STORY OF THE SEASON

The eSM Drift Championship 2025 was the biggest leap forward for the series in many ways. The season took place, as usual, between November and February, consisting of 7 rounds for the championship. For the 2025 season, the car regulations were brought to the DMEC level, meaning the cars were fitted with 800 horsepower and 265 semi-slick tires. A new addition for 2025 was the introduction of the Lapper AI judging system, developed by Tuomas Kauppinen, which meant that human judges were only needed very little. The organizers also decided to make this season special. Registration for the series was free, and a prize pool of 700 euros was divided, with each event winner receiving 100 euros. The series also decided just before the opening event that the winner of each competition would need to add 50kg of ballast to their car, to ensure that one driver could not claim the entire 700-euro prize pool by the end of the season.

For the 2025 season, the live stream was once again handled by Mika Vilen, with Jukka Valkonen as his co-host. Jukka Hautanen served as the event director, and Juuso Strandberg played a major role in the preparation of the competition tracks.

The season started with one practice event before the season’s shakedown round, due to the many bugs and issues to resolve with the AI judging system before the actual start of the season. A total of 90 drivers, 36 teams, and 23 nationalities registered for the season. Of course, not all of them made it to the tracks, as the free registration led to many less committed participants.

The season kicked off, and in the first round, Lasse Kankaanpää took the top qualifying spot, but after an unexpected crash, the judges awarded the win to Jukka Hautanen in the final. The other driver in the final was upset by this decision and was banned from participating in the next two rounds. In the second round, Tommi Luukkanen qualified first and also took the event win. Luukkanen did not participate in the opening round of the season. In the third round, Luukkanen took the top qualifying spot again, but Kiril Kondrik won the event. Kondrik gave his 100-euro prize to Valentin Velinov, who finished second, because the series required that the winner give an interview in the Discord voice channel during the live stream, and Kondrik did not have a microphone available to do so. In the fourth round, Luukkanen took his third qualifying win, but Ivan Lushchenko defeated him in the final to win the event. In the fifth round, a new driver, Papp Richard, won the qualifying, but Lushchenko took his second event win, carrying 100kg of ballast in his car.

The sixth round was crucial, as it created a very exciting situation heading into the final round. Luukkanen took his fourth qualifying win, but Hautanen, with 50kg of ballast, beat Daniil Orlov for the event win. Heading into the last round, the top 4 drivers were separated by just 30 points. In the final round, Abrashev won the qualifying. The top 4 drivers faced off in a bracket, with Lushchenko and Luukkanen making it to the gold final. In a dramatic sequence, Lushchenko blew out his rear tire on the last run just before the finish line, and Luukkanen drove into him. As a result, Lushchenko’s score was nullified in his second run, and Tommi Luukkanen was crowned the winner of the final round. After the points were tallied, it turned out that Luukkanen’s total score was just 8 points behind Ivan Lushchenko. So, Ivan Lushchenko from Russia, number #777, was crowned the new champion of the SLADI Masters eMotorsport series.