One last race, one final showdown, one final chance for GT Rivals Esports competitors to leave it all on the virtual track as Season 1 comes to a conclusion tomorrow at the recently revived Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit in South Africa.
Home to the season finale for SRO’s “real life” Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli, Kyalami is a 2.8-mile-long circuit with 16 corners taking full advantage of a naturally undulating landscape. The challenging blend of sweeping, fast sections and tight, technical corners makes Kyalami legendary.
The GT Rivals Esports finale will air tomorrow, May 31, starting at 3:00 p.m. ET across SRO’s GT World YouTube channel, SRO Motorsports Twitch Channel, and GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Facebook page.
Thirty drivers will line up for the start of tomorrow’s race, the eighth round of Assetto Corsa Competizione Esports action featuring the top real-world pros from SRO America, sim racers from Champion Motorsports, and invited guests.
South African David Perel will look to utilize his real world racing knowledge of the circuit heading into the finale. Perel finished third in the Silver category in last year’s IGTC Kyalami 9 Hours driving a Ferrari 488 GT3. He’s finished second in the last two GT Rivals events at Bathurst and Barcelona, having only joined the series mid-season. Definitely a local favorite and one to watch go for the win in his home circuit.
At Bathurst, Karl Wittmer put on a dominating display of speed in the Honda GT3 Academy NSX GT3 Evo. Having never finished outside the Top 10, Wittmer looks to finish the season strong with another victory.
CrowdStrike Racing’s Kevin Boehm continues to be a frontrunner in the Mercedes-AMG GT3. With several podium and top-five performances, Boehm is a threat for the overall win. He’ll be joined by GT Academy winner Nick McMillan who’s shown speed but is still in search of a podium finish.
Scott Michaels will also be one to watch. The Walkenhorst BMW driver was due to start third at Bathurst, but exiting the server between qualifying and the race forced him to start from the back. He worked his way up to fifth but fell victim to a drive-through penalty after contact with another competitor.
Champion Motorsports will field eight sim racers in the finale. Led by Misano winner Josh Staffin, the CMS sim racing league drivers have earned multiple podiums and top-five finishes.
Of course no one has been as dominant as Bryan Heitkotter. The Nissan driver has won five of the seven rounds and only finished outside the podium once. He’s the man to beat and the one everyone will be gunning for.
The only driver set to make his series debut at Kyalami is Formula Drift Champion Chris Forsberg who will be working with fellow Nismo pilots Heitkotter and McMillan to get up to speed in ACC.
The drifting ace will leverage his extreme car control skills to go against pro sports car drivers and sim racers in the 60-minute contest.
GT Rivals Esports Invitational utilizes Assetto Corsa Competizione, developed by Kunos Simulazioni and published by 505 Games, featuring the real atmosphere of the GT World Challenge powered by AWS series.
Tune-in tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. ET to catch all the action — and enter to win exclusive giveaways:
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