Monster weekend for Williams Esports with six victories in three days

Williams Esports celebrated an unprecedented weekend of success with race victories in five different series, including four titles claimed, and an Autosport Award win.

Following success in the Motorsport UK British F4 Esports championship on Friday, the team headed to SimExpo - the industry’s major annual event in Germany - where they won both titles, the Simracing.gp Professional Trophy and the headline GT500 event.

Williams had live events in multiple countries on the same weekend - not for the first time in the team’s history - with the MundoGT Jarama 6h, in Madrid, as well as an online round of the 24hr Series Esports at Monza. The honours concluded with the Engineer of the Future Award at Autosport’s prestigious end of season celebration.

On Friday night, the Williams Esports-run Munster Rugby Gaming team of Alx Spetz and Josh Lad secured the British F4 Esports teams’ championship after both drivers achieved podiums in the final round at Brands Hatch. Lad also finished runner-up in the drivers’ championship, with Spetz in P5.

At the weekend, Williams Esports had seven drivers competing across the two competitions at SimExpo, the Simracing.gp Professional Trophy in ACC and the Sim GT500 in iRacing.

On Saturday, the driver line-up of Daire McCormack, Tinko Van der Velde and Igor Rodrigues (who was racing from home in Brazil following recent shoulder surgery), won the Simracing.gp Professional Trophy race and also claimed the overall series title.

The team started on pole, ahead of their nearest rivals Triton Racing, and held them off for the whole race, finishing their dominant season at the top of the leaderboard.

Louis Nahser, Daniel Pasztor, Alessandro Bico and Moreno Sirica added more success in the GT500 on Sunday with a 1-2 finish for the team. Sirica and Bico won the race in the Williams Esports Razer car, with Nahser and Pasztor - last year’s event winners - second in the team’s Chillblast entry.

McCormack closed out the SimExpo by winning the fastest lap competition, too.

The action continued into the evening on Sunday, with Williams Esports contesting the 6hr of Jarama event at the Spanish circuit, collaborating with team partner DUX Gaming.

Williams’ Daniel Lafuente put in a dominant performance, backed up by Coque Lopez and Jorge Alberola to claim the victory after a close battle with Team Fordzilla. After a race-long battle, contact on the last lap caused the Williams car to spin, but Fordzilla sportingly handed back the place before the finish line.

The weekend closed with the fifth round of the 24h Series Esports, the Monza 6h. Atte Kauppinen and Alx Spetz controlled the race to claim the second win of the season for the Williams Esports BenQ car - an even more incredible result considering Spetz was only called up for the race on the day, when regular driver Vasilios Beletsiotis had to withdraw through illness.

There was yet more success to come off the track, as the team’s Esports Chief Engineer Michael Preston received the Autosport Williams Engineer of the Future Award at the Autosport Awards in London.

He shared the stage with the likes of Sebastian Vettel, George Russell and Roger Penske, as he was recognised for his achievements in sim racing and developing a pathway for future engineering students to use esports to help achieve their dream of a career in real world motorsport.