The second leg of WRC eSports Powered by Hyundai has concluded after the final session was held on last Thursday. Lohan ‘NEXL’ Blanc won the eSports championship a second time by beating the second place by an impressive 23 second lead in the final. The 20-year-old French driver is now the first driver to win the WRC eSports championship two times after he first participated in the championship in 2017.
Organized by WRC Promoter and Bigben, the grand finale took place during the last weekend’s Wales Rally GB. It is also the final eSports event organized alongside the real and official competition. The WRC eSports Powered by Hyundai was broadcast live featuring Becs Williams who is the official WRC+ Live commentator and Rene Butler, eSports caster in the Llandudno theatre.
The eSports event took place on the recently-released WRC 8, the official video game of the FIA World Rally Championship and the gaming rigs were provided by Playseat, Thrustmaster, Nvidia, and Nacon. The finalists were also lucky enough to attend some of the rally’s special stages outside of the eSports competition. Initially, the championship was dominated by Finn Mika ‘RC Mihalo’ Laitinen who won 6 rounds and 10 podiums overall.
However, he was unable to perform well in the final and ended up in 5th place and 11 seconds behind Dylan ‘RC NOEL’ Noel. The 8 qualification special stages in the final were won by Nexl which were +23s ahead of Jon Armstrong who won the 2018 title-holder. In the final, they were joined by Peter ‘Subee203’ Suborits and ‘RC Neol’. NEXL was also the only player to qualify for 4 finals over 4 years.
However, he went a step ahead and dominated the grand finale comprising 4 special stages despite acquiring a 9-second penalty in the first round for crossing the finish line off the track. He later came back in the 2 very long special stages where he made up for the lost time and got ahead of Jon Armstrong and Subee and kept going to winning the WRC eSports Powered by Hyundai for a second time.
TX3_NEXL was awarded the final prize of Hyundai i20 worth €20,000 which was provided by Hyundai Motor Company. He was personally handed the vehicle’s keys by Scott Noh, the president of Hyundai Motorsport. NEXL was unable to reach the final four despite winning the title back in 2017 with a controller. He commented:
I had to switch to the steering wheel because I couldn’t compete with the others using a controller. I had to get used to driving that way. I trained quite a lot and I’m driving better and better with it. It’s the perfect revenge after last year!
You can check out the highlights of the final in the video below.
If you want to see the complete live version of the Grand Finale, we have linked the video below.
What do you think of NEXL’s comeback and him winning the WRC eSports Powered by Hyundai this year? Let us know in the comments section below.
