Online trials to an in-person bracket
Understanding virtual hill climb competitions begins with how drivers progress from public qualifying to a live weekend decider. In the inaugural 2026 event organised by the FIA, more than 7,000 drivers set times on the RaceRoom platform between August and September. Only the fastest eight qualifiers earned travel invitations to the live finals at the E-Motion sim-racing centre in Luxembourg.
Once on site, the eight finalists were placed into head-to-head elimination brackets rather than a traditional continuous time-trial leaderboard. Competitors faced each other across three-run quarter-finals and semi-finals, scoring round points to decide who advanced.
The track reveal and car setup
To test rapid adaptation over months of memorisation, organisers kept the specific circuit secret until Saturday morning. Finalists were handed a virtual recreation of the 5.5-kilometre Glasbachrennen hill climb course, paired with the BMW 134 Judd V8, giving everyone limited time to master identical machinery before Sunday competition.
The narrow layout featured tight chicanes and strict five-second penalties for contacting barriers. Because hill climb runs do not feature direct wheel-to-wheel overtaking, clean precision mattered as much as raw speed over the weekend.
The deciding runs and podium match-ups
While the preliminary knockout rounds granted drivers three attempts to trade wins, the format tightened dramatically for the final rounds. Both the third-place decider and the championship match were reduced to a single sudden-death run up the mountain.
That pressure-filled setup decided the championship when Löhner beats Abi Nakhle in the one-run final. Sami Joe Abi Nakhle had established the virtual course record during his semi-final, but two five-second penalties in the title decider handed Moritz Löhner a 1–0 victory, while Alessandro Ottaviani took third in the single-run play-off.
Official reference: FIA’s event report.
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