The first week of November brings both of the iRacing World Championships into the final stretch of their respective seasons.
On Wednesday, the iRacing Rallycross World Championship Series Presented by Yokohama will go back state-side, to Phoenix, Arizona, for the seventh race of the season. Tommi Hallman will look to win three-in-a-row as the series takes on Phoenix Raceway Rallycross.
Thursday, the Force Dynamics Dallara iRacing Grand Prix Championship will go back across the pond to Austria for the eighth race of their season. It’s a trip to the Red Bull Ring to see if anyone can catch Maarten van Loozenoord who chases a fifth consecutive victory.
The eNASCAR Contender iRacing Series will be racing to determine the field for its top-level esports championship.
IRXWC:
With three races to go, there are three drivers still in the conversation for the 2021 title. The iRacing Rallycross World Championship Series Presented by Yokohama has seen three different winners in six races, and they all find themselves in that Top 3 as the series enters Phoenix.
Jon Robertson leads the standings with two wins to his name. The gap is 16 points back to Jonne Ollikainen, winner at Brands Hatch. Another five points behind that is the driver on the most recent hot streak, Tommi Hallman, the driver with the most wins on the season so far.
While Robertson has the lion’s share of the pole positions and pole points, as well as a good chunk of the heat points, Hallman was able to score the most points out of anyone with a perfect race in Hell. With the pole, heat win and overall win at Lånkebanen Hell Rallycross, Hallman closed the gap on a championship opportunity in 2021.
The most recent winner at Phoenix? Tommi Hallman in 2020. The defending series champion Yohann Harth also has a win at Phoenix back in 2018. He’ll need to be perfect to even have a shot at staying in the title conversation, but it looks unlikely that we’ll see another title from him this season.
The race feed will be available with multiple options for different languages. The English broadcast will go off on the iRacing Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube pages. The Finnish feed can be viewed on Finnish Sim Racing Association (FISRA). A French version will be on BenjxMotors, and a Norwegian cast can be found on the Norwegian SimRacing Channel.
Tune in at 4:00 p.m. ET / 9:00 p.m. BST to catch the action.
FDDIGPC:
The entire month of October belonged to Maarten van Loozenoord. The Predator Simracing driver won at Monza, Silverstone, Hockenheim and Road America in October. That added on to his season opening win at Watkins Glen to make five total on the 2021 season.
It was a rogue round at Interlagos that set van Loozenoord back in the standings early. His championship rivals at the Apex Racing Team, Peter Berryman and Yohann Harth, pulled away to a decent lead in the standings at that point. Berryman’s lone win came in that round, but hasn’t had the same success since.
The battle for the 2021 Force Dynamics Dallara iRacing Grand Prix Championship will come down to the Red Bull Ring, Suzuka and the new-to-iRacing Hungaroring. The Red Bull Ring is a new course to iRacing this year as well. Released back in 2021 Season 3, it was still able to find its way to the Qualifier series for this championship.
On that day, van Loozenoord’s R8G Esports technical teammate Valentin Mandernach was able to score the victory. van Loozenoord wound up ninth, but scored the fastest lap of the race. Harth finished in second while Berryman didn’t compete. Knowing these cars and drivers, it’s setting up to be another R8G vs Apex classic.
Can van Loozenoord score a fifth win in a row? Will the Apex teammates be able to find their groove to stay in the title fight? Tune in live on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. ET / 8:00 p.m. BST to watch and find out. Every race will be live on the iRacing social channels.
