SRO E-Sport: Tonizza leads the championship

FDA (Ferrari Driver Academy) Hublot Esports Team’s, David Tonizza is the new leader of the SRO E-Sport GT Series after the third round, which was held today on the Nürburgring track, in torrential rain. For the Italian sim racer a sixth place was enough today, given that neither Patrick Selva (Racing oN3 McLaren), nor Andrea Capoccia (GTWR Racing Team) scored points. Tonizza now leads the series on 29 points, followed by Selva, Capoccia and Jesus Sicilia on 25, the latter having won today’s race in the Triple A eSports Aston Martin.

Silver Class. There were high hopes after qualifying in which Tonizza secured pole position on a track that was already wet, although for the race, conditions had deteriorated still further and that had a significant effect on the hierarchy. Unfortunately, Enzo Bonito struggled quite a lot and could do no better than 17th in qualifying in the number 155 488 GT3.

Gara. Track conditions in Germany at the start were atrocious, because of the heavy rain and Tonizza had to give best to Eamonn Murphy in the Lazarus team Porsche and then dropped back quickly. Bonito got away well and thus immediately made up four places. Shortly after that, the FDA Hublot Esports Team sim driver made the most of a multiple collision which knocked out several cars, allowing him to pass Selva’s McLaren and Axel Petit in the Triple A eSports Lexus. Bonito managed to make his way up to sixth before really struggling with the tyres in the closing stages of the race. His times collapsed and in the end, Bonito had to retire, in part because of a connection failure.

Good points haul. Tonizza was second for a long time, but in the final third of the race, his 488 GT3 also developed serious tyre degradation problems which saw him lose ground. He was first caught by Jesus Sicilia, whose front engined car allowed him, as is often the case in the wet, to run at an untouchable pace. Having passed Tonizza, Sicilia set off in pursuit and then passed Murphy to take the win. In the final laps, David began to struggle even to stay on track and was also passed by Petit and Turkey’s Ufuk Baba in the BOM E-Team BMW, dropping to fifth. On the final lap, Tonizza was caught by Jack Keithley in the Williams Esports Bentley and rather than take any more risks, he let him by. He thus finished sixth which was good enough to see him take the lead in the championship, with two rounds remaining. The other Ferrari sim drivers finished as follows: Moreno Sirica (Williams Esports) 21st; Kieran Prendergast (MTR Racing) 38th and Manuel Biancolilla (Musto GD eSports) 42nd.

Pro class. In the Pro class for real racing drivers, David Perel (Rinaldi Racing) was a great fifth, while the Competizioni GT drivers struggled: Nicklas Nielsen was the best of the three in 21st place, while Serra was 30th and Molina retired. The other 488 GT3 drivers were: Maksim Yefanov (Fasttuning) 17th; Nicolas Hillebrand (Buttler-Pal Motorsport) 24th; David Fumanelli (Kessel Racing) 27th and Chris Froggatt (Sky Tempesta Racing) 29th.

Next round. The SRO E-Sport championship has a weekend off now, returning on 31 May, when the sim and racing drivers will tackle the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit.