TORA 2017 British GT eSports Championship Finale

Sunday 17th September 2017 seen both outfits of the CTech Motorsport stable take to the track at Catalunya for the final round of the TORA British GT eSports Championship. Joining team two (VPR CTech Motorsport with ZX1) was new team signing JamJar Hastings who would make up the third driver of team two making his team and TORA debut race. Virtual Pirtek Racing (team one) who were currently occupying third position in the TORA British GT eSports Championship GT3 class team standings knew taking first place was too far a long shot due to the points lead by Team HCR, nonetheless VPR had their sights set on taking second place in the season finale team standings or at least holding on to their third-place position.
 
The final fifteen minute Sunday qualifying session got under way around 7pm (UK) at the sun drenched circuit of catalunya and it was evident almost immediately that new team two driver, JamJar Hastings would take the upper hand in his race lobby when he set a best qualifying time of 1:49.731 placing him in 2nd place on the grid for race one. Ryanvxracing completed his qualifying session with a time of 1:50.818 placing him 4th on the grid for race one start. Jayc1975 set a qualifying time of 1:51.129 securing him 5th on the grid for race start. Next, in 6th position on grid for the race was AnonCaliga after he set a qualifying time of 1:51.670, behind was OcR Brock in 7th position on grid with a qualifying time of 1:51.785 and taking 10th position on the grid for race start was Gman555 with a qualifying time of 1:53.442. It soon transpired that TORA had placed all three drivers of Virtual Pirtek Racing (team one) and the three drivers of VPR CTech Motorsport with ZX1 (team two) into the same race lobby.
 
Lobby two and with all team cars and competitors on grid for the start of the first of the evenings two season finale races everyone wanted to progress up the grid so that they could secure their best grid position for race two yet caution would also need to be exercised to ensure bottom of grid for race two wouldn’t be the result. Race one got underway and AnonCaliga made up three places along the seemingly continuous straight of Catalunya but just before turning in for the first right hand corner AnonCaliga missed his braking point and to avoid colliding into other cars in the tightly packed group he opted to take the safe route off the track to the overrun area at turn one and unfortunately by the time he found a safe gap to return to the track he had already lost seven places which would place him on the back foot for the remainder of the first race playing catch up. Several laps into the fifteen-lap race and JamJar Hastings had taken the lobby lead in a superb show of speed, a little later he had built up so much of a lead ahead of the chasing pack that it was safe to say the race had been won leaving second place and downwards still to be decided. Jayc1975 driving for VPR team one took a brilliant 4th place crossing the line to complete his race. In 8th place was AnonCaliga who changed his pit stop planned schedule and managed to claw back a few positions after his opening lap mishap. Next in 11th place was VPR’s Brock followed immediately by Ryanvxracing in 12th position and finally taking 13th place for the team was Gman555 but it was JamJar Hastings in his debut team race that took lobby driver of the evening as he secured his first TORA win in race one.
 
The season ended with a pretty much uneventful duplicate of race one but back at home base the team waited for confirmation if they had done enough to secure 2nd place overall in the final results of the TORA British GT GT3 team standings, not long after race end confirmation did indeed come through and it was time to celebrate as Virtual Pirtek Racing moved ahead one spot from third place up into second spot in the final team championship standings. VPR Team Principal AnonCaliga later said “Couldn’t have asked more from the guys, absolutely really well done. Course taking first would’ve been superb but HCR raced supremely and got too much a points lead on us to catch up in the two final races, but yeah second place, thrilled, our team just the best bunch of guys around.”

VPR have already stated their intentions to return to the British GT eSports championship next year when TORA are believed to hold the 2018 season starting around April time and once again official backing comes via real world British GT Championship.