Carrie Schreiner and Celia Martin started their first Sim Racing adventure: the Girls only-Team by WS Racing joined the Digital Nürburgring Endurance Series, as pro-drivers and sim-racers challenged the virtual Green Hell.
The second race of the Digital Nürburgring Endurance Series started with a fully packed grid in the different classes, with real-world drivers and Pro-sim racers mixed in the teams' line-ups. One of the outfits was the "Girls only by WS Racing", the project that last year brought for the first time an all-female team to the VLN. They now join the virtual series, with Carrie Schreiner and Celia Martin being one of the few teams with no pro-sim driver on board and with limited experience in the world of Sim-racing.
The second race on the Nürburgring Nordschleife was a three-hour action-packed race.
With no real-world motorsport going on around the globe, eRacing has emerged as the big trend in these difficult times for the sport. Every weekend, more and more esport events see real-world and pro-sim drivers teaming up to bring race fans some entertainment. In their homes, professional drivers use their own race simulators and can directly engage with their fans as much as on the racetrack.
The team of the weekend featured Sami-Matti Trogen (real-world driver) and Dominik Staib (pro-sim racer) from Williams eSport, which dominated all sessions with their Audi R8 LMS.
They secured pole position in the qualifying session and, after a flawless start, drove off to a flag-to-flag victory. Second placed team was BS+Competition (Philipp Eng, Alexander Voss, Laurin Heinrich) and Team Mahle was third to cross the finish line (Alex Arana, Agustin Canapin).
In the TCR-class, Carrie Schreiner qualified the Girls only-Team at position 11 out of 12. She started the first stint, defended her place and had a small collision with the Team Nürburgring car before she handed the steering wheel to Célia Martin. Célia drove the complete second stint, hit some troubles as she changed her front tyres during the refueling:
"It was very entertaining, very cool to drive, I was so into it." - she explained.
"I just learnt not to change your front tyres during the refuelling, maybe it was not a good idea. I was so lost regarding my lap times for the last thirty minutes, but we won a place on the grid so it was not so bad after all."
"I think we did well for the very first time, especially with no preparation. It was quite cool." - Célia summed up. At the end of the 3-hour race, the "Girls Only" team finished in tenth place, completing a good performance in a very competitive sim-racing environment without much virtual experience.
Carrie Schreiner got her Sim just one week before the event, supported by the Nürburgring eSports Launch and trained every day to build some experience for her first race.
It wasn´t an easy first race, but both ladies had fun, enjoyed some racing and collected many new useful feedbacks, as they look forward to come back stronger for the next events.
The next race in the DNLS will be on April 18th and the "Girls only by WS Racing" team will extend their line-up, with Laura Kraihamer set to join Carrie Schreiner and Célia Martin.
On the same day, Schreiner started a second event - the #RaceForGood by Rutronik Races. The format consisted in 25 real-world drivers battling in one heat and 25 pro-sim racers in second heat. With some deserved luck, Carrie finished 20th in the first heat and went through the semi-final with the last qualifying place.
The first Semi final featured the best 20 real-world and again Schreiner was able to navigate unscathed through several crashed in front of her, finishing in a very good 7th place in both the semi final and the grand final. It was a widely entertaining race with some very good battles after Rutronik Racing fixed an issue with graphics and overlays.
Audi driver Kelvin van der Linde took the main accolade in front of Dylan Pereira and Patric Niederhauser.
