Following on from a fantastic opening round, we're back with Race 2 in the Playseat® SMS-R Series. This time we visited Italy's "Temple of Speed," Monza.

In the Pro Class, it was team ACR who took the early points lead after Round 1 thanks to solid results for both of their drivers at Hockenheim. However, it was team Oscaro's Rotax who came to Monza as the favourite after a superb race win, which he fought hard for in a big battle with Lazarus' DiHeidi and ACR's Jardier. Could Monza produce a similarly open race in the Pro field?

For the Challengers, it was a scrappy first race, so all of the drivers were aiming for cleaner performances this time around. Pelucca arrived at Monza with the points lead after a surprise victory at Hockenheim. However, the drivers' standings were still wide open in Challenger Class.

After the flowing layout of modern Hockenheim in Round 1, Monza in Round 2 was a very different challenge. Massive straights and heavy braking zones are the main focus at Milan's famous Autodromo, and don't forget the extremely tight first chicane which always presents a difficult bottleneck on the opening lap. Follow on below to catch-up on the Race 2 livestream, read our race report, and check out the latest standings.

The real battle starts now in the Playseat® SMS-R Series with Round 1 of the multi-class tournament. Our top 10 Challenger drivers were joined by the Pro Class teams for the first time as the Championship began at Germany’s legendary Hockenheimring. The biggest names in sim-racing were ready for action, in a grid packed with talent from teams like Oscaro, Team Redline, VP Gaming, Veloce, TX3, & more.

Multi-class racing made for a fantastic contest as the Pro teams fought for position in their AMG GT3 machines, whilst the Challengers pushed for personal glory in their AMG A45 Touring Cars. The infamous “Traffic Time” arrived later in the race when the GT3 cars caught the TCR machines to lap them, whilst each group still battled for position in their own Class. Read on for our race report, and catch-up with the livestream below.

We are very pleased to confirm the date and venue for the 2019 Playseat® SMS-R Series Finals. The competition will wrap up at the magnificent Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands in the UK on Saturday May 11. Brooklands was the world’s first ever purpose-built motorsport venue, and this incredible location will provide a stunning backdrop to our Finals.

Once our four Rounds of online racing are complete, the top 4 Pro teams and top 8 Challenger drivers will head to the venue in Surrey, close to London, to battle for the €20,000 prize fund. Please visit the Mercedes-Benz World website for more information abut the location.

The racing is finally underway in the 2019 Playseat® SMS-R Series, Powered by The Events House. Portugal’s Autodromo Algarve was the venue for our fastest Challenger Drivers to battle for a place in the main Championship Series. All of the drivers qualified through Project CARS 2 Community Events, and proved their raw speed, but how would they manage in a tense 20 minute Touring Car race?

All of the pilots were in the Mercedes-AMG A45 Touring Car, and consistency was the key to success, as was management of tyre temperatures on this twisting, undulating circuit. It’s also a very long lap for these Touring Cars. Drivers who battled too hard in the early stages could definitely pay for it by needing to manage higher temperatures in the final few laps, particularly on the front left tyre.

This was a tough race, thanks to the circuit’s many blind apexes, long run-off areas, and a really fast final corner onto the massive start/finish straight, with lots of potential for slipstreaming.

Only the top 10 would advance from this Shootout Race to take a place in the main Championship Series.

1Qualifying for Challenger Class in the Playseat® SMS-R Series is now complete. After 4 weeks of close competition, we now know which 31 drivers will take part in the Shootout Race on March 21. The Shootout will decide the top 10 drivers who will join the Challenger Class in the main tournament, where they will share the track with our Pro Class teams in 4 Rounds of online competition to battle for a place in the Finals.

The 31 qualified drivers are listed below. There are 8 each from Qualifying Rounds 1, 2, & 3, and 7 drivers from Round 4. As stated in the rules, drivers must also have registered at the sign-ups page by end-of-day on March 11 in order to be eligible to progress beyond the qualifying round.

If your name is listed in the table below, you will now be contacted directly by the organisers (Events House & Apex Online Racing), at the email address which you provided when you signed-up for the competition. They will contact you in the next few days to explain the next steps, including how to make sure that you join the Challenger Shootout Race on Thursday March 21.

If you have any questions about your place in the Shootout Race, please email the race organisers directly at...
sms-r@apexonlineracing.com

Tune in for the first live-stream in this year's competition next week on Thursday March 21.
Subscribe to Apex Online Racing on YouTube to get ready.