Philipp Eng finished third in the – virtual – season opener of the Formula 1 World Championship on Sunday evening. The 20-year-old Chinese Formula 2 driver Guanyu Zhou secured the victory ahead of the Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne. Eng, who has been participating in e-sports races for many years, immediately took pole position at the premiere shown live on ORF Sport + – virtually in the Sakhir desert, real in the simulator at home in Mondsee. Due to technical problems, the race was reduced from 28 to 14 simulated laps. Until the pit stop about halfway through the race, Eng was also in the lead.
The Austrian, who usually drives in the DTM, has been nominated by Red Bull Racing instead of Max Verstappen for the worldwide broadcast simulation racing series, which is supposed to shorten the waiting time until the next real GP for the F1 fans during the corona virus pandemic. The next competitions will also start as a replacement for the originally planned real racing Sundays. The campaign is currently scheduled to run until the end of May.
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