Unusual Facts About the 2018 ESPLAR Elite Series Season

(Imported from the former ESPLAR Universe WIX website)

While enjoying ESPLAR Elite Series is one thing, the unseen info about the series could be another thing that fans want to see happen in this series. The 2018 season is no different - and unusual stats and facts abound.

Warning: Some of the facts contain plot points and details from Sunrise's Future GPX Cyber Formula. View at your own risk.​
 * Remember the first race of the 2015 Cyber Formula Season at Grand Canyon? That race featured a lot of DNF's, including Hayato's infamous engine failure at the last lap. The American races of the 2018 ESPLAR Elite Series featured a lot of DNF's. For example:


 * Only 12 cars finished the Round of Southern Illinois, where Katya Alarcon won. Only 10 cars finished the Round of South Carolina, where Juan Montgomery won. 15 cars finished the Round of Western Illinois, where Nicolau Severnes won. 19 cars finished the Round of North Dakota, where Zoe Cisneros won. In all 4 cases, a number of top cars retired, including Kevin Jackson and Jan Henkla.


 * The 2nd race of the 2015 Cyber Formula season in Peru featured an amazing comeback by Hayato Kazami to finish in the points.
 * Katya Alarcon came back from being a lap down due to unlucky pitstops to win the Round of Southern Illinois.
 * Alarcon was involved in an accident at the Round of France but managed to recover to 8th place by the end.
 * Saler Kuliev was spun by Merry Santiago at Western Illinois in the 1st caution. He recovered to 8th.
 * Jan Henkla flipped his car at Western Illinois many times, but still ended up 15th.


 * Julia Truong might be compared to both Hayato Kazami and Naoki Shinjyo. By the time Truong entered the ESPLAR Elite Series, she almost won the ESPLAR Lites title, losing out only to Matt Croft. But she can also be compared to Hayato Kazami in that she ends up winning the ESPLAR Elite Series championship, becoming the youngest EES champion. (There's a chance Hayato Kitanami might break this record)
 * Jan Henkla = Pitalia Lope, minus the championship. Jan Henkla could have won the 2017 championship had he not wrecked out of the 2017 Evanshire 700. But he was a force to contend with all season. Only mechanical problems stopped Henkla from being a realistic contender in 2018. Henkla ended up moving to Formula A, and then was shut out of a Formula NX drive because other drivers like David Greenwood and Isaac Fasure took Henkla's top spots, rendering Henkla without a drive. He ended up retiring afterwards.
 * Kazuichi Saihara = Knight Schumacher. In fact, Saihara becomes sort of a mentor to Hayato Kitanami during his dominant 2018 ESPLAR Lites championship run, and when Saihara decided to retire from racing to manage the Saihara Motorsports team, he tapped Kitanami to replace him. Saihara later becomes owner of the team in 2019. (Fun fact: Kaz attempted to race under a pseudonym after injuring himself in late 2016, but Lean Campana uncovered his true identity at Decatur)
 * Hayato Kitanami = Karl Lichter von Randoll AND Hayato Kazami. Kitanami ends up winning his 2nd race at the Round of Victoria. However, he's younger than Julia Truong (only slightly older than Samet Ozkan). Unlike Randoll, however, his performances begin dropping off only due to immense competition. He's the likeliest equivalent of Hayato Kazami in the 2019 EES season and is a top favorite for the championship (he might also be compared to Shinjyo in this case)
 * Nico Cortez at Chile = Naoki Shinjyo at Africa. Cortez ends up blowing a comfortable lead towards the end of the Round of Chile after reporting a problem. Unlike Shinjyo, who ends up finishing, Cortez ends up hitting the pitwall and fails to finish the race. Even more humiliating is that Cortez ends up losing to Julia Truong.
 * Mittyia Hala at Victoria = Hayato Kazami at Canada. Well, sort of. The only similarity between these two is that they don't start their respective races. In Hayato's case, it is due to emotional trauma resulting from finding out his father was killed. In Mittyia Hala's case, it is because her engine caught fire before the formation lap even began.

nor Russia.
 * The Franz Heinel vs Jackie Gudelhian rivalry does not have many similar cases in the 2018 ESPLAR Elite Series. The closest equivalent is Armeniasport vs Azeri Motorsports, because since 2015 both teams have been at odds over crashes their cars have been involved in. Their rivalry heats up in the early part of the 2018 season but then is settled toward the end of the season, even with the eventual formation of a technical alliance between the two teams despite having different manufacturers.
 * The ESPLAR Elite Series field is getting younger, with the 2018 season featuring a number of young drivers. Cyber Formula had its share of young talent in 2015: Naoki Shinjyo, Johjo Ohtomo, Hayato Kazami, and eventually, Karl Lichter von Randoll and Bleed Kaga. Well over half of the 2018 ESPLAR Elite Series field is under 25, and 2019 might be the case as well. Shinjyo, Kazami, Randoll, and Kaga would stay in Cyber Formula, though Kaga exited the series after 2022. It is very likely that Hayato Kitanami, Julia Truong, Matt Croft, Katya Alarcon, Clarent Paxman and Merry Santiago will stay in the ESPLAR Elite Series past 2020.
 * The 2018 Evanshire 700 is a nod to the final race of the 2015 Cyber Formula season, where Hayato, Shinjyo, and Randoll battled for the title, with Julia Truong, Kylie Kovacevic, and Nathan Perry battling it out. Eventually, Julia Truong wins the battle.
 * Nico Cortez gets the dubious honor of failing to finish a record 14 times, with eventual 3rd placer in the championship Nathan Perry getting only 4 DNFs.
 * Julia Truong led more laps than Enar Selnimarov and Kazuichi Saihara. Kevin Jackson and Zoe Cisneros both led the same number of laps that season.
 * Every full time car led a lap this entire season, setting a record for most amount of drivers leading a lap at some point this season.
 * MSquared Racing are the best performing team this season, but they had less wins (2) than Julia Truong. In fact, Saihara Motorsports' total is better than MSquared Racing.
 * Enar Selnimarov had more poles (4) than Kazuichi Saihara. Yet, he failed to win a single race this season. CONGLATURATION!
 * Matthew Torres completed more laps than Nathan Perry, but finished 15 points behind him in the final standings.
 * Hayato Kitanami beat his teammate Yoshihiro Ishikawa in the points, grabbing more points in his 7 races than Ishikawa did in his 18 that he raced. (Figures that Kitanami is the #1 driver in that team for 2019)
 * Kylie Kovacevic is the highest driver in points who did not win a race. Had Kovacevic not DNF'd at Darlington or got wrecked by Juan Montgomery at Quincy, imagine who would have won the Morson-Austin trophy without winning a single race... (Last driver to do so was Matthias Volker in 2003, no relation to Florian Volker)
 * Julia Truong won her first Morson-Austin Trophy as a rookie, joining the ranks of Kazuichi Saihara and others who won their first EES title as a rookie. She also won the Evanshire 700, and only becomes the 2nd driver since James Stewart in 1979 to win both the Evanshire 700 and the championship in the same season.
 * Alice Seharitayan beat out Nazar Varotian in the points. Weirdly, these two had a bet to see who would place higher in the points at the end of the season. Whoever was lower had to bike the other teammate across the San Francisco Presidio for 50 minutes. Varotian had to bike Seharitayan, but collapsed afterwards and needed medical attention for dehydration.
 * Among the ESPLAR Elite Series field are drivers from Poland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Japan, US, Philippines, Australia... but no drivers from the UK, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,