World Online Racing’s top PC tier will return this weekend with some of the best drivers from the F1 Esports Pro Championship.
Image credit: WOR
The F1 Esports Pro Championship may have ended on 16 December, but that doesn’t mean that we have to wait until the next season of F1 Esports to see the best on the Codemasters F1 games competing. League racing communities serve as a means for anyone to find some similarly-skilled drivers to race with, but they also have the top drivers from the Pro Championship racing between F1 Esports seasons.
One of those is World Online Racing, a community which for the most part has been predominantly Xbox-focused. Plenty of Xbox-grown talent has come out of WOR including Pro Championship drivers like Jake Benham and Thomas Ronhaar.
They now have a top PC tier which has run for three seasons. Pro Championship competitors like Benham and Nicolas Longuet have been victorious and the week before the final F1 Esports event last year, 2-time F1 Esports champion Jarno Opmeer emerged on top against Ronhaar after a very dramatic final race.
This Sunday 15 January will see WOR’s latest top PC tier season starting up once more. So who do we know that will be participating?
Some of the Best F1 Esports Drivers
Despite winning the championship, Jarno Opmeer won’t be attempting a defence of his WOR crown. Instead, his Pro Championship teammate Jake Benham will be joined in the Mercedes camp by Alfa Romeo F1 Esports driver Tomasz Poradzisz. Red Bull have fielded the mightily impressive Josh Idowu in the main team after a stellar first season in the Pro Championship with AlphaTauri. He will be joined by Red Bull’s third driver Liam Parnell for WOR this season.
Ferrari’s line-up consists of Fabrizio Donoso who just left the team, and he will be joined by Alfie Butcher who won PSGL’s PC Tier 2 championship. Bari Boroumand will be racing the McLaren but he won’t be joined by any of his Pro Championship teammates like Wilson Hughes or champion Lucas Blakeley and instead by Boualem Ferah, a fairly unknown quantity.
Williams will be represented by two of their esports drivers in the form of Álvaro Carretón and Shanaka Clay, as will Alfa Romeo with Nicolas Longuet and Dani Bereznay.
Manuel Biancolilla will be flying the flag for Aston Martin and he’s joined by PlayStation Challengers runner-up Duncan Hofland, who is one of Aston’s development drivers. Haas once again have Thomas Ronhaar. He’s partnered with Ulaş Özyıldırım, one of Haas’ many development drivers and who just missed out on qualifying for last year’s Pro Exhibition.
Alpine have Filip Prešnajder but his Pro Championship teammate Patrik Sipos will be driving the AlphaTauri in WOR alongside Xbox Challengers champion Tom Manley. Instead the other Alpine seat will be occupied by Rubén Pedreño, who contended with Opmeer and Ronhaar up until the very end of last season.
Lastly are the reserves. There are plenty of talented drivers on standby but the most prominent ones are former Williams F1 Esports driver Alessio Di Capua and current Pro Championship drivers like Daniele Haddad, Luke Smith and Matthijs van Erven.
But perhaps the biggest name on the reserve list is Lucas Blakeley, who only participated in the first five of the 15 races in WOR last season yet was still in mathematical contention for the title right at the end. Perhaps many drivers will be relieved that the F1 Esports champion isn’t competing full time.
How To Follow World Online Racing
WOR gets their first race underway this Sunday at 8pm CET and will run until the end of April. They will run full knockout qualifying and a 50% distance race. Catch all the action on the official WOR YouTube channel. The season schedule is as follows:
Rd 1: Interlagos – 15 January
Rd 2: Circuit of the Americas – 22 January
Rd 3: Baku – 29 January
Rd 4: Spa-Francorchamps – 5 February
Rd 5: Hungaroring – 12 February
Rd 6: Portimão – 19 February
Rd 7: Paul Ricard – 26 February
Rd 8: Sakhir – 5 March
Rd 9: Jeddah – 12 March
Rd 10: Yas Marina – 26 March
Rd 11: Imola – 2 April
Rd 12: Shanghai – 9 April
Rd 13: Silverstone – 16 April
Rd 14: Mexico City – 23 April
Rd 15: Red Bull Ring – 30 April
Will you be following WOR this season? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
