Here we are! The Logitech G Pro Invitational Series is finally underway. Sebring returned once again as the opening venue for the most competitive online racing series in Australia, having earned its place in the series as the home of drama, excitement and controversy.

It was a long off season since a sensational Qualifying Series - champions switching teams, others taking a step back entirely, and some unexpected names making their way through the back door with wild card entries.

If you were unlucky enough to miss out on Wednesday nights action, not to worry!

Here’s the story from Round 1 of the Logitech G Pro Invitational Series from Sebring.

Eye-wateringly close qualifying sets the mood early

There’s not many racing series in the world where you find yourself in 20th while only being half a second off provisional pole. Somehow, that was the story after just five minutes of open qualifying.

Madison Down was caught by the broadcast with a shake of the head following his first lap. He would find himself in fourth place just 0.088s off the fastest opening time, which was set by James Scott.

Jarrad Filsell found himself tangled in the wall on the entry to turn one, and with no time to react Dylan Rudd speared into the side of Filsell’s LOBS Camaro shortly after.

Both drivers made it back to the lane in time to go again.

James Scott claims statement pole position for Chiefs ESC

With five minutes remaining, James Scott was sitting pretty at the top of the board having set a 2:03.994. That time was enough to put Scott 0.156s clear of Eclipse Simsports’ Dylan Birse in second place.

The scrap for a good starting grid spot was comically tight as drivers babied their tyres before one last run of laps. There was now less than three tenths separating the top 10, and just over four tenths in the top 20.

Kody Deith, Matthew Bowler, Dylan O’Shea, Brian Borg, Hayden Veld and Sebastian Varndell all entered the final stages of qualifying having not completed a timed lap. While a number of these were due to rear of grid start penalties, Varndell and Deith were the only two from that bunch to eventually set a time. They would only go fast enough for 40th and 41st respectively.

James Scott would officially put Chiefs ESC on the Logitech G Pro map, claiming an impressive pole position with the only 2:03 seen throughout the night.

Dylan Birse would line up alongside on the front row, followed by Jobe Stewart, Ethan Grigg-Gault, Robbie Gibbs, Griffin Gardiner, Jarrad Filsell, Zach Rattray-White, Madison Down and Andrew Gilliam rounding out the top 10.

James Scott leads from the front early after claiming Pole Position

Lights out and away we … go ?

The roar of 45 Gen 3 Supercars ignited the Florida air; the Logitech G Pro Invitational Series was prepped and ready for the first light drop of the 2025 season!

James Scott was off to the races, launching his Chiefs ESC Camaro flawlessly to make some space between himself and imminent calamity.

Contrastingly, Eclipse Simsports’ Dylan Birse went nowhere with a notably slow reaction and drawn-out clutch drop. He would lose three places before the run to the hairpin with Ethan Grigg-Gault, Jarrad Filsell and Robbie Gibbs all pouncing at the opportunity.

Chaos ensued as the rest of the field tussled their way through the first sector. Shawn McNamara would come out the worst after being spun backwards into the tyre barrier at the hands of Ben Faulkner. Kody Deith’s Eclipse Mustang picked up some front-end damage in his attempt to avoid the ordeal.

Glen Postlethwaite and Hayden Veld exchanged some paint early in another lap 1 tussle. Postlethwaite managed to hold on and defend his position into Turn 10 despite finding himself in a half spin going through the left hand kink of Turn 9.

Meyers, Hobson and Widdas all tour the grass in a lap 1 skirmish

Remember those rear-of-grid starters? They certainly didn’t waste time making up ground. By lap 3, Bowler had gained 13 places, while Kody Deith and Hayden Veld had each moved up 11, and Dylan O’Shea climbed 10.

Jarrad Filsell was keen to move his LOBS Camaro up the order in the lead pack, making the move on Ethan Grigg-Gault into the final corner on lap 3.

Nightmare continues for Birse in final corner error

Making positions back would have been at the top of Dylan Birse’s to-do list after his sluggish run off the lights. But things only got worse as his car veered wide toward the kink in the wall at the exit of Sunset Bend.

Somehow, Birse managed to keep his Camaro running - saving the race from being thrown into Safety Car conditions.

Birse would decide to stay out until the first scheduled stop in his battered Gen 3 machine, even putting on fights on the fringe of 30th place while he was at it.

Friendly fire in battle for third as first batch of stops begins

There doesn’t seem to be any ‘Papaya Rules’ in the Evolution Racing Team code of conduct, with Robbie Gibbs and Ethan Grigg-Gault making contact at Turn 10.

Gibbs looked to have some pace on Grigg-Gault who was sitting in third, but the pair would have to figure things out in time for their first pit stops. The tussle not only gave James Scott and Jarrad Filsell a bigger cushion as the lead two cars, but it also elevated threats from behind.

On the topic of the leaders - Filsell would find himself taking the race lead for the first time after James Scott received a slow-down penalty going through Le Mans.

Birse tags the wall on the exit of Sunset Bend and has a scary spin in front of the field

Laps 12-14 would be the rough pit window for the majority of the field, with a number of position changes occurring due to the immense strength of the undercut. The lead two would stay out until lap 16. The last of the stoppers, Kurt Stenberg and Brady Meyers, wouldn’t come in until lap 20!

Jake Blackhall got too eager on his run out of the lane, crossing the line of cones too early and receiving a stop and hold penalty. Kobi Williams received the same penalty for a near-identical infringement.

Filsell continues charge through shuffled top 10

With 17 laps to go, Filsell made use of the extra few laps of tyre advantage he had built up over the top 5.

While Filsell would slot past one ERT car in Grigg-Gault with relative ease, Robbie Gibbs put on a brilliant defence. Gibbs managed to hold off the LOBS Camaro for a few more laps than what the doctor ordered, with Filsell eventually sneaking by around the outside of Turn 10. With that, Jarrad Filsell took the race lead once again.

Meanwhile, James Scott in effective-second showed glimpses of weakness, running deep on the marbles of Turn 10 as he tried to navigate past Vermillion eSports’ Zach Rattray-White.

The run home to the first chequered flag of the season

Robbie Gibbs fired into the pits to become the first man on track to have completed two mandatory stops. While the fresh tyre advantage would pay dividends, a shorter first stop meant Gibbs was destined to lose valuable time in this particular venture through the lane.

Across the next few laps, the rest of the top 10 began peeling in for their last stops. Ethan Grigg-Gault tragically threw away his chances of a podium finish after not only overshooting his pit box, but stalling the car too.

After everyone had served their last CPS, Jarrad Filsell would find himself in the lead once more. There was no turning back now for the LOBS wheeler, who had put on a brilliant performance to climb all the way from 7th on the grid.

Cars file into the lane for their final round of pit stops

With 10 to go, Zach Rattray-White found himself with a strong possibility for a podium result, sitting in 2nd place. Previously, the Vermillion driver’s best result was a singular top 10 last season. But Rattray-White had a bit more to do if he wanted to seal this one away; he was being tailed by Madison Down and James Scott.

Things got heated quickly as the Vermillion driver desperately fended off an all-out attack from Madison Down. A bottleneck of the entire top 8 had formed up in a matter of minutes. The intensity in that pack only heightened when James Scott was forced to serve a slow down penalty for track limits at Le Mans, and again when he went deep at Turn 10 to drop behind two of his teammates

With four to go, the pot boiled over for Madison Down when he launched his Camaro down the inside of Rattray-White at Turn 16, causing a collision that left the Vermillion car out on the grass. Knowing he would almost certainly be penalised, Down pulled over on the back straight to redress the position.

Musical chairs for a podium erupts with three to go

Robbie Gibbs and Dylan Rudd took over 2nd and 3rd position after Madison Down’s redress, but that would not last long.

Dylan Rudd was leading a three-car lineup of Chiefs ESC Camaro’s from third to fifth. For most, settling for a team result would be the likely game plan. However, that conservative mindset is typically not how reigning champions operate - Rudd didn’t want bronze tonight, he wanted silver!

Out came the white flag. Six kilometers of race track, seven cars with a podium chance. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Rudd struck Gibbs early with a late lunge down the inside of Turn 5, which left Rudd on the outside as they ran down to the hairpin. He would try again at Turn 10 to no avail. When Gibbs lost traction out of Le Mans, all three Chiefs cars drew closer on the final run down to sunset.

Rudd would make significant contact with the rear of Gibbs at the final corner, pushing the ERT driver wide. That made room for all three Chiefs cars to pass before the line, with Griffin Gardiner making his way past Rudd to take second. Rudd would finish third on the road but was immediately handed a 5-second penalty for the contact, dropping him to tenth.

Robbie Gibbs would miss out on the podium, finishing fifth.

Rudd gets into the back of Gibbs on the final corner

With Jarrad Filsell, Griffin Gardiner and James Scott on the podium, the remainder of the top 10 with penalties applied was: Joshua Anderson, Robert Gibbs, Madison Down, Ethan Grigg-Gault, Zach Rattray-White, Andrew Gilliam and Dylan Rudd.

Honourable mentions!

Dylan O’Shea was the biggest mover of the night, clawing up 20 positions to finish 22nd after his back-of-grid start.

Kody Deith had a similar night, battling through early damage to finish 24th overall for a gain of 16 spots.

Dylan Birse will be out for blood next round; his colossal incident at the last corner dropped him from a strong result all the way to 29th. Unfortunately, that rendered Birse the biggest loser of the night with a net drop of 27 positions from his front row start.

Kobi Williams and Jack Widdas also had difficult afternoons, dropping 13 and 16 places respectively to finish at the bottom of the order.

Published on

by Harrison Lillas

From the bone-rattling runways of Sebring to the sweeping elevation changes of the Red Bull Ring, Round 2 of the Logitech G Pro Invitational Series traded brute force endurance for a high-speed chess match in the hills of Austria. With fast corners and a mix of uphill and downhill braking zones, Austria presented a whole new challenge.

In typical Red Bull Ring fashion, spectators were treated to 52 laps of NASCAR-style drafting, plenty of door-bumping, and race-deciding chaos as the night drew to a close.

With the championship race well and truly on, Drivers looked to solidify their status as genuine contenders with the icebreaker of Round 1 now in the rear view mirror.

Here’s what went down in Austria on Wednesday night!

Deith returns to spotlight in Qualifying

Evolution Racing Team’s Beau Albert led the train on the first run of laps, a role no driver wants to take when setting a banker at this venue. He would be tailed by Eclipse SimSports’ Damon Woods and Vermillion eSports’ Zach Rattray-White. The workload was high enough already for Albert, who was adjusting to a foreign rig with very little practice.

Championship leader Jarrad Filsell made his mark early for LOBS eSports, reminding the field once again of his calibre. He posted a 1:30.728 as his banker, enough to hold the top spot over Eclipse’s Kody Deith by just 0.071s.

Qualifying was intense with some of the tightest margins in series history

As the session progressed, cloud cover began to roll over the Styrian hills to evolve track conditions ever so slightly. Major improvements trickled in with some drivers completing their first valid laps of the night.

Deith was able to wheel his Eclipse Mustang to the top of the timing board with a 1:30.663, while his teammate Woods etched himself into the top 5 on the same run of laps. Dylan Rudd and Brady Meyers also found their way into the top 10 by the halfway point of the session.

In the closing stages of qualifying, just one second covered 44 cars; If you were in 15th, three tenths of improvement would have you starting on the front row. James Scott was painstakingly close to Deith’s top time, getting the gap down to just 0.007s. That is just 42cm of difference – or about a sheet of A3 paper – separating the front row at the line.

With Deith returning to the top spot for the first time since his clean sweep in the Qualifying Series, the rest of the top 10 would flow as James Scott, Damon Woods, Jarrad Filsell, Zach Rattray-White, Ric Kuznetsov, Dylan Birse, Andrew Gilliam, Dylan Rudd and Robbie Gibbs.

Gloves-off race start boils over

Turn 1 at the Red Bull Ring is normally a hub for cars to be on their lid by the exit. To the surprise of many, things actually looked civilised for the 45-car field as they roared up the hill for the first time of the afternoon.

Establishing ground early was on the mind of Jarrad Filsell as he started his LOBS Camaro from fourth on the grid. He was down alongside Chiefs ESC’s James Scott by Turn 3, eventually getting past on the brakes at Turn 4.

Chaos erupted just behind, with 9INE5IVE’s Ric Kuznetsov tagging Damon Woods to send him tumbling down the running order. While a number of drivers had to take avoiding action, miraculously, no other cars were involved.

ERT’s Ethan Grigg-Gault stuck the nose of his Mustang alongside Dylan Rudd through Turn 9, forcing Rudd to drift down the hill before straightening out on the exit. Making it a two-for-one move, Grigg-Gault also snuck past Kuznetsov at the same corner … but Kuznetsov would soon return the favor.

Going into Turn 1 on the following lap, Kuznetsov tagged Grigg-Gault on the rear quarter, causing the ERT Mustang to powerslide all the way out to the painted asphalt on the exit. Two more ERT cars would find themselves in trouble there, with Hayden Veld and Lachlan Caple making contact to spin themselves across either side of the track on the exit.

Turn 1 was not done just yet, with one of the most significant incidents of the afternoon occurring a lap later. While it began with a collision between Christopher Ireland and Glen Postlethwaite, multiple bystanders found themselves tangled in the incident, including Wayne Bourke and Kobi Williams who both obtained significant damage.

Heated scrap for the lead

On the pre-race grid walk, Kody Deith said he didn’t want to be leading early with fuel save being such an important factor. The Eclipse driver’s motives seemed to have shifted when Jarrad Filsell began to fill his mirrors on lap 5, putting on a fight that could have left his Mustang with wheel damage.

When they met at Turn 4, the move looked to be done for Filsell on the drive out of the corner. But at the downhill of Turn 6, Deith launched to the inside to retake the lead. Filsell rode along the bumper of Deith’s Mustang until they were side-by-side once again at Turn 3 on the following lap.

At the same place he got past a lap prior, Filsell took the lead for real. When Deith attempted to turn into the corner, he made heavy enough contact with Filsell’s door to raise his own car into the air for a brief moment. In doing so, Deith allowed James Scott to slip by into 2nd.

Pit lane opens for business

By the time the first scheduled stops of the night began, the lead pack had thinned out to just five cars. At the end of lap 22, Zach Rattray-White would peel off as the first in that battle pack to pit. A lap later, the rest of the leaders followed suit. Robbie Gibbs stayed out an extra lap to take the lead.

While Jarrad Filsell would emerge from the lane with a comfortable margin over James Scott, a crucial pinching of the front on the run into Turn 3 saw the LOBS Camaro go straight on. With that, Scott was the new effective race leader on lap 25.

Cars file into one of the trickiest pit lanes on the calendar

The order was hard to read at the halfway point of the race, with a number of different strategies tumbling the order. What was known, however, was that Scott and Filsell had significantly shorter stops than the cars around them beforehand.

Leaders jump the gun on Safety Car call

When Luke Rosella’s LOBS Mustang coughed to a halt with 19 laps to go, strategy minds began to tick. Before anything was called, Scott and Filsell peeled into the lane in anticipation of the field being drawn together under Safety Car conditions.

However, Rosella was able to peel off into an escape road far enough away from the racing surface to successfully request a tow. This race would continue under green flag running.

A number of the runners in high effective positions followed the leaders into the lane on the following lap, throwing a massive spanner in the works of track position. Dylan Birse emerged from the lane alongside Filsell, who was on warmer tyres. They remained side-by-side until the exit of Turn 4, where side-on contact unsettled the championship leader.

Filsell was now under threat from Kody Deith, who launched it from multiple car lengths behind into Turn 3. They traded paint all the way across the top of the hill before Filsell was forced to concede the position.

Luke Rosella limps to a Marshal Post to prevent a safety car

Scene is set with 10 to go

With everything straightened out, the run home was set to be a thriller. At the front, James Scott and Dylan Birse were separated by fractions; there was a small gap behind, where Kody Deith and Jarrad Filsell were also separated by next to nothing. One slip up from the leaders would quickly turn into a four-way fight for the race win.

Ric Kuznetsov and Hayden Veld tangled across the top, resulting in Veld hitting the right side wall at high speed. With that motor somehow holding itself together, Veld was able to continue and avoid bringing out a Safety Car.

Filsell was able to regain 3rd over Kody Deith with a strong run out of Turn 1, but there was a difficult gap ahead to catch the lead pair as they pushed themselves along in slipstream. With five to go, Filsell managed to get himself within touching distance of Birse, who was biding time himself to pull the trigger on James Scott for the lead.

With two laps to go, Birse needed to act before Filsell made his move. Shifting to the right before slamming on the brakes for Turn 3, he held his nerve and launched his Camaro down the inside of Scott … but he couldn’t pull it up in time.

With Birse going straight on, James Scott’s exit out of Turn 3 was compromised. Jarrad Filsell took the opportunity to buy a ticket for the inside of Turn 4, where he snatched the race lead from his former teammate.

Jarred Filsell makes the final pass for the lead

With a massive kick of throttle to powerslide out of the last corner, Filsell claimed victory once again in the Logitech G Pro Invitational Series; a two-for-two start for the esteemed star.

James Scott would run home second, followed by Dylan Birse, Kody Deith, Zach Rattray-White, Joshua Anderson, Damon Woods, Robbie Gibbs, Jake Moloney and Andrew Gilliam rounding out the top 10.

Honourable mentions!

Driver of the day is a tough one to hand out here, with a number of drivers putting on some incredible performances in their journeys up the order.

It’s tough to look past Jarrad Filsell; he looks inevitable when presented with adversity and he put that on show today. While only moving up three places, this was easily one of the best drives throughout the field.

Griffin Gardiner was the biggest mover of the day, moving from 44th to 19th after connection troubles saw him join the race session late. Josh Anderson and Brenton Hobson were also big movers, jumping up 13 and 11 places respectively.

Published on

by Harrison Lillas