© Oracle Red Bull Sim RacingOpmeer Crowned 2025 Champion in Dream Debut SeasonJarno Opmeer seals his third F1 Sim Racing Drivers’ title with P7 in Abu Dhabi, capping a stellar debut year with Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing.
JarnoOpmeerclaimedarecordthirdF1SimRacingDrivers’ChampionshipthankstoaseventhplacefinishinthefinalraceoftheseasonatYasMarina.
The title is Opmeer’s first since 2021 and comes in his debut season as an Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing driver, a campaign in which he also led the team to the Teams’ Championship earlier in the week.
Teammate Frederik Rasmussen also played a vital role this year, even if he was unable to defend his Drivers’ Championship crown and closed things out with a P9 finish in Abu Dhabi.
Rasmussen finishes the season seventh in the Drivers’ Standings, with the highlight of his campaign coming at Silverstone where he earned a 16th career race win in dominant fashion.
Jarno Opmeer Makes History with Third F1 Sim Racing Title© Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing
After celebrating the Teams’ Championship the previous day, focus turned back to the final race and Opmeer’s bid to top the Drivers’ standings. The Dutchman entered the race with a 20-point advantage over Thomas Ronhaar and a 23-point gap to Ismael Fahssi, which meant that he only needed seven points from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to be sure of the title.
Things didn’t get off to an ideal start in qualifying though, as Opmeer was knocked out in Q2 and Ronhaar put his car on pole. Thankfully, Rasmussen put his car second on the grid and then snatched the lead from Ronhaar at the race start.
Opmeer lost a position at the start and struggled to make up ground during the opening stint, despite being on the medium tyres. In fact, he was still running in P14 when Rasmussen was passed for the lead on Lap 10 by Otis Lawrence, albeit at the same as Ronhaar was losing ground himself.
Rasmussen was passed twice more over the next few laps and soon found himself under major pressure from both Ronhaar and Fahssi. He held them off for a while, but with his medium tyres beginning to fail, both made it past on Lap 13.
Opmeer responded by pitting for a set of hard tyres, followed by Rasmussen a lap later who re-emerged just ahead of his championship-chasing teammate. It didn’t take long for the drivers to swap places, allowing Opmeer to set about closing the gap to his championship rivals.
The decision to stop earlier certainly paid off as the undercut was powerful enough for Opmeer to quickly get within one car of Ronhaar. Fahssi waited until Lap 18 before pitting and emerged in P15, behind Ronhaar and Opmeer but with much fresher tyres.
Jarno Is Ready© Oracel Red Bull Sim Racing
By Lap 19 Opmeer has climbed his way up to P8 and was showing excellent pace on the hard tyres. This told a lap later when Opmeer overtook both Josh Idowu and Brendon Leigh into Turn 5 and leapfrogged himself into all the all-important P6.
Nicolas Longuet claimed P6 from Opmeer on Lap 23, but with Ronhaar running in P4 the title was still in the Dutchman’s hands. Soon after Fahssi collided with the back of Rasmussen’s car and ran wide, an incident that effectively put an end to his chances of the race win he needed.
Ronhaar was awarded a penalty on Lap 24 which put an end to his hopes too, leaving Opmeer to focus on simply bringing the car home. He took the chequered flag in P7, not far ahead of Rasmussen in P9, and could finally celebrate a well-deserved third Drivers’ Championship.
