Jordan Caruso is the 2023 PESC champion

The 2023 Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup and All-Star-Series capped off their season at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza this past weekend. With a four-way fight for the championship in PESC, on top of that on a circuit that promotes long draft trains and overtaking, there once again wasn’t a single boring moment during any of the races held that evening.

The result of qualifying set the stage for what was to come next. Diogo C. Pinto (PT/Team Redline) put his Porsche 911 GT3 Cup on pole position, by doing so helping Alejandro Sánchez (E/Stormforce Racing ART) to take the TAG Heuer Pole Award with his previous three top spot starting positions. Despite this, the Spaniard’s qualifying effort at this event was rather subpar, only lining up eleventh while fellow title aspirant Sebastian Job (GB/Oracle Redbull Racing Esports) was thirteenth. Qualifying went even worse for Zac Campbell (USA/VRS Coanda) who had to start the first race of the finale from twenty-fourth. The only one of the contenders who was within reach of Pinto’s time was championship leader Jordan Caruso (AUS/Altus Esports) in fourth place.

At the start of the seven lap long sprint race, Pinto held onto his lead, followed by Yohann Harth (F/Stormforce Racing ART), Alessandro Bico (IT/Williams Esports) and Caruso. With his opponents’ lowly starting positions, the Australian tried to take advantage of the situation, though not without incident. A collision between him and Bico left the Italian spinning off the circuit and dropping to the back of the field, while a small contact with the fighting duo of Pinto and Harth resulted in both going off the road in the first chicane.

 

Those incidents left Caruso in the lead, one that he didn’t lose until the end of the race, scoring his third win of the season when crossing the line. While Caruso’s incidents didn’t weren’t without consequence, his points advantage meant that he already couldn’t be caught by his pursuers anymore. They were now busy fighting it out for the second position, with Job jumping ahead of Campbell in the standings, as the American wasn’t able to score any points at the end of the sprint, while Job and Sánchez finished in the top ten. In eighth place and therefore on pole position for the following fourteen lap long main race was Gustavo Ariel (BR/TXC Racing by TK).

Never one to turn down a golden opportunity, the Brazilian turned his pole position into a lights-to-flag victory, made even better by the fact that this result helped him to automatically requalify for the following season. There were only two drivers which he had to fight to keep his position: Oscar Mangan (IRL/Altus Esports) on the opening lap and later in the race Lasse Bak (DK/FYRA SimSport), who tried to get alongside multiple times. In their pursuit of Ariel, most of those behind him ended up being caught up in battles with one-another so much that they weren’t able to mount a proper challenge for the top spot as a result. Caruso simply tagged onto the back of that group during a conservative run to another decent points haul in twelfth.

 

Alejandro Sánchez ran a race very similar to his, though unlike for Caruso, that low result dropped him from fourth to fifth in the final standings. He was displaced by Charlie Collins (GB/VRS Coanda) who along with Diogo C. Pinto managed to take advantage of the aforementioned fights behind Ariel and were best of the rest with Collins finishing in second place while Pinto completed the podium in what was his final event with car number one for now. Second place in the standings was also decided in the very final race of the season, with the battle coming down to a single championship point.

After a dreadful start to his evening, Zac Campbell probably saw some light at the end of the tunnel, when Alejandro Sánchez hit Sebastian Job’s car when the latter was trying to recover from a slide in turn two. While it didn’t appear to be a severe hit at first, it did leave Job with enough damage to force him to pit for repairs, dropping him all the way to the back of the field, well behind the American. Despite still running on the lead lap, Job wasn’t able to gain any more positions during the remainder of the race, but just barely scored enough points from his twenty-second position to finish the season as runner-up. Had Campbell finished fifteenth instead of sixteenth in the main race, both would have been equal on points, though with two main race victories to his name, the position could have belonged to him instead.

For the content creators of the All-Star-Series, their tenth event had an end of term vibe. Casey Kirwan secured the championship crown before even getting to the Italian venue, so there wasn’t any potential for similar battles like later that evening during PESC. However, everyone did get to enjoy another new car, the electric Porsche Mission R, while the series regulars were joined by Keenan “Aeroteq” Kusan and three of Kirwan’s fellow eNASCAR competitors, Parker White, Michael Conti and Matt Bussa.

In qualifying, that trio showed right away that they also were very capable of lapping a track quickly, even if there are left as well as right turns. White and Conti lined up on the front row, Bussa was third with Pablo “ThePulpoLopez” Lopez next to him. Conti unfortunately moved before the lights went green for the first of the two eleven lap long races and received a jump start penalty. That eliminated him from the pool of drivers fighting for the win. Keenan Kusan, Lyubov “LoveFortySix” Ozeretskovskaya and Christian “keny500” Ortega were also caught up in trouble on lap three while Emily “Emree” Jones was the only driver to retire after an error a lap later. In the battle for the top spot, Casey Kirwan drove up from sixth to take the win, just ahead of Parker White in second place. Matt Bussa completed the podium in third.

 

Her early exit from the previous race at least meant that Jones would start the second race from the inverted grid’s pole, alongside Michael Conti. This time he didn’t get in his own way, nailed the start and took the lead into the first corner. Jones did stay with Conti throughout the race as both drove away from the rest of the field. For a few laps towards the end of the race, she also retook the lead, but had to give best to Conti on the final tour, him taking the win while she chased him across the line. In the battle for third, it was anyone’s spot to take, but in the end it was Pablo Lopez who managed to come through and narrowly beat out Tyson “Quirkitized” Meier, Christian Ortega and Parker White.

The fifth season of the virtual one-make cup may be behind us now, but there won’t be much time to rest, except for those who managed to finish in the top fifteen in the final standings. The start of the road to next year’s PESC, made up of the Porsche TAG Heuer Esports Supercup Qualifying and Contender Series, isn’t far away. The best fifteen drivers from the coming Qualifying Series, which is open to all, will race together with the drivers who placed sixteenth or lower in the 2023 PESC season in the Contender Series. The best fifteen from that series will make the final step and join the top drivers from this year for the coming 2024 season, making the grid as competitive as possible once more.