MOTORSPORT: Giant field for carsales ARG eSport Cup

The biggest grid in TCR history is set for action as the carsales ARG eSport Cup fires up at Bathurst tonight.

Real-world champion Will Brown leads a field of 52 starters for the online battle, which is comprehensively bigger than anything seen yet from Formula 1, Indycar or Supercars since the switch to the digital world during the Coronavirus shut-down.

Drivers will be racing identical Audi RS 3 TCR cars from their home simulators, many in liveries which reflect their regular racers, as the broadcast coverage of the Cup contest begins at 8:00pm AEDT.

Later events in the 10-round series will include Formula 3 single-seaters similar to the S5000 cars that compete at ARG events.

The eSport Cup field is headlined by Bathurst 1000 winners, Australian Touring Car champions, British touring car champions and a smattering of international racers.

Garth Tander, who took pole for the aborted TCR races at the Australian Grand Prix meeting, has solid form in the real world but is largely unknown in iRacing, unlike many of his younger rivals.

They include British tin-top star Ash Sutton and Jaxon Evans, a former Carrera Cup champion in Austrlaia who is now racing Porsches in Europe.

Other big names include veteran Jason Bargwanna, young guns James Golding, Thomas Randle and Aaron Seton, with Chelsea Angelo as the only female and carsales editor-in-chief Mike Sinclair, a class champion at the Bathurst 12-Hour, as one of the wildcards.

Brown would normally be the driver to beat in his Hyundai i30 N but admits he will be doing it tough.

“I can do one quick lap, but then I crash. So it’s going to be tough,” Brown admits to carsales.

“I’m hopeless. I suck at it. I’m doing my best but I’m still about 1.5 seconds off the pace.

“The way it’s going, I’ll crash in the mid-pack and cause havoc. But that might make it entertaining.”

The race will be commentated by Honda racer Tony D’Alberto and TCR media boss Grant Rowley, on a variety of platforms including the TCR Australia YouTube channel and the Facebook channels for TCR Australia, S5000, Touring Car Masters, V8 Touring Cars, Trans Am Australia, Motorsport Australia, Garry Rogers Motorsport and HMO Customer Racing.

The schedule for the Bathurst debut of the carsales ARG eSport Cup is:
7:00pm – Practice (60 mins)
8:00pm – Qualifying (20 mins) – LIVE BROADCAST BEGINS
8:25pm – Race 1 ‘Feature Race’ (30 mins)
9:00pm – Race 2 ‘Reverse Grid’ (15 minutes)
The grid for the Race 1 ‘Feature Race’ will be Qualifying Order.
The Race 2 ‘Reverse Grid Race’ will be reverse Qualifying Order for the top 25 positions