iRacing World Championships Preview: Week of 5th October

Only one race remains in the 2021 eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series season at Texas Motor Speedway. While that will happen in a week’s time, the four drivers aiming for the title are hard at work testing at Texas. While they get the week off from racing, two other iRacing World Championships are still on the table.

First up this week, the iRacing Rallycross World Championship Series presented by Yokohama takes the pros and all-stars to the Iowa Speedway Rallycross for their third race of the season. On Thursday, the Force Dynamics Dallara iRacing Grand Prix Championship heads to Autodromo Nazionale di Monza for their fourth race in 2021.

Both championships are heating up as they start to enter the midsections of their schedules. Check out this week’s iRacing World Championships previews for each below.

iRXWC: Subaru Motorsports on top entering Iowa

Last week, it was a decisive last lap Joker lap which put Jon Robertson ahead of his Subaru Motorsports USA teammate and the defending series champion Yohann Harth, as well as the up-and-coming talent Vicente Salas, to win at Atlanta. If it weren’t for Salas, Harth may have been able to get the gap needed to stay ahead. Alas, the two Subarus are looking tough to beat already in 2021.

As it stands after two weeks, Robertson leads overall with Harth sitting in fourth. They’re split by SET Esports’ Jonne Ollikainen and Salas from Elliott Sadler Esports. Entering Iowa, Harth may be the favorite to watch as he looks to defend his win there from 2020. Robertson also came in fourth last year, but it’s notable that both did not make the Iowa main the season before in 2019.

It’s also important to keep an eye on the breakout talent this season that’s been Salas. Iowa is one of the few main events that he qualified into in his rookie campaign, racing with Andretti Autosport. This season, he’s been stellar, making the main in both events and coming home Top 5 both times. Conversely, had Salas not had run ins with Harth during the closing laps at Atlanta, he also might have been able to hold off the late charge from Robertson.

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: Back to pack racing with Monza mayhem?

In the first two races of the season at Watkins Glen Int’l and Spa-Francorchamps, the Dallara IR-01 put on a spectacle of formula-style cars racing in packs like a NASCAR superspeedway race.

When the series went to Interlagos last week, the pack racing was still prevalent, but the runs and passing were harder to come by. These cars have a small window of opportunity at high speeds where the leading car will lose the advantage and a trailing car can overtake.

With Monza up next, there are a few fairly long straightaways with passing opportunities at hand. It’s expected that packs will form, out-braking will be key and mistakes will happen. I would expect trouble spot at corners like the Variente chicanes or Ascari.

With the new car and challenge at hand, it’s still worth noting that last week’s winner Peter Berryman has a pair of poles at Monza in 2017 and 2018. Previous iterations of the series took place in much different cars that weren’t made for close racing. More recently, in the series qualifier, Berryman didn’t compete in the Monza race. Yohann Harth took the pole position, Valentin Mandernach had the fastest lap and Maarten van Loozenoord took the victory.

Berryman and van Loozenoord have victories already this season, along with Michele Costantini who collected a fourth place finish in the qualifier. So far this season, it has been the quartet of Berryman, van Loozenoord, Costantini and Harth dominating week after week.

Is it Harth’s turn to get in victory lane? Will one of the three winners become the first multi-time winner this season? Can anyone else split up the fantastic four? Tune in live on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. ET / 8:00 p.m. BST to find out. Every race is live on the iRacing social channels.