Deflandre scoops victory in third ENES round at Watkins Glen
Guillaume Deflandre secured his second win of the season in the third ENES round at virtual Watkins Glen – The Belgian maintained his lead in the championship
SpeedHouse Chevrolet driver Guillaume Deflandre claimed his second EuroNASCAR Esports Series (ENES) 2021 victory at virtual Watkins Glen. In a heart-stopping battle, Deflandre finished just 0.217 seconds ahead of Phillip Bereswill and 0.408 seconds ahead of third-placed Tobias Dauenhauer to claim another 40 points in the championship. Dauenhauer is now eight points behind Deflandre in the championship after this round.
Watkins Glen, a track that has long been a fixture on the real-world NASCAR calendar, hosted the third round of the ENES on iRacing. The 3.9-kilometer configuration that real-world NASCAR also races on was used for the virtual round.
Deflandre took pole position for the first heat race and won the race ahead of Simon Pilate and Bereswill. The second heat race was decided by 2020 ENES champion Andre Castro at the wheel of the DF1 Racing Camaro. Behind him were Brands Hatch winner Dauenhauer and Deflandre’s teammate Paul Jouffreau.
The main race began with an accident in turn one involving several drivers. Castro was also set back by an incident in the course of the race, but still managed to park his car in twelfth position.
Deflandre, Bereswill and Dauenhauer pulled away at the front and impressed the crowd with a great fight. In the last lap Deflandre was still busy with lapped cars, but even these could not push the strong driver from position one and so Deflandre won by a razor-thin margin ahead of Bereswill as well as Dauenhauer and took his second victory of the season after Daytona.
Fourth was RDV Competition driver Frederic Gabillon. Henri Tuomaala was fifth ahead of Davide Dallara, Jouffreau, Giorgio Maggi, Pilate and team boss Roy Hendriks, who completed the top 10.
The fourth round of the ENES will take place on March 23 at the legendary Hockenheimring, which was made available to the public in iRacing just a few days ago.
