Koketso is top African at the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games Esports Cup

The second edition of the FIA Motorsport Games Esports Cup, part of the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games, was held from October 26 to 30 at Circuit Paul Ricard in France.

57 of the world’s top sim racers raced for gold, including three from the African continent, including Mozambique’s Dylan Jesus driving the Porsche 911 GT3 R, Nigeria’s Segun Akin-Olugbade driving the Bentley Continental GT3, and South Africa’s Koketso Pilane driving the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

In General Qualifying, South Africa’s Koketso (1:54.490) and Nigeria’s Segun (2:00.237) finished 35th and 53rd, respectively, qualifying for Quarter Final 2.

Meanwhile, Mozambique’s Dylan Jesus would fail to clock a time and so finish bottom of the standings, behind Sri Lanka’s Savi Rathnayake and Bangladesh’s Arhaam Rahaman, both of whom also failed to set times.

Both Koketso and Segun failed to make it into the semi-finals, finishing below the required top 10 places in 14th and 18th respectively. They would, however, get another chance to make it into the semis in the last chance stage of the competition.

The South African would grasp his final opportunity, placing second against Nicolás Rubilar of Chile to advance to the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games Esports Cup Semi-Finals. This cannot be said of his African counterpart, Segun, who would finish 10th, five places behind the minimum top five.

This meant that regardless of what transpired in the semi-finals, both Koketso and South Africa would finish as the top Africans in the competition. However, the South Africans were only +1.613 seconds away from qualifying for the competition’s finals, finishing behind Belgium’s Mathias Kühn, who claimed the last slot for the finals.

ATK, Koketso’s team, spoke after the event and congratulated the team on their victory, saying: “South Africa, with the help of ATK drivers, placed first in the African continent for the FIA Motorsport Games! Well-raced team!”