Nobody could threaten Frederik Rasmussen in the third race of the 2022 F1 Pro Championship. The Red Bull driver drove home a commanding start-finish victory.
The Silverstone champion has struck again. The Dane has already been on the podium three times in the F1 Pro Championship on the virtual circuit of Great Britain.
Last year, Rasmussen already took victory there for Red Bull. Yesterday, he continued to build on his flawless record: after taking pole position for the third time in a row, he didn’t miss a beat in the race either and drove home a start-finish victory. He thus extends his record as the driver with the most wins in the F1 Esports Series to eleven.
Impressive Ronhaar
Only rookie Thomas Ronhaar and championship leader Lucas Blakeley remained close on the heels of the Dane in the second half of the race. However, they were never able to threaten Rasmussen. The characteristics of the Silverstone circuit, with its long straight and fast sections, are simply unsuitable for overtaking in the Formula 1 eSport series.
The well-known DRS move in F1 22, it stretched from the first to the last position at the beginning of the race in some cases. There was always only a gap of a few tenths of a second between the drivers. The level of all sim racers in terms of consistency and freedom from mistakes, impressive.
This marks Dutchman Ronhaar’s first podium in his fledgling F1 Pro Championship career: “It feels really good to be on the podium for the first time. That could have actually been the case in the opening race in Bahrain, but unfortunately I had the collision with Frederick Rasmussen there,” said Ronhaar after his second place in Silverstone.
Double champion Jarno Opmeer tried to compensate for his mixed qualifying (P9) with opposite tyre tactics and an early pit stop. In the end, he still managed to finish fifth.
A day to forget
After Marcel Kiefer’s second place in the Imola race, the German riders had a day to forget. Already struggling with problems early on in qualifying, the rider from Karlsruhe and Simon Weigang couldn’t get beyond 13th and 18th place respectively
Lucas Blakeley leads the 2022 F1 Esport Series drivers’ standings by a commanding 65 points with two wins and a third-place finish in three races. Rasmussen (44) follows him in second place, with rookie Ronhaar (30) in an excellent third place. The Germans Kiefer (18) and Weigang (14) are currently in eighth and ninth place.
In the team classification, which carries a prize of 750,000 US dollars for the winning team, McLaren Shadow (86) continues to lead ahead of Red Bull (62) and Mercedes (48). Event two of the 2022 F1 Pro Championship will take place from 12 to 14 October 2022 with races in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands.