WATCH: Le Mans Virtual Series Qualifying, Race 1, Bahrain, LIVE

The Le Mans Virtual Series returns this weekend with the first race of the 2022-2023 season, the 8 Hours of Bahrain at the Bahrain International Circuit. A new-to-rFactor 2 circuit which is expected to be released just in time for the opening round of the virtual series, Bahrain

On Tuesday (13th September), the 40 entered teams, 24 in the LMP2 division and 16 in the GTE category, all announced their lineup of drivers that will be competing in the opening round of the series.

Both the LMP2 grid and the GTE grid will get a chance to do their own separated qualifying session on Friday. Each class will get 20 minutes to put down their best time to set their place on the grid on Saturday.

Team Redline will be looking to defend its title from one year ago. They’ll have to go heads up against some of the best sim racing teams in the world, including Romain Grosjean’s R8G Esports, YAS Heat, Floyd Vanwall-Burst and Proton Coanda Esports.

Other teams on the grid will come from entities that compete in the real-world, those of which include the manufacturer-backed Porsche, Alpine, Brabham, AMG, Ferrari, Ford and BMW entries.

While we won’t see the likes of professional drivers such as Max Verstappen, Beitske Visser, Romain Grosjean or Alex Yoong in this round, there will be other well-known names such as Alon Day, James Baldwin, Sergio Sette Camara and Dylan Pereira competing this round.

They may not be the ones putting down the qualifying laps, however. That duty may fall on some of the top sim racers that will be included this year, such as Mitchell deJong, Diogo Pinto, Joshua Rogers and of course, Jeffrey Rietveld.

The stream starts with the Le Mans Virtual Cup race event at Sebring preceding the Bahrain qualifying sessions. You can watch all the action live on Traxion.GG once again this season as we’ll be one of the official media partners of the series this season.

You’ve found the secret Thrustmaster Competition code: LT02JUER – good luck!

2022/23 LE MANS VIRTUAL SERIES, ROUND 1, 8 HOURS OF BAHRAIN SCHEDULE

• Le Mans Virtual Series GTE qualifying – Friday 16th September 19:10 BST / 20:10 CEST / 11:10 PT / 14:10 ET
• Le Mans Virtual Series LMP qualifying – Friday 16th September 19:40 BST / 20.40 CEST / 11:40 PT / 14:40 ET
• Le Mans Virtual Series 8 Hours of Bahrain – Saturday 17th September 13:00 BST / 14:00 CEST / 05:00 PT / 08:00 ET

2022/23 LE MANS VIRTUAL SERIES CALENDAR

• Round 1 – 8 Hours of Bahrain, Bahrain – 17th September 2022
• Round 2 – 4 Hours of Monza, Italy – 8th October 2022
• Round 3 – 6 Hours of Spa, Belgium – 5th November 5 2022
• Round 4 – 500 Miles of Sebring, USA – 3rd December 2022
• Round 5 – 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual – 14th-15th January 2023

Full disclosure – Traxion.GG is part of Motorsport Games and the Motorsport Games family of brands. All Traxion.GG content is editorially removed from Motorsport Games video game development and created by a dedicated team. Traxion.GG is one of the official media partners of the Le Mans Virtual Series.