Kristensen’s esports racing team TK9 E-SPeeD and Grosjean’s ACER VERO R8G largely dominated the action at the inaugural French eX Prix at Le Mans – led by Lasse Sørensen and Jiri Toman, who had already fought a spectacular duel for victory at the season opener at Silverstone.
After two pole positions in a row for Toman, Sørensen managed to turn the tables for the first time this year in qualifying at Le Mans: The Dane was ahead by just 27 thousandths of a second. With an impressive lap time of 3m 07.236s, TK9’s PRO lead driver beat Kamui Kobayashi’s real-world lap record by more than seven seconds – a clear proof of the performance of the all-electric eX ZERO. On the Hunaudières straight, the cars reached a top speed of 361 km/h (without slipstream). The average of Sørensen’s pole lap was 262 km/h.
From pole position, Sørensen took a commanding win in the Quarter Final of the PRO drivers. In the Semi Final, he narrowly win a thrilling duel with Jiri Toman. The Czech was involved in a start crash in the first chicane in his Quarter Final. In the semi-final he improved from third on the grid to second place. In the Final of the best two, the R8G driver made the all-decisive move on the last lap just before the Porsche curves. Sørensen tried everything to counterattack once again, but there was no getting past Toman.
Before that, the two rivals had repeatedly overtaken each other on the 13.629-kilometer Le Mans racetrack. “This race was all about the slipstream," said Toman after his second win of the season. “I studied Lasse and did my move in the right place. You can’t really overtake from the Porsche curves onwards.”
“The race at Le Mans was a lot of fun,” said Lasse Sørensen. “Unfortunately, my strategy didn’t quite work out and he got me in the end.”
A change at the top of the standings
With the win in the spectacular and thrilling night race at Le Mans, ACER VERO R8G’s “Vero 88” ESPORTS entry regained the lead in the World eX Championship – just a single point ahead of TK9’s “Danish Dynamite”.
Devin Braune of Esports Team WRT secured third place in World eX for the second race in a row, despite a 360-degree spin on lap one of his Quarter Final after contact right after the start. Fourth place went to a strong Beitske Visser with BS+COMPETITION’s only eX ZERO. Team-mate Alen Terzic, who finished second at Daytona a month ago, was forced to miss the start due to technical issues.
Rory MacDuff (Patrick Long Esports), Xiayufei Li (Absolute Racing) and Tom Kristensen’s nephew Oskar achieved their best results so far in the virtual electric racing series with fifth, sixth and seventh places. Nicolas Hillebrand (Biela Racing
Team EURONICS), Elliot Vayron (ACER VERO R8G) and Bruno Senna (Williams Esports) completed the top ten.
Nico Müller narrowly missed out on the first point of the season for NIANCO Esports in eleventh place. His teammate Thomas Schmid was fighting for victory in the Quarter Final of the ESPORTS racers but crashed in the Porsche Curves on the final lap.
Round 4 of World eX will take place in the streets of Maastricht in the Netherlands which proved to be very popular among the drivers in Season 1 and provided spectacular pictures, too.
