Hillclimb: Round 1 a virtual hit

KNYSNA MOTOR RACING NEWS - The highly anticipated Virtual Knysna Simola Hillclimb completed its first round of action on Sunday with Lorenzo Gualtieri emerging from a fierce battle as the winner by a narrow 0,041 of a second over former Group N racing champion Charl Wilken.

The opening round of the series emulated the Classic Car Friday (CCF) element of the real event, with participants having to drive the iconic Lotus 49.

Adriaan Nel took the early lead of round one with a time of 38,500 seconds, but from Wednesday the competition intensified with the leading SIM racers starting to break the 37-second barrier. Nel, Wilken and Gaultieri swapped the lead multiple times over the remaining days.

Wilken was heading towards the win until the final day when Gaultieri set a very quick 36,694 to clinch victory. Gaultieri and Wilken were the only two competitors to break the 36-second barrier, but it was all extremely close with the top seven racers finishing within one second of each other.

Thanks to his win, Gualtieri leads the standings on 100 points from Wilken on 95, Nel 92, Willem van Rensburg 90, John-Henri Vaughn 89, and regular Simola Hillclimb competitor Juan van Rensburg 88.

Interest in the Virtual Knysna Simola Hillclimb was well above expectation with over 100 competitors joining the opening round and 4 215 competitive times being set over the week.

To be able to cater for the large number of participants, Monarch Events set up ten online Assetto Corsa Servers, enabling 50 competitors to play online at any one time.

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