March 29, 2024

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

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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.

Pos.No.Driver nameCarTeamGapBest Lap
113James BaldwinMcLaren 720S GT3 Team United Kingdom1:53.572
230Chris HarteveldMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Netherlands+ 5.9741:53.760
321Igor RodriguesMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Brazil+ 7.7431:53.752
431Harris MitropoulosMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Greece+ 21.5491:53.997
545Ar Muhammad AleefMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Singapore+ 22.0451:54.182
612Tommy ØstgaardPorsche 911 GT3 R Team Norway+ 30.1031:54.100
741Sota MutoMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Japan+ 36.9971:54.282
852Naquib AzlanFerrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 Team Malaysia+ 37.7811:54.125
942Bence BánkiMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Slovakia+ 38.1221:54.337
1046Mathias KühnMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Belgium+ 40.3411:54.257
1129Koketso PilaneMercedes-AMG GT3 Evo Team South Africa+ 41.9541:54.830
1222Juss ParekMcLaren 720S GT3 Team Estonia+ 46.6231:54.732
1377Nicolás RubilarPorsche 911 GT3 R Team Chile+ 46.8631:54.585
1410João CavacaFerrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 Team Portugal+ 46.9051:54.797
1519Thomas SchmidBMW M4 GT3 Team Switzerland+ 49.6051:54.880
1654Tyler LimsnukanPorsche 911 GT3 R Team United States+ 1:02.6871:54.940
1748Michael TeichmannBMW M4 GT3 Team Mexico+ 1:13.2291:55.490
189Daniel LahyrMercedes-AMG GT3 Evo Team Luxembourg+ 1:21.4341:54.695
1918Ian KishimotoFerrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 Team Peru+ 31 Laps
2011Lin Kuei-MinBMW M4 GT3 Team Chinese TaipeiDSQ1:55.012
Semi Final 1 Table

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!”