Williams, Redline and Porsche: All Drivers & Teams Racing In Rennsport R1

Formerly known as ESL R1, which began back in February 2023, the series has run three seasons on the still yet-to-be-released Rennsport platform. In it, twelve teams consisting of four drivers each would race GT3 cars, and the top drivers would qualify for the Majors in which they would constantly race until a driver won a race after meeting a minimum points threshold.

To fans of more mainstream forms of esports, plenty of gaming organisations fielded sim racing efforts such as FURIA, Heroic, FaZe Clan and G2 (who used to run the sim racing division for Red Bull Racing). This upcoming season sees many teams from more dedicated racing backgrounds and a few more gaming teams fielding their first racing programs.

With the first round taking place later today, here is a rundown of who is competing in Rennsport R1 this year.

Redline​

Starting off with a stronghold in the sim racing scene, Team Redline are of course primarily known because of their association with Red Bull F1 driver Max Verstappen but their success in sim racing precedes even him. It would be impossible to list off all of their achievements, but just in R1 they were team champions in the first season and then they won both the driver and team titles last year.

Going into 2025, the Redline and Red Bull connection has expanded with the BMW M4 rocking a bit of the white that the Racing Bulls team run in F1. As for drivers, they have stuck to their guns with a quartet who have netted them strong results all over the sim racing scene.

The reigning champion of R1 is Kevin Siggy, who has a very decorated record across all of sim racing. He won rFactor 2 Formula Pro, DTM Esports on RaceRoom and was also the winner of the McLaren Shadow Project Final back in 2019. He is joined by Enzo Bonito who won the eRace of Champions in 2018 and even defeated a Formula E and Indy 500 champion in the real life event the following year, he is fast on every platform.

Finally, there are Luke Bennett and Jeffrey Rietveld who are also proven winners across the sim racing world. Redline are always in an immensely strong position with their drivers no matter who, so they will always be a firm favourite to challenge for wins and the championship.

Williams​

From one team connected to an F1 driver to another that is the sim racing division of an actual F1 team. Williams Sim Racing have been all over the competitive sim racing scene, so it was only natural that they would end up in R1.

A former driver of theirs had been in championship contention across both the 2023 Spring and Fall Majors, but they have not skipped out on quality with the ones they have on their roster for this season at all.

Dominik Blajer and Tobias Pfeffer are multiple time champions in SRO championships on Assetto Corsa Competizione. On the iRacing side, Vasilios Beletsiotis and Daniel Pásztor were part of the entry that finished P2 of the GT3 class in the top split of the Daytona 24 this year.

Whilst Williams are mainstays across all of sim racing, they are unable to hold a candle to Redline or the next team on this list when it comes to success.

Coanda​

Once again, a team bursting with achievements across all sim racing and drivers that will be very capable of bringing home results for the team. Effectively acting as the Porsche works sim racing outfit, they began that collaboration in style with the LMP title in the Le Mans Virtual Series and backed that up with the team’s championship in the R1 one-off event in July 2023.

Then in the Fall Major, their lead driver Joshua Rogers delivered the driver’s title, adding to his two Porsche Esports Supercup championships that he won in 2019 and 2021. Rogers is back again and he has three very decorated teammates.

The only change in the line-up is that of the incredibly consistent Jordan Caruso, who was 2023 Porsche Esports Supercup champion on top of winning a real life racing championship in the latter part of 2022. Dayne Warren is next up who won two Australian Supercars Eseries titles on iRacing and the SRO Esports GT World Challenge Asia Sprint series on Assetto Corsa Competizione in dominant fashion.

Last but not least, Charlie Collins – the sole Brit in a team of Aussies – who was part of the GTP championship winning team in the 2023 IMSA Esports Global Championship season. All very well decorated and all very much capable of bringing home glory for Porsche.

Vitality​

The name Vitality may not hold much weight in the sim racing world but in other forms of esports, it is one of the most prominent. After formerly running the F1 Esports team for Renault, the organisation partnered with former F1 driver Romain Grosjean’s sim racing team R8G Esports at the start of the 2024 season. Their efforts resulted in the team finishing runner-up to Redline in the team’s championship.

Rewind back to the first ever R1 Major and their driver Marcell Csincsik came out on top to become the first driver’s champion. Their line-up remains completely unchanged, although they have switched from driving the Audi over to the brand new Aston Martin that was added to Rennsport recently.

The remainder of the team features Thibault Cazaubon, Erhan Jajovski and Jiri Toman, all of whom with Csincsik helped the R8G squad achieve team championship in the 2023 Fall season as well. So they are a proven quantity and they will certainly be frontrunners this season.

BS+ Competition​

We recently covered the exploits of an eNASCAR driver and his team entering into the NASCAR Euro Series, and that team features in R1 as well. BS+Competition may not have the most successful record in the series, but they have clearly proven capable of being successful across many other championships on other platforms.

The majority of their R1 drivers have their backgrounds in ACC-based competition. Gregor Schill finished runner-up in SRO Esports GT World Challenge America series in 2022, and also with Nils Naujoks helped the team to the runner-up spot in the onsite SRO Esports Sim Pro Series in 2023.

Ferris Stanley was runner-up inn SRO Esports GT World Challenge Asia in 2023, and Caique Oliveira was part of the Brazilian esports org FURIA R1 team, making it to the 2023 Spring Major. Finally, there is Nikodem Wisniewski, who will be familiar to those who followed the first edition of the 24 hours of Le Mans Virtual on rFactor 2 as he was part of the outright winning entry.

Overall, plenty of capable drivers are on the team, but historically, BS+ have rarely ever finished anywhere but 11th of the twelve teams, only breaking that trend last year with an 8th place in the final standings. Seeing those iconic zebra striped cars further up the grid may very well be possible should they continue the upward trajectory.

MSI​

Since the beginning of the series, the Apex Racing Team have been competing in the championship. They are mostly known for their successes on iRacing, winning multiple special events and also being the team that our own Markus Søholm is a part of. However from this season, they will not be racing as Apex and instead under the MSI name.

This brand are mostly known for the hardware they develop, but are not strangers to sim racing success. Last year in the SRO Esports Intercontinental GT Challenge series, they won the Pro class championship and they have a solid foundation to springboard off of that in R1.

Jamie Fluke and Yohann Harth are two Apex mainstays that have been embedded in the team for a long time, and Fluke has even tasted victory in R1 when he won the final of the Fall season’s penultimate round. Jon Robertson was 2021 iRacing Rallycross champion but that does not mean he is not handy at circuit racing, since Harth won it the season prior.

Finally there is Jimmy Antunes, who very nearly won gold in the FIA Motorsport Games F4 Esports Cup for Switzerland last October. Once more, all very proven drivers who will surely provide this Apex and MSI partnership with a good chance of taking home solid results.

MOUZ​

When it comes to all the esports teams that joined the inaugural R1 season despite no background in sim racing, MOUZ are the only ones left. The team have the distinct honour of having the first-ever victory in an R1 final with their driver Max Benecke, who then went on to become champion in the R1 one-off event.

As for their other drivers, they have Moritz Löhner who on RaceRoom won three ADAC GT Masters Esports titles and a DTM Esports championship. The latter of which resulted in him getting a full season in real life DTM Trophy, finishing 8th in the final standings after two podium finishes.

Also remaining on the team is Yuri Kasdorp whose background is in rFactor 2, and finally a new recruit to the team in the form of Dennis Schöniger, who was part of the Williams team that won the 2023 Intercontinental GT Challenge Esports championship.

MOUZ remains the only team that had no prior sim racing background that still races in the championship and actually have had the success to justify keeping them here. But more and more have joined since then.

Guild​

The Guild Gaming team may not be known to a lot of people but one of its co-owners so happens to be football legend David Beckham – who it turns out is not the only footballer with a team in R1. The sim racing division is handled by former Williams esports manager Seb Hawkins, and have been active in other championships besides R1.

One of their drivers for this season is Henry Moore, who just fell short of the British F4 Esports championship to Graham Carroll who races for Ferrari. Carroll moved to Ferrari after a brief stint at Mercedes, racing in R1 with 5-time Formula SimRacing champion Bono Huis and Marko Pejic who won a round of the 2023 R1 Spring season.

Both Huis and Pejic became part of the Guild R1 team after Mercedes departed at the start of 2024, as did World’s Fastest Gamer winner James Baldwin who is now no longer competing in the series. Lining up alongside Moore, Huis and Pejic is Matt Emery who has tasted victory across the iRacing scene in both open wheelers and Porsche Cup.

Virtus.pro​

One of the other new teams that entered into R1 last year was Virtus.pro, who did not exactly make an impact as they stuck with drivers from their country of origin. Whilst one of their drivers this year is from Virtus’ home country, all drivers this time around are clearly there due to merit.

The two big signings for Virtus come in the form of Dáire McCormack and Kevin Ellis Jr. The former was part of Williams and even got close to winning the R1 driver’s title in both the Spring and Fall 2023 seasons, whilst Ellis used to be on the Apex team and contended for championships in the Porsche Esports Supercup.

Vojtěch Fiala follows McCormack from Williams, and lastly there is Mikhail Statsenko who used to race for Ferrari. Most teams with a background in more conventional forms of gaming tend to go with a hands off approach, and that did not work out for Virtus last season so with these big name drivers involved, they mean business.

Falcons​

Unlike the last entry, this team more known for other forms of esports may very well be tied to their country of origin but did not go exclusively with drivers from there, and it worked out much better for them with a 7th place finish in the final standings. Therefore, Falcons are mostly sticking to their guns.

Remaining from last season is Przemysław Lemanek who was iRacing Grand Prix champion in 2023 and Jakub Maciejewski who is a 2-time Porsche Esports Sprint Challenge champion in his native Poland. Then there is Tuomas Tähtelä, who made it to the 2023 Fall Major with the Heroic team, with one new addition.

Kamil Pawlowski joins his fellow Poles Maciejewski and Lemanek on the team, he has won three championships on Project CARS 2 and also became part of the Ferrari team after winning their esports series in 2021. Falcons proved they went and got some solid drivers and can feasibly step up from where they were running in their first season.

Now onto two teams that are competing in their first ever R1 season.

eRa​

This team popped up out of nowhere, despite having their background firmly within virtual racing over other forms of gaming. The eRacing Association have arrived truly with a bang as all four of their drivers are known commodities within R1, and they could very well be on the pace pretty much immediately.

Perhaps the two most successful drivers in their ranks are Michal Šmídl and Elvis Rankin. Šmídl has been embedded within the Redline team for many years, being part of their championship winning effort in the V10 R-League and also competed for Haas in F1 Esports back in 2018.

Rankin has been part of both Apex and Coanda, having won many iRacing Special Events but also the Skip Barber iRacing Series championship. That gave him an entry into the real life Skip Barber series which he also took home the championship in. Last but not least, Ibraheem Khan and Robbie Stapleford who raced in R1 previously with BS+.

The former got a third place class finish in the 2023 Le Mans 24 Virtual, whilst the latter has raced for the likes of Jenson Button’s Rocket Simsport and also the G2 Esports team. eRa have won big with all these signings and whilst they may not be winning championships, do not be surprised to see them fighting for strong results.

The same applies to the twelfth and final team on this list.

TC Esports​

Remember earlier when we mentioned another team connected to a well known footballer? That would be TC Esports, the TC standing for Thibaut Courtois who many will know as the goalkeeper of Real Madrid and the Belgian national football team. But Courtois is also clearly big into racing and gaming, as he competed in many of the events during lockdown in 2020.

Courtois has since started up a racing team that competes in Spanish F4, and also a sim racing division that has also not skipped out on a high level of talent. First of which is Dani Moreno, who together with now 3-time F1 Esports champion Jarno Opmeer helped take Mercedes to team championship glory in 2021, as well as being top rookie the previous season.

Next up is Coque López, a 2-time Gran Turismo World Series Nations Cup champion who announced he will be taking a step back from this year, due to the qualifiers clashing with the R1 season. Nico Mateo was once an F1 game hopeful who then transitioned to iRacing, and finally Jack Keithley formerly of Williams who starred on the RaceRoom scene, finishing 3rd in the 2020 ADAC GT Masters Esports final standings.

TC Esports like eRa mean business in their first season so keep a look out for them this season. Also, keep an eye out for an interview we may be having with Thibault Courtois on the site in the not-too-distant future.

How To Follow​

The first round takes place March 28th with the broadcast on the Rennsport YouTube channel, with an event taking place every Friday until June 13th. There will be seven races in today’s event, with teams nominating two drivers for two 20 minute knockout races.

The three teams who accumulate the most points in their races progress to the semi finals, and that will repeat for the semi finals into the final. Broadcast begins at 5pm UTC.

Which driver or team are you rooting for in Rennsport R1 this season? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our Rennsport forum!