The fifth season of the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup begins this weekend, and here are the drivers who will be competing.
Image credit: Porsche
Since 2019, the premier iRacing esports series has been the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup (PESC). Over the years, the series has seen many great drivers competing. Last year, Redline driver Diogo Pinto was immensely consistent which led him to glory over 2020 champion Sebastian Job. They will be aiming to join former PESC driver and now-works Porsche esports racer Josh Rogers as two-time champions.
As ever, the competition is fierce and many other drivers are aiming to join the club. So here is a run down on all the names that will be competing in the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup this season.
Returning Names to the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup
The system in PESC for how drivers earn their spots is perhaps one of the most efficient and fair formats. The top 15 drivers from the season retain their spots for the following season whilst the bottom 15 are placed in the Contender Series. In that, they go up against the top 15 from the Qualifying Series, which is open to anyone on iRacing with a Class A licence, and that fills up the rest of the grid.
First, let’s cover the drivers who kept their places in the series. Of course, the reigning champion Pinto will continue to race for Redline alongside Gianni Vecchio. They were partnered up with Maximilian Benecke last year, but this season sees the first driver to get an 11k iRating jump ship to MOUZ. The Hamburg-based esports organisation are making the leap into sim racing, with Benecke and a couple of other drivers they’ve signed racing in ESL R1.
Next up is Job, and his teammate at Red Bull will be last year’s top PESC rookie and real world GB4 racer Cooper Webster. Graham Carroll won’t be present, though, as his move to Mercedes means he has forfeited his place in the series
The same can be said for Dayne Warren. The departure of Tommy Østgaard from the works Porsche Coanda outfit means the 2-time Australian Supercars Eseries champion has been promoted to full time Porsche driver. Out of the 15 drivers who retained their PESC places, eleven remain as Coanda’s Jeremy Bouteloup retired from professional sim racing at the end of last season and Porsche Esports Carrera Cup GB champion Kevin Ellis Jr has withdrawn to focus on ESL R1.
Coanda are still involved in the series with Zac Campbell, Charlie Collins and eNASCAR driver Bobby Zalenski. Collins’ younger brother Bryn has a spot on the grid too. Apex have retained the likes of Jamie Fluke, Yohann Harth and Alejandro Sánchez.
New Drivers and Teams Joining the Grid
A new presence on the grid is FYRA SimSport, the team led by Danish Touring Car champion Lasse Sørensen, who operated Prodrive’s Le Mans Virtual effort. They’re represented by PESC Qualifying Series champion Lasse Bak, PESC Contenders third place finisher Kevin Nielsen and Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Deutschland third place finisher Christopher Dambietz.
Then there’s iRacing specialist team URANO Esports with Alexey Nesov and Luca Kita. Both drivers could spring a surprise in PESC this season. The driver who finished runner-up in PESC Contenders was Gustavo Ariel, and he’s racing as the sole entry for TXC Racing by TK. Here, ‘TK’ refers to Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan.
For fans of the striking zebra liveries of BS+, there is good news! The zebras are back in PESC after their new signing Oskari Rinne was granted a spot in the series. The former KOVA Esports racer is the beneficiary of Dayne Warren’s exit.
Rinne’s ex-KOVA teammate Tuomas Tähtelä won the PESC Contenders championship and is currently listed as a Privateer entry. However, that may be changing soon, as a big name team is said to be entering PESC as a result of signing Tähtelä. We can’t say who for yet but we have reason to believe it will be as significant as Benecke lining up for MOUZ.
EDIT 02/02/2023: Tähtelä will be racing in PESC for Norwegian gaming organisation Heroic.
How to Follow
The series will be broadcast as ever on the official Porsche Twitch and YouTube channels. There’s the All Star races run first with prominent sim racing content creators, of which both our very own Emily Jones and streamer Tyson ‘Quirkitized’ Meier were the first two champions.
Emily will be competing again this year, and will be running liveries submitted to her through her Twitch community!
This year’s Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup schedule is as follows:
Rd 1: Hockenheimring – 4 February
Rd 2: Magny-Cours – 18 February
Rd 3: TBD (Community vote) – 4 March
Rd 4: Circuit of the Americas – 18 March
Rd 5: Red Bull Ring – 1 April
Rd 6: Watkins Glen – 8 April
Rd 7: Spa-Francorchamps – 22 April
Rd 8: Nürburgring-Nordschleife – 6 May
Rd 9: Circuit de la Sarthe – 20 May
Rd 10: Monza – 3 June
Will you be following Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup this season? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
