ATRS eSports Teams Up With Graff To Compete In the 24 Hours Of Le Mans Virtual

Anchored By Professional Sports Car Driver Vincent Capillaire and Featuring FIA Silver/ATRS eSports Pro Driver George Karakoulas, Prolific Sim Racing Streamer Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya and Top Sim Racing Prototype Racer Markus Søholm

Thanks to Team Driver Markus and ATRS eSports Manager Tom Male for These Pictures!

THE DRIVERS

Vincent Capillaire

Results Driven Experienced Driver- French Racing Driver Since 1997

As a racing and development driver, since 1997 I have won the Volant ELF, driven in Formula, Sport Proto, GT, Nascar, Classic and Touring. I have developed fine tuning abilities and mechanical know how.

I have driven in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), I have taken part in eight editions of the 24h Le Mans with Sebastien Loeb Racing, Alpine, Ligier, and Graff Racing resulting in a podium finish in 2018.

A True Racing Spirit

Born and raised in Le Mans, I have since a young age been submerged in the world of motorsports and have been lucky enough to turn my passion into my profession.

Working with great teams and talented drivers over the years has enabled me to further enhance my knowledge and experience in motorsports.

My experience in the field consists of racing, teaching, mentoring, mechanical know-how and team management.

I strive for excellence.

George Karakoulas

FIA Silver Licensed Sports Car Driver

Born in Greece and residing in Germany, George has fully immersed himself into the automotive and racing worlds. He is a successful driver and team engineer in the German ADAC GT3 and GT4 series and owns the outright track record at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in the Porsche GT4. In 2023 George is embarking on a season long GT3 campaign across Europe with an Audi Works team. In his free time he owns and operates a luxury transportation business and has worked tirelessly to become an iRacing sim racing professional with a rating above 6.5k competing with the ATRS eSports team.

Additionally, George is a successful racing coach with multiple ‘gentlemen driver’ clients who share GT3 and GT4 seats in various endurance events around Europe. When not racing, George works with multiple ADAC teams as a race engineer specializing in car setup and driver development.

Lyubov Ozeretskovskaya

Sim Racing Ambassador

Lyubov - or LoveFortySix as most people know her - is a full-time sim racing streamer, Twitch Partner with 18 thousand followers, Thrustmaster Rocket sponsored racer and official Ambassador for sim racing rig manufacturer Next Level Racing. She started her real life racing career at 9 years old winning the Karting Championship of Kazakhstan four years in a row. From there, Lyubov joined Astana Motorsports and in 2015 finished 4th in Formula Masters and 6th in Asia Cup Series. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter Astana Motorsports closed their doors and Lyubov lost her ride. In 2019 she was selected to take part in the first W Series selection events finishing sixth and seventh in two F4SEA races.

Then in 2020 during COVID lockdowns Lyubov found an old PC with one screen and low end wheel and pedals and started iRacing and streaming. In those early days she had more stuttering than racing but she persevered and quickly amassed a great community of online supporters. Lyubov became a Twitch Partner in only 2 months and was able to procure a new PC with triple screens which immediately helped her to gain confidence in races and quickly progress up the sim racing ladder- just as she had done 5 years earlier in the open wheel racing. Lyubov entered her first endurance race with Alexey Nesov at Monza in the venerable BMW M8 GTE where they finished in 20th place in the 7th split. By the end of 2020 she had progressed to finish in fourth position in the Dallara LMP2 at the 10 Hour Petit Le Mans special event. She branched out and finished in second place in the AM class of the ALPINE ESPORTS SERIES 2021 in the Assetto Corsa Compitizione sim and took part in the 2021 Ferrari eSports Series and finished the Monza round in 15th position.

In 2022 Lyubov hit the big leagues and was on the W Series official GTE team for the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual race but a hardware issue before the green flag prevented the team from starting the race. She continued to race in big time leagues like VCO ProSim, iRacing Special Events and even finished in second place in the Coca Cola 600 NASCAR race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Lyubov finished Daytona 24 Hours in third position, took third place in the Petite Le Mans racing with Empire Racing and finished 2022 with a solid sixth position in the 10 Hours of Suzuka by VCO driving the Porsche 911 GT3R.

After a dissapointing 2022 24H Le Mans Virtual, Lyubov is very much looking forward to finally getting on track in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual this year. She hopes to help the Graff x ATRS eSports team have a strong showing in the team’s first 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual race.

Markus Søholm

Top Sim Racing Prototype Racer

At only 18 years of age and in three short years, Markus Søholm has become one of the top prototype sim racing drivers on the planet. Leaving behind the arcade sims in 2018, Markus realized he wanted a more realistic racing experience and in 2019 started his iRacing journey. Since he was young and had plenty of time to learn and practice he quickly improved and began making a name for himself- all the while upgrading his sim racing equipment along the way.

Markus’ breakthrough came in 2020 at Le Mans where he won the classic 24 hour race in the second split. This was around the same time he started studying at a sim racing boarding school called TronsøSkolen in Denmark. It was here that Markus was able to fully immerse himself in the science of sim racing and being surrounded by like minded racers allowed him to rapidly gain pace and experience. In 2021 while racing at TronsøSkolen he scored his second consecutive victory in the Le Mans 24 hour race again in second split. Following this race Markus earned enough iRating to begin racing in the top splits of iRacing against the best in the world. He finished the 2021 season just off the podium in fourth position of the top split at the Petit Le Mans.

Following a break from the sim in the spring of 2022 Markus was back in form in the summer and won the top split of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and qualified in first position for the prestigious IVRA Endurance series. He explains “now is the time to test my skill on rFactor 2 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual race. Over the years I've really enjoyed documenting my progress and uploading it to YouTube and streaming races on Twitch. I have made many friends and contacts throughout the sim racing community and I’ve met many lovely people at SimExpo the last two years. I'm looking forward to racing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual as it's the largest sim racing spectacle of the season.”

About The Race

Grosjean and Verstappen to Compete in 24 Hours of
Le Mans Virtual

The hugely impressive entry list for the third edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual, the final round of the 2022-23 Le Mans Virtual Series has been released.

View the entry list HERE.

The event will take place next week (14-15 January) and will be held virtually, with the 180 drivers on simulators located all around the world.

The line-up of drivers includes Romain Grosjean, who recently announced he will drive for Lamborghini and Iron Lynx as part of their 2024 Hypercar campaign.

The list also includes F1 World Champion Max Verstappen, FIA F2 Champion Felipe Drugovich, and FIA F3 Champion Victor Martins. Several other regular WEC drivers from past and present are also on the driver roster including the likes of Yifei Ye, our own Vinent Capillaire, Gustavo Menezes, Beitske Visser, Job Van Uitert and Andy Priaulx – the latter who was recently announced to race with his son Seb in the Le Mans Virtual Cup guest car.

In total, 180 drivers representing more than 40 different nations will be taking on the legendary Le Mans circuit. Manufacturers officially represented include Alpine, AMG Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, Peugeot and Porsche.

All 180 drivers are now confirmed across the LMP and GTE classes for the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual

When the clock strikes 2 pm CET on Saturday 14th January, 45 cars will start the day-long endurance race, and the line-up is a mix of FIA-graded motorsport competitors and some of the quickest professional esports drivers around.

F1, F2 AND F3 CHAMPIONS

Current Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen will once again take to the grid, after his spellbinding qualifying performance last year. 2022 Formula 2 champion Felipe Drugovich will also return, and so will reigning Formula 3 champion Victor Martins.

Verstappen will line up for Team Redline in the Le Mans Virtual Series championship-leading LMP alongside Luke Browning, last year’s winner Jeffrey Rietveld and Diogo Pinto. The new Aston Martin F1 Team development driver Drugovich will compete in the second Redline entry, #2, with IndyCar race winner Felix Rosenqvist, Luke Bennett and Chris Lulham.

Martins, meanwhile, is entered with the Alpine manufacturer team, car #37, and will be paired with F2 driver Olli Caldwell, Rory MacDuff and Patrik Sipos.

Romain Grosjean and Tomas Enge are two former F1 drivers on the grid, the former driving for his eponymous R8G Esports squad, while the latter will be competing for ARC Bratislava with WTCR race-winner Maťo Homola, Andrej Marecak and Erik Vizi.

SIM RACING’S LEADING LIGHTS

2022 W Series vice-champion Beitske Visser will make her fourth appearance in the Le Mans Virtual Series, and this time will pair up with 2022 Praga Cup champion Jimmy Broadbent – FIA-graded this time.

Meanwhile, Broadbent’s Praga teammate Gordie Mutch enters for Brabham Esports in the #62.

2022 Autosport Esports Driver of the Year James Baldwin is also PRO-rated thanks to his sterling McLaren GT3 real-world exploits, and teams up with 2022 24 Hours of Spa winner Daniel Juncadella for AMG Team Petronas Esports.

TOP PROFESSIONAL ESPORTS TALENT

Alongside the F1 drivers, some of the world’s best sim racers are taking part – each team entering two FIA-graded drivers and two professional esports drivers.

Current DTM Esports champion Kevin Siggy is in the #71 BMW Team Redline GTE car, three-time ADAC GT Masters Esports champion and real-world DTM Trophy driver Moritz Löhner lines up for Project 1 by Dörr Esports in the #11 Porsche while former Formula E: Accelerate race winner and World’s Fastest Gamer competitor Erhan Jajovski is in R8G Esport’s GTE Ferrari.

Double Porsche TAG Heuer eSports Supercup champion Joshua Rogers lines up in the #20 Porsche Coanda LMP alongside former real-world rallycross race winner and virtual rallycross world champion Mitchell deJong.

Formula Pro Series champion Bono Huis will join the aforementioned Baldwin and Juncadella at AMG, while the second AMG entry, in partnership with Williams Esports, sees 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual winners Jakub Brzezinski and Nikoden Wisniewski work with Walkenhorst GT-driver Sami-Matti Trogen and current GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and ADAC GT Masters champion Raffaele Marciello.

MANUFACTURER-BACKED TEAMS

2023 will see the first time Peugeot Sport will enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual, under the Peugeot Esports moniker, dovetailing its World Endurance Championship Hypercar programme.

Gustavo Menezes and Malthe Jakobsen are the two FIA-graded drivers, joined by sim racers Valentin Mandernach and Maxime Brient.

Porsche enters two cars in LMP with the Coanda esports team, with Alpine also with a two-pronged attack. Scuderia Ferrari Velas Esports Team is also present, with real-world Ferrari driver and Sim Grid and Coach Dave Academy founder David Perel behind the wheel.

BMW is backing two separate GTE entries, likewise AMG. Team Fordillza also returns, alongside first-time entrants Brabham.