Virtual Racing 855 Nepean Highway Brighton VIC 3186 P: 03 9536 1911 W: www.porschebrighton.com.au TURBO Magazine is published by Jill Johnson Media
Young Australian Mobil Pro driver Cooper Murray, sponsored by Porsche Centre Brighton, convincingly won the Porsche PAYCE & Michelin Virtual Cup. His final winning margin was around 160 points, a highly creditable result for the 19-year-old. “This virtual championship gave us the opportunity to keep racing,” Cooper says. “We had Australian drivers and some invited Porsche factory drivers from Germany, so you get to race people you don’t get to race against in real life. “Overall, it was a good experience. It was good to win it, but it was all about having some fun. It also got my name out there a bit more to people overseas, seeing as I won the virtual cup against Porsche factory drivers.” Racetracks were not just Australian – the event virtually travelled the world starting at Philip Island (Australia), then moving on to Barcelona (Spain), Daytona (USA), Monza (Italy), Le Mans (France) and Silverstone (UK). Cooper’s favourite race was Daytona, which was a night race. LEARN TO
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“You don’t get the field of view that you get in a real race car, where you can turn your head and see where you are. You only have the three screens in the simulator, so you have a limited view,” Cooper says. As for the real racing, it is still on hold. The pause button was pressed again on the Porsche PAYCE Carrera Cup Championship, which was forced to stop once Victoria entered Stage 4 lockdown. Cooper made a clean sweep of the first race meeting in Adelaide, then competed at the AGP where he finished third. “Having such a good first two rounds and coming out as the Championship leader by a good margin, then to have it put on hold, was a bit of a bummer,” Cooper acknowledges. “Hopefully we can get back racing again sometime this year – at the earliest, maybe a race in late September. If all goes well, we’ll be racing at Bathurst in October.”
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Lisa SAAD
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Cooper Murray Photos by Mark HORSBURGH (Edge Photography)
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Here’s hoping Cooper EAR the chance O Lgets N ET to hit the track again soon.
Brigid FRASER
Courtesy of Porsche AG
There are some downsides, though.
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Jill JOHNSON
“I already had a simulator,” Cooper explains. “Most race drivers have a simulator as a necessity to practice, since we don’t get much testing in real life.”
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Tim ROBERTS
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“It would have to be Daytona, the two races there were really good,” he reflects.
Mandy PARRY-JONES
While most of us have played the odd racing game on an X-box or PlayStation, these extremely realistic iRacing simulators are on quite another level.
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Porsche Cars Australia recognised the need to keep the drivers up to speed in every sense of the word, so created the Porsche PAYCE & Michelin Virtual Cup. These fun online races were held on the iRacing platform in a six-round championship split into two classes: Mobil Pro and Pro-Am.
“There was a battle between me, Matt Campbell (a Porsche factory driver), and Matt Payne. We all crossed the finish line together in both races all side by side, and I managed to get the win. It was probably one of the best races in the simulator that I’ve done.”
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n 2020 the Porsche PAYCE Carrera Cup had barely started when it all came to a grinding halt during the eleventh hour at the Australian Grand Prix meeting in Melbourne. Since then, like a car with a faulty battery, it has almost sprung back to life – only to be shut down again by another rush of COVID-19 cases.
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