Dog days.

There was no shortage of surprises in round three of the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup Contender Series. The first, wild one occurred even before the start of the race on the Red Bull Ring:  while the commentators were busy with the intro, the iRacing picture direction cut to Bruno F. Carneiro. The Brazilian from Puresims Esports was cuddling his dog – to the delight of the viewers.

The second surprise occurred in the qualifying. This time not so wild. But rather a tough question of form for the favourites: Gianni Vecchio did not find his speed. Matti Sipilä – a guarantor of fast laps – made a major blunder. And even Moreno Sirica seemed not to be in top form. So, another stole the race: Ayhancan Güven made spectacular time and started before Bobby Zalenski in the sprint race. Where he then clearly demonstrated to everyone why he is a Porsche works driver in addition to being a simracer. Staying a constant half second ahead, Ayhancan was in a race of his own. While the favourites in the standings got into skirmishes and crashes over and over again. 
The result: Güven clearly won ahead of Zalenski and Biksrud.

The same game followed in the main race on the snappy, short track. But with other leading actors. Another race characterised by touching, braking and loss of control. Where the top favourites were again unable to find their way into the race. And where the entire field again ended up in a crash party, as early as the first turn just after the start. At this point, two drivers managed to pull ahead. Alessandro Bico and Julien Soenen decided to do their own thing. They fought for first place over the course of the laps, while the rest followed, at times more than a second behind. In the end, Bico clinched the race ahead of Soenen, followed by Biksrud. This means no major changes to the standings – as before, Gianni Vecchio is in the lead with 183 points in total. However, things are now tighter after third place. So, everything is still up for grabs. Perfect conditions for an exciting race on the Road Atlanta in one week: on 16 October at 19.00 (UTC) live on the Porsche Twitch channel.