th .
The broadcasts of races and heats of this Porsche Esports Super Cup and Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge round can be found here.