The Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team has finished fourth in the Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh. The final battle for the championship victory was narrowly denied to the sim racing factory team: At the end of Thursday's races, a top-3 finish in the standings would have been necessary to be able to clinch the title on Friday.

Jordan Caruso, Charlie Collins, Joshua Rogers and Dayne Warren return from the most prestigious sim racing event of the season with prize money of $40,000. The winning team of the "R1" series will receive prize money of 200,000 US dollars.

The Porsche works team recently contested the online preliminary rounds of the Esports World Cup from its new headquarters in Cologne. In the state-of-the-art Porsche Esports Performance Center, the team qualified for the final round in Saudi Arabia with 1st place in the team classification.

In 2023, the unofficial sim racing premier class started in Riyadh for the first time. Porsche won the title in the teams' championship with the then new works team. Last year, they finished fifth.

Nina Braack, Manager Esports at Porsche Motorsport: "Congratulations to the winners of BMW Team Redline! We had to admit defeat to strong competition. Nevertheless, we are of course very disappointed. The EWC is the highlight of our season, the biggest esports tournament in the world – and with 1st place after the online preliminary rounds, we were accordingly ambitious. At Porsche Motorsport, however, we naturally know how to deal with it when you only have the chance to win one of the biggest victories once a year. We have continued to learn this time and can be proud of the individual victories we have achieved – in Cologne as well as in the races here in Riyadh. Preparations for next year and for all the other races that we will still contest this year start on Monday."

Esports World Cup: Esports Highlight of the Year

With 25 different esports competitions in seven weeks, the EWC is considered the largest public event of its kind. The event began on July 7 and ends on August 24. It will take place in an event center of around 60,000 square meters, which has several esports arenas. Across all disciplines, the prize money adds up to over 70 million US dollars – a record at the EWC.

R1 – the most important things in brief

The unofficial sim racing premier class is based on the simulation "racing".
Vehicles are driven according to GT3 regulations, including the 911 GT3 R.
As in real sports, a balance of performance ensures equal opportunities.
Twelve teams with 4 drivers each will fight for a team championship.
In the online events, the drivers qualify for the final at the live event.
The R1 and the Esports World Cup will pay out 500,000 US dollars in prize money.

Esports, sim racing and Porsche

Esports include sporting competition with video games of all kinds. This also includes simulation racing, sim racing (simulated racing). In professional sim racing, athletes use hardware derived from real racing cars – steering wheels and pedals, for example, require the same operating forces. The software mostly simulates real tracks and vehicles. The competitors compete against each other either via the Internet or in a local network. Many major esports championships hold qualifiers online, but host finals on-site and in front of an audience. Esports are particularly popular in Asia and the USA. Thomas Laudenbach, Vice President Porsche Motorsport: "Digital or real: motorsport is in our DNA. In both forms, however, we do not pursue it as an end in itself. Esports reach a young, digital audience. In addition, simulations are becoming more and more important, whether in race preparation or in the development of both our race cars and our road cars."