The Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team made a promising start to the F1 Sim Racing season with a great charge up the order in the first round of the world championship, played in Jönköping (Sweden), as part of DreamHack Winter.
Nicolas Longuet and Bari Broumand, the latter in the first LAN event of his career, took to the Sakhir track to start a season that runs all the way through to the first months of 2024.
Qualifying – It was a particularly exciting session with plenty of changes among the top places and no fewer than 13 drivers in less than half a second of one another. The Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team drivers were unable to match their times from free practice also due to some technical problems, so that Nicolas Longuet lined up on the third row (1:27.164, P5) and Bari Broumand on the sixth. (1:27.475, P11)
Race – Nico and Bari only had to wait a few hours until the lights went out to redeem themselves. Although they were on different strategies, with Longuet starting on soft tyres and Broumand on hards, both Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team drivers managed to get off the line well, each making up a place at turn 1. On lap 6, a collision between Longuet and Lucas Blakeley in the McLaren seemed to have ruined the Franco-Italian’s chances in the Bahrain Grand Prix, as he had to pit early for medium tyres and start all over again. It was a different scenario for Broumand, who in the early stages was losing ground, being the only driver among the top ten to have started on the hardest compound. But in the second part, the Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team strategy began to pay off and, after a 17 lap stint in what was a 29 lap race, the Iranian was one of the drivers with the newest medium tyres, so that he was able to charge up the order, making three brilliant passes in the space of two corners on lap 25, which ensured he finished fifth and picked up the extra point for setting the fastest lap of the race.
In the closing stages, Longuet’s tyres were finished, as he had to defend tooth and nail his third place from first Jed Norgrove and then Frederik Rasmussen, to deliver the Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team’s first podium of the season. The points total from both drivers sees the team in first place in the constructors’ standings, equal with Alfa Romeo, who won the race courtesy of Thomas Ronhaar and Mercedes.
Final classification – Thomas Ronhaar P1 (Alfa Romeo), Jarno Opmeer P2 (Mercedes), Nicolas Longuet P3 (Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team), Frederik Rasmussen P4 (Red Bull), Bari Broumand P5 (Scuderia Ferrari Esports Team), Daniel Bereznay P6 (Mercedes), Jed Norgrove P7 (AlphaTauri), Ismael Fahssi P8 (Williams), Alfie Butcher P9 (Haas), Josh Idowu P10 (Red Bull), Ruben Pedreno P11 (Alpine), Brendon Leigh P12 (Alfa Romeo), Simon Weigang P13 (Aston Martin), Ula Ozyildirim P14 (Haas), Patrik Sipos P15 (Alpine), Tom Manley P16 (AlphaTauri), Lucas Blakeley P17 (McLaren), Alvaro Carreton P18 (Williams), Wilson Hughes P19 (McLaren), Fabrizio Donoso P20 (Aston Martin).