Southwest Scotland’s Lucas Blakeley wins the e-ROC World Final on Sweden’s snow
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Scot Lucas Blakeley from Irvine has won the eROC World Final, defeating Jarno Opmeer from the Netherlands in a timed shoot-out in both sims and real cars at the iconic ROC parallel track in Pite Havsbad, Sweden.
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The icy shootout was the culmination of a global search for the coolest minds in swim racing in a bid to find the overall “best of the best”, and also featured Greece’s Michael Romanidis and Sweden’s Martin Palm
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Today’s event serves as a warm-up for this weekend’s ROC World Final, where some of the world’s best drivers – from series including Formula 1, Formula 2, IndyCar, Le Mans, W Series, World Rally, World Rallycross, Nitro Rallycross and X -Games – will to compete in the same frozen place
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Blakeley and Opmeer have now won a very special prize: a place on Team eROC in tomorrow’s ROC Nations Cup, and a dream Round 1 draw against Team Finland’s F1 legends Mika Hakkinen and Valtteri Bottas
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ROC Sweden will be broadcast LIVE on TV all over the world.
Scotland’s reigning F1 Esports Pro Series champion Lucas Blakeley has held off three other sim racing specialists to become the 2023 eROC Champion, following a global search to find the fastest sim racing players.
The eROC World Final took place both in the virtual world of Assetto Corsa and in real cars on the brand new ROC parallel track, purpose-built on the frozen Baltic Sea at Pite Havsbad, just 60 miles from the Arctic Circle.
Today’s competition featured four sim racers: last year’s eROC runner-up Blakeley went up against reigning eROC champion and double F1 Esports Pro Series champion Jarno Opmeer of the Netherlands, Sweden’s Martin Palm and Greece’s Michael Romanidis – who reached the eROC World Final after a qualifying event which was open to swimming racers from all over the world.
After ROC Academy training by stunt ace Terry Grant, the four sim racers took to Pite Havsbad parallel track in the mighty off-road Polaris RZR PRO XP to show off their ice racing prowess. And it all happened under the watchful eye of Grant plus his other expert judges: Sweden’s IndyCar race winner Felix Rosenqvist and World Rally rising star Oliver Solberg, winner of last year’s ROC Nations Cup with his father Petter for Team Norway.
Despite the sim racers’ limited experience with real racing cars, part of the challenge was to set a lap with the champion drivers who judged them on a range of criteria, including track awareness and positioning, car control and sheer pace. Players were much more at home in the second part of the challenge, which involved sim racing on the Assetto Corsa version of the ROC Sweden track.
After the points for both sections were tallied, Blakeley and Opmeer found themselves in the final – despite a spirited effort from Romanidis and Palm, who both took a heat from each of the top two in the day’s swim battles. The final shootout included another real-life lap in the Polaris RZR PRO XP at the Pite Havsbad track, which Blakeley won by four seconds. After two more timed battles on the sim, the Scot was crowned eROC champion for the first time.
Now, thanks to their performance today, Blakeley and Opmeer have won a very special prize: the chance to compete for Team eROC in the ROC Nations Cup against some of the world’s best drivers. Even better, they’ve been handed a dream draw in Round 1, against the might of Team Finland’s two-time F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen and 10-time F1 Grand Prix winner Valtteri Bottas.
It gives them both the chance to repeat Blakeley’s heroics from last year when he beat Sebastian Vettel in his first ever race in a real car.
If sim racers can clear the big hurdle, they could face even more of the biggest names in global motorsport history – including four-time Formula 1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel, nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb, extreme sports legend Travis Pastrana and ‘Mr Le Mans’ Tom Kristensen.
The line-up also includes world rallycross champions Johan Kristoffersson, Mattias Ekström and Petter Solberg, 13-time F1 grand prix winner David Coulthard plus triple W Series champion Jamie Chadwick. Then there’s F1’s Mick Schumacher, reigning FIA F2 champion Felipe Drugovich, IndyCar racer Felix Rosenqvist, rallycross ace Tanner Foust, 2022 eTouring Car World Cup champion Adrien Tambay and World Rally stars Oliver Solberg and Thierry Neuville.
Blakeley said: “I’m super happy at the moment and really excited for tomorrow. It’s such a huge privilege to be here at the Race Of Champions. Thanks to the eROC organizers for putting on this race every year and giving us the chance to meet so many legends in sports.
“It’s always weird watching the lap backwards because it feels so fast when you’re doing it but on the screen it looks less fast. The conditions were tough and it’s very easy to get stuck offline with the snow, but at least I had a clean run. The judges gave me the highest points, so thank you very much to them. In today’s final I had a bit of a tough race last but I’m so happy to have gone one step further than last year and won the eROC title.”
Opmeer added: “My judged lap in the Polaris went well. I made a mistake on the first lap but the second lap was really good and I adapted. Maybe I adapted too well, because it took a little time to get used to the sim again this morning. .. Then I’m not sure why I was so slow on the track but maybe it was the same problem switching between the sim and the track . But I’m very happy to be in the ROC Nations Cup again tomorrow. We’ll train all day today and I can’t wait.”
The 2023 eROC competition originally started with a hot lap competition open to anyone on the planet. Last week, the 16 swimmers with the fastest lap times joined some invited professional swimmers for the eROC Qualifying Finals.
The pro sim racers included Opmeer and Blakeley plus Diogo Pinto (Porsche Supercup), James Baldwin (ACC Champion), Fred Rasmussen (FE Accelerate Champion), Kevin Siggy (Le Mans Virtual/DTM Champion), Max Benecke (VCO), Bence Banki (eWTCR), Coque Lopez (GT Sport) and Lohan Blanc (WRC).
Blakeley and Romanidis won their respective qualifying finals after a tense shootout while Palm took a place as the top Swedish driver for the second year in a row. Opmeer, Blakeley, Romanidis and Palm thus won an all-expense paid trip to ROC Sweden – and the chance to win a place on the starting field for the ROC Nations Cup against some of the world’s best drivers.
ROC chairman Fredrik Johnson said: “Congratulations to Lucas for the win and to Jarno, who will join him on Team eROC in tomorrow’s ROC Nations Cup. They did so well last year and with that experience they have definitely matured and they are getting faster and faster. They has now won a dream race against Team Finland’s F1 greats Mika Hakkinen and Valtteri Bottas.Last year Lucas took the chance and beat Sebastian Vettel in his first ever race in a real car, so let’s see how they both fare tomorrow.
“This was our fourth eROC World Final and it gets better every year. Now we’re committed to continuing to search for the ‘best of the best’ sim racers from around the world. Whether you’re playing on your mobile, iPad or something else, this is a competition where the whole planet has the chance to join in. So you could be the next to compete in the Race Of Champions against some of the world’s best drivers in identical cars…”
With a history dating back to 1988, Race Of Champions is a unique festival of global motorsport where stars from series including Formula 1, IndyCar, Le Mans, World Rally and Rallycross battle head-to-head in identical cars, with the winner decided solely by driver skill – often by fractions of a second. All the action takes place on a purpose-built parallel track with ROC’s iconic crossover bridge.
The competition begins with tomorrow’s ROC Nations Cup, when the drivers pair up in national teams (Saturday 28 January, 12:00-15:00 CET). Then comes the individual Race Of Champions (Sunday 29 January, 12:00-15:00 CET) when it’s a straight battle to come away with the coveted title of ROC Champion of Champions.
You can watch the event LIVE worldwide on networks including SVT1 and SVT Play (Sweden), C More Max and Cmore.fi (Finland), NRK (Norway), Canal + (France, French-speaking countries, Switzerland and Poland), Sky Sports (UK, Ireland), ViaPlay (Denmark, Iceland), Ziggo (Netherlands), TV3 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), OTE (Greece), Cablenet (Cyprus), MavTV (USA), REV TV (Canada) ), Star + OTT – Disney (Latin America), Fox 3 (Mexico), Supersport (Africa – English), Canal + and Supersport (Africa), Astro (Malaysia, Brunei) and HK-Cable (Hong Kong). In all other countries, the live stream will be available on Race Of Champions Official YouTube Channel.