The Esports Racing League has returned for a 2026 spring season, less than three months after the ERL Final at Sim Formula Europe in January that crowned RAFA ERA Esports by EMM Champions on The Last Garage.
The format is similar, this time featuring four games online before a LAN Final on The Last Garage in Cologne.
17 teams took part in the season opener on Live for Speed, using the fictional Radix P6 at South City Long, a made-up track of just over four kilometres in length.
The heats were rather forgiving to begin the evening – only seven would fail to make it to the Quarter-Finals, with two of those advancing through a Last Chance Qualifier anyway.
As such, there were no huge surprises in round one, Gabor Gyure and Issac Price took pole and won their respective heats, while Kodi Nikola Latkovski did the same in the last chance race.
Behind him, there was drama at turn one, as there was in pretty much all races, when Manuel Vera spun after contact and coming through the middle of the carnage, David Celada took second place for Ninety Two Esports and earned them a Quarter-Final place.
From there, the drama really ramped up. Joni Katila took pole, but it was Price who became the first winner from outside the pole position, leading his teammate home for a one-two finish. Behind, Jack Keithley and Coque Lopez of TC Esports got caught up with Niklas Houben of Team Nitro coming out of turn three, sending both teams home early, and leaving them well behind in the race to Cologne.
The Semi-Final was more orderly, with Michal Smidl taking the pole and winning, followed home by a representative of Visceral and BS+ Competition. Marcell Csincsik and Dominik Blajer were next in line for Vitality and Williams respectively, but neither they nor their teammates could do anything to make the final.
And so it was Visceral, EMM and BS+ to fight it out for the first victory. Price took yet another pole in an entertaining Qualifying session, and an early battle for fourth allowed him to steal a march over the others, taking one member of the other teams with him as well. The battles behind would get physical, though, and Katila earned Visceral two penalty points in a fight with Smidl.
That put Visceral just behind BS+, and Price was helpless to do any more, as he was already leading. Katila had to atone for his error alone by passing Marko Pejic coming onto the last lap. Into the big sweeping final hairpin, Katila looked to the inside, bravely broke as late as he dared, and thankfully for him, Pejic tried an unsuccessful cutback, earning Visceral their first round win of the season.
It was a coming-of-age moment for the Visceral Esports team, beating such high-quality opposition in ERL. But there’s still a long season to come in terms of making the final four, including the next round on Gran Turismo 7, a completely different ball game.