As the erace in Vegas gets ever nearer, which takes place on the 7th January. We take a look at another driver who could walk away with $200,000 winners jackpot, and that’s Finland’s Olli Pahkala, writes cloud sport commentator Edward Hunter.

Pahkala, 27 is one of the top drivers in Team Redline, a race simulation team, that has a number of real life drivers on its books, such as Red Bull F1 race winner Max Verstappen, and 2016 McLaren Autosport Young Driver Award winner Lando Norris.

The Finnish driver has recorded three podiums in the iRacing world championship and currently sits third in the championship. Also, Pahkala is the President and Founder of the Finnish Sim Racing Federation. While he’s very active on the organisational side of the series, he is also a sensational driver.

Pahkala will be part of the Mahindra Racing team in Vegas, and the 27-year old was delighted when he heard the news that he would be joining the Indian team for the erace.

“I was really hopeful that I would join Mahindra, as it one of the teams I knew from the series. I was super happy when I told I would be driving for them; the team is great, the history is great, their drivers are great as well.

“I’ve already been talking to the team and got a lot of support already. It will be an honour to race for Mahindra. Hopefully, we can give our team and fans a good result so we can enjoy ourselves later and party hard in Vegas,” said Pahkala.

How did Pahkala fair on track?

Pahkala finished second in the sim racer standings, just one point behind British racer Graham Carroll. The Finnish driver took a very cautious, and intelligent approach to his racing which saw him qualify for the erace with a round to go.

The 27-year-old employed an alternate strategy during the first round Long Beach, which he used to great effect. Pahkala pitted later than anyone, which enabled him to leapfrog his teammate Greger Huttu and snatch 4th place.

The second round in Paris was even better for the Finnish driver. Although he was unable to win the race as he spent the entire race in 2nd place staring at Huttu’s gearbox, he decided not to attack or take any risks against his more experienced compatriot and took the points he needed.

In Berlin, he put in by far the most dominant performance; qualifying on pole and pulling away from Graham Carroll to win by 20 seconds, qualifying for Vegas in the process.

The race in Berlin turned out to be extremely crucial, as in the Semi-finals at London he got involved in a big accident with Petar Brljack which was deemed a racing incident, and this ended his season early, but luckily he had already qualified.

Heading to the erace, I definitely expect Pahkala to be towards the front. He didn’t provide many overtakes in the four races he was in, so there are one or two question marks about his race-craft, but his pace is not in doubt, and his setups are top notch. If the27-year old gets into his groove, he can potentially be unbeatable.