SRO Launches European Esports Series With Split Grids

Photo: SRO

SRO Motorsports Group has confirmed an esports championship that will follow on from its one-off charity race two weeks ago, featuring separate races for real-world drivers and sim specialists.

The SRO E-Sport Championship will again be run on Assetto Corsa Competizione with organizational support from Kunos Simulazioni and Ak Informatica, using a similar setup to the SRO E-Sport GT Series Charity Challenge that was held at Monza on March 29.

While that race featured a combination of real-world drivers, sim racers and ‘wildcard’ fan entries, the new championship will run separate races for all three categories.

Real-world GT drivers, including a number of GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS regulars, will compete in the Pro Series, while dedicated sim racers will race in the Silver Series. Those two classes will run at the same events, with races on the same days.

Both will complete five rounds, with the top 20 points scorers from each category progressing to a grand finale in June.

The first round will take place at Silverstone on April 26, before races at Spa-Francorchamps, Nürburgring and Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in May. A fifth round will run on June 14 at a location to be decided by public vote.

All races will be live streamed on the GT World YouTube and Dailymotion channels, as well as SRO’s Twitch and Facebook pages.

In addition, an Am Series will take place over five consecutive Saturdays beginning on May 16. Entrants will be decided through a hot-lap qualifying session, similar to the ‘wildcard’ entries in the charity race including overall winner Arthur Kammerer.

The will tackle the same four circuits as the Pro and Silver classes but on different dates between May 16 and June 6. Races will be live streamed on Twitch.

The location for the grand finale, which will include 20 Pro, 20 Silver and 10 Am drivers, will also be selected by a public vote at a later date.

The SRO E-Sport Championship follows on from two other SRO-affiliated esports series: SRO America’s GT Rivals contest, and the TORA British GT Esports Championship.

SRO E-Sport Championship Pro and Silver Schedule:
April 26 – Silverstone
May 10 – Spa
May 17 – Nürburgring
May 31 – Barcelona-Catalunya
June 14 – TBD
TBD – Grand Final

SRO E-Sport Championship Am Schedule:
May 16 – Silverstone
May 23 – Spa
May 30 – Nürburgring
June 6 – Barcelona-Catalunya
June 13 – TBD
TBD – Grand Final

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.