World Drivers’ Champion Max Verstappen described last weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans virtual event as a ‘clown show’. Technical problems resulted in multiple red flags and disconnections, ultimately forcing him to retire from the race.
of Le Mans 24 Hours Virtual (opens in new tab) Launched in 2020 after the real-world Le Mans was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online races with drivers from all over the world participating remotely are designed to be as close to physical events as possible. We have very strict rules and requirements. Above all, at least two of his four team drivers must be FIA licensed (or equivalent) professional drivers. Verstappen actually raced his event for his debut in 2020, as did his fellow F1 driver Lando Norris.
Verstappen has since returned to the Le Mans virtual event. Formula 1 He’s a driver and reigning world champion, so he doesn’t have much time to devote to sims, but he said: washington post (opens in new tab) Last week, he said the Le Mans Virtual 24 Hours race was “very important for me and the team and I’m hoping for a great weekend to take the win home.”
“We are treating this like a real live race,” said Verstappen. “We are fine-tuning the car set-up, testing in the hottest and coldest conditions, rain and dry, and both day and night. people don’t “not realize.” “
Unfortunately, the race didn’t go well for him at all.as explained in traxion.gg (opens in new tab), the start time of the event was punctuated by disconnections and two red flags, bringing the race to a complete halt for over an hour. Disconnected. Drivers who cut earlier were given backlaps to effectively erase lost time, but that didn’t happen in Verstappen’s case as fewer than four of his vehicles were affected. bottom. Therefore, he decided to withdraw.
“Look at this. They call it amazing bad luck. This is just incompetence,” said Max Verstappen as he left the track and retired from the race. “They can’t even control their game. This is already the third time he’s been kicked out of the game during this race.”
so Post-Race FAQexecutive producer of 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual, Gérard Neveu, believes the potential for DDoS attacks is the cause of technical problems.
“Within the first seven hours of the race, it became apparent that there was a serious server issue, causing the race to be red flagged twice. seems to have erroneously disclosed to the public the IP address connecting to the server, which was not supposed to be.
“This undermined us and exposed us to several security breaches that caused global disconnects for all our competitors. If IP addresses were well protected, that should never have happened.”
@Max33Verstappen and @TeamRedlineSim cut from race lead 😬 #LeMansVirtual Powered by @TraxionGG pic.twitter.com/bCILhnI9l1January 15, 2023
DDoS attacks are unfortunately common in online games, but Verstappen probably held this event to a higher standard than, say, a round of Warzone, but they clearly weren’t in the mood to make excuses. The Le Mans virtual race has confirmed that it will resume in 2024, but Verstappen has said he will not participate.
“What’s the point?” he said after leaving the race. “Five months to prepare to win this championship, lead the championship, two months to try to win this race, but they’re dealing with it like this. I mean there was a red flag. , they blame it, I don’t even know, people are doing DDoS to their servers… Honestly, it’s a joke. Calling this an event I can’t. This is a clown show.
Verstappen may change his mind by 2024.When you get down to it, it’s kind of a rage, and in that moment there was a vow not to come back. We will look at the guidelines and try to reduce it,” he said. [the] We may have a similar problem in 2024,” and depending on how it works, it could also help change his mind.
“I think I’ll uninstall the game,” he said. “Good. Anyway, it frees up a little space on my PC.”
Interestingly, team redline (opens in new tab)— A digital racing organization driven by Verstappen — ended up winning the virtual race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans: He retired the #1 Redline car, then drove the #2 Redline car, Felipe Drugovich, Felix Rosenqvist , Luke Bennett and Chris continued to take the checkered flag.
