24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Organizers Apologizes to Max Verstappen in the Recent Statement

Max Verstappen this month participated in the 24 hours of Le Mans virtual. After facing several server issues and having his team’s lap not getting reinstated with his game going down for a while, the Dutchman decided to exit from the race.

With his act, his team withdrew from the competition, as he was driving the car then. The Dutchman followed a long rant, and he swore never to participate in the event in the future.

However, Verstappen got enough criticism for playing the sole victim over shared adversity. But not to deny the truth, every participant was affected by the poor game flow.

Max Verstappen declared the Virtual Le Mans 24 Hour sim racing event a “clown show” after his team lost a likely victory 18 hours into the race.

With two red flags and a handful of drivers disconnecting, do you think it’s time for Le Mans Virtual to be moved to a different Sim? pic.twitter.com/nNP6B38heW

— SimStaff (@sim_staff) January 17, 2023

Also read: Toto Wolff Won’t Let Another Nico Rosberg-Like Conflict to Rise Between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell

Organizers apologize to Max Verstappen

A few days after that episode, the organizers of the event, Studio 397, ran the event under the name of rFactor2 and released a press statement to apologize to the viewers and the participants for having a poor experience.

“We apologize to fans and participants of this event for the obvious frustrations these incidents have caused. Issues like these are massively frustrating to all involved in such a considerable production, and we remain determined to use the 2023 event as a platform to expand our knowledge and experience and to help build a stronger, more robust set of solutions for every online player of rFactor 2,” said the statement.

They have acknowledged that since the IP servers were public, they became victims of malicious attacks and vow to defend themselves better against such things in the future.

Back to real-time racing

Verstappen apparently worked hard for months to prepare for this event, as stated in his statement after quitting the event. He was adamant about winning this series. For a couple of years of participating in it, he couldn’t win it despite getting close on all occasions.

But now, with that done, it doesn’t seem like he will return for this event. However, he loves to do sim racing. He wouldn’t be doing it any of them for a while now, not at least competitively, as he has to report at Milton-Keynes for the new season.

The new F1 season is hardly a month away, with the February winter testing scheduled in Bahrain. Considering the Dutchman would be keen on defending his title, he would have to return to the real-time racing zone.

Also read: Mattia Binotto Reveals Why After Charles Leclerc’s Crash in France Ferrari Lost Its Competitivness

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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