Norris joins eight 500 winners for Indy 175 Esports race

Norris, who won the last round of the Challenge, at virtual Circuit of The Americas, will again campaign a fourth Arrow McLaren SP entry for his first shot at an oval in this six-race Esports championship.

Those who have shone on ovals so far include three winners of the Indianapolis 500, so they can be expected to shine in Saturday’s race. 2019 Indy winner Simon Pagenaud captured victory at the virtual Michigan and Motegi ovals, his Team Penske-Chevrolet teammate Will Power – 2018 Indy winner – is a pacesetter in every race and is unlucky to have missed victory lane so far, while Chip Ganassi Racing-Honda’s 2008 Indy winner Scott Dixon, despite a dearth of experience in sim racing, proved remarkably adept at Motegi.

Scott McLaughlin, this weekend in a #40 Penske PIRTEK entry, beat Power to victory at virtual Barber Motorsports Park but he was caught up in the same incident as his fellow Antipodean as they dueled at Motegi so his best oval result is second behind Pagenaud at Michigan.

Aside from Pagenaud, Power and Dixon, the other five Indy 500 winners in the race – Alexander Rossi, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Helio Castroneves (this week in car #911), Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan – all lacked sim racing experience before this Challenge started, so begin the finale as outsiders for victory. Sage Karam (first-round winner for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing-Chevy) and Felix Rosenqvist (Ganassi) are both sim experts and are therefore expected to be victory contenders.

Among the noteworthy entrants is Scott Speed, who showed well at the season’s opening round in Watkins Glen driving Marco Andretti’s #98 Andretti-Herta Autosport entry, but returns this weekend in a separate entry. RC Enerson will campaign an entry for Top Gun Racing, a foretelling of a future real-life IndyCar team, and Stefan Wilson – who led the 2018 Indy 500 in its closing stages – will also be in the field.

Those who failed to qualify for the event include James Hinchcliffe, Robert Wickens, Spencer Pigot, Felipe Nasr, Kyle Busch and Kyle Kaiser.

This Saturday’s event, the First Responder 175 presented by GMR, will start at 2.30pm (ET) and will be televised live on NBCSN. The race will be 70 laps.