Australian Aaron Borg emerges victorious in inaugural Nations Cup Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific’s top simulator racers competed over the weekend in the Nations Cup Asia-Pacific. 31 racers from 11 nations participated in the inaugural, by invitation only event. The two race event in Dallara F3 cars, at the famed Spa Francorchamps circuit, was organised by IR eSports & the SRA on the iRacing platform.

2019 Toyota Racing Series Champion, Australian Aaron Borg, was crowned the overall winner after finishing second in Race 1 and emphatically winning the reverse grid race 2. Leonardo Lopes De Oliviera from Macau, won race 1 but sustained damage and could only finish tenth in race 2. Frederico Duarte Joaquin Teixiera, also from Macau was third overall after finishing a consistent fifth in both races.

A hotly contested qualifying saw Oliviera bag pole with a laptime of 2:11.654 a mere 1 hundredth of a second ahead of Chennai’s Sai Prithvi. Singaporean Charles Theseira was a further five hundredths off Prithvi.

Indian favourites and champions of the Indian SIM Racing League, Sai Prithvi & Amith Kutti started race 1 in second & fifth respectively but crashed into each other on Lap 1 taking themselves out of contention. Oliviera had a good race from pole, and won the race less than 1 second ahead of Aaron Borg. Singapore’s Charles Theseira was third. Prithvi recovered after repairs to his car, to claim the fastest lap of the race.

The starting grid for race 2 was formed, based on the reverse order of the top 12 finishers from race 1. Race 1 winner Oliviera was caught out in a crash and sustained damage which forced him to pit. Borg started eleventh and stormed through the field to eventually win the race comfortably ahead of Thailand’s Jakkapan Jansuroj in second. Hong Kong’s Calix Poon was third.

Thrissur’s Abdul Qadir was the highest placed Indian, finishing fourth in Race 1. Multiple Indians faced pure bad luck, getting involved in crashes and did not feature in the top 3. They were able to showcase their speed with laptimes which were right up there and remained confident of better results in future events.

“It is fantastic to see the response we have received from across the Asia Pacific region. Our Indian racers proved they had the speed, but need a bit more experience in these sort of competitions. All the racers loved the event & we will definitely have a strong Asia Pacific Championship in the near future.

We must thank Mark from the SRA who has been instrumental in helping us organise this event as well Mumbai Falcons & Volkswagen Motorsport India” said Rayomand Banajee of IR eSports.

Racers from Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Macau, Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, China and India participated in the inaugural Nations Cup Asia Pacific.

IR eSports will soon launch Season 4 of the popular ISRL while the Asia Pacific Championship will be re-launched later in the year.