The announcements surrounding ESL R1 keep rolling in: After only announcing their move to sim racing for the newly-created competition using RENNSPORT, MOUZ now revealed its driver lineup for the spring season – and the Hamburg-based team has some serious talent on board.
Despite venturing into the territory of virtual racing for the first time, MOUZ has acquired the services of four drivers who are very well known in the sim racing Esports scene already. Their aim: “We are here to compete for titles in ESL R1, VCO Esports and other competitions.” The final part of this statement could easily be overlooked – but it means that MOUZ is going all in instead of focusing on just one discipline in ESL R1, and will likely bring in a bigger audience in the process.
Having most recently competed for F1 World Champion Max Verstappen’s Team Redline, Maximilian Benecke is one of the biggest driver names in sim racing, and the 28-year-old joins MOUZ for their inaugural season using car number 71. The German was part of the Team Redline car that retired from the lead in the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual, joining forces with Verstappen, IndyCar driver Felix Rosenqvist and Atze Kerkhof. As a result, it is safe to say that big sim racing events are not foreign to Benecke.
The same goes for Moritz Löhner, who comes in from Dörr Esports. He has not only seen success in the virtual racing, winning the 2019 and 2020 ADAC GT Masters Esports titles as well as the 2020 DTM Esports and Porsche Esports Carrera Cup Deutschland championships, but also taking to the real circuit in a BMW M4 GT4 in the DTM Trophy for FK Performance in 2021 and 2022. The 24-year-old has also raced for Williams Esports in the past. His car will feature number 20.
The only non-German driver in the lineup is Yuri Kasdorp – and the Dutchman, who is going to race car number 04, is no stranger to competing for big names either: Having recently announced his departure from Red Bull Racing Esports after racing for the team for two years, Kasdorp’s destination is now clear, as he finds a new home not just for ESL R1, but other competitions as well. He had recently finished the Le Mans Virtual Series season in fourth position overall with RBR.
The final driver of MOUZ’s new sim racing quartet is Patrik Holzmann, who just like Benecke has competed for Team Redline in the past. Not only that, but the German has also raced for Red Bull Racing in F1 Esports, where his best result came in 2017 with a fourth place overall. Just like Benecke, Holzmann is one of the few drivers with an iRating over 10.000 – so the “other competitions” part of MOUZ’s statement is going to sit well with the 28-year-old, who is going to use car number 94 in ESL R1.