Luca Munro and especially Chris Overend had been wishing for a World eX Bizz race at Le Mans for months. Their wish finally came true, giving the networking esports racing series two spectacular races with fascinating slipstream battles on the iconic racetrack.
“Le Mans is simply a unique circuit,” enthused Chris Overend after the two races, both of which he finished on the podium. “It was a lot of fun.”
The disabled racing driver dreams of one day taking part in the real 24 Hours of Le Mans. His speed in the virtual world on the famous “Circuit des 24 Heures” is already impressive.
However, Overend had no chance against his team-mate from last year in the World eX Championship. Devin Braune took pole position with a margin of almost two seconds and achieved commanding wins in both races.
In the first race, he benefited from the fact that Nicolas Hillebrand from row one got away worse than Steffen Walter and Chris Overend behind him. On the way to the Dunlop chicane, Hillebrand ran out of space in the sandwich between the two. A slight contact sent Hillebrand’s eX ZERO into a wild spin. He also took Jarno Wiese with him.
Hillebrand was able to fight his way up from the back of the field to fifth. However, Devin Braune, Chris Overend, Luca Munro and Steffen Walter were already too far ahead. The latter three were constantly overtaking each other on the long straights throughout the race. Chris Overend ultimately retained the upper hand in the battle for second place, while Luca Munro made the decisive move on Steffen Walter on the last lap before the Porsche curves.
Björn Skottke secured a commanding victory in the AM class in sixth place overall ahead of Thomas Voigt, who was able to prevail against Skottie’s bswpowersports team-mates Bodo Kräling and Frank Enger in the opening laps.
In the second race with a reversed grid, things once again got heated during lap one. Luca Munro crashed twice. An unfortunate contact with Thomas Voigt at Indianpolis ended Munro’s race, while Voigt dropped to the back of the field.
Björn Skottke had secured the lead with a lightning start and was blistering fast on the first laps. However, “Skottie” was later relegated to fifth place, which still meant that he once again won the AM class by a big margin – this time ahead of Bodo Kräling and Johannes Meinck, despite the latter having skidded off the track on the starting lap at Indianapolis.
Devin Braune was once again the clear winner, needing just two laps to go from eighth on the grid to P1. Nicolas Hillebrand and Chris Overend completed the podium.
Steffen Walter again had to settle for fourth place, but has already secured his place next to Devin Braune on the front row of the grid for the Super Final on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.
Before the Super Final, the first oval race in the history of the World eX Bizz is still to come at Indianapolis. Devin Braune won the World eX Championship there last year ahead of a certain Chris Overend …
