• Home
    • About OnlineRaceDriver
  • Racing Game Car Lists
  • Wheels & Pedals
  • Esports
  • Trackipedia Race Sim Track Lists

OnlineRaceDriver

Sim Racing News, Tips and Guides

  • Forza
    • Forza Motorsport 7
    • Forza Motorsport
    • Forza Horizon 4
    • Forza Horizon 5
  • Gran Turismo
    • Gran Turismo Sport
    • Gran Turismo 7
  • iRacing
  • rFactor 2
    • rFactor
  • RaceRoom
  • Assetto Corsa
    • Assetto Corsa Competizione
  • Wreckfest
  • Automobilista 2
    • Automobilista
  • ATS
  • ETS 2
  • F1 23
    • F1 22
    • F1 2021
    • F1 2020
    • F1 2019
  • Rennsport
  • Test Drive Unlimited
    • Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown
  • EA Sports WRC
  • GTRevival
  • More Racing Games
    • F1 Manager 2023
    • MotoGP 23
    • MotoGP 22
    • Overpass
    • Overpass 2
    • RIDE 5
    • RIDE 4
    • SnowRunner
    • Spintires
    • TrackDayR

24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Highlights, Results and Aftermath

June 15, 2020 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

As the biggest sim racing event of all-time, the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual took place from 3pm on Saturday June 13th with 50 cars and 200 drivers competing via rFactor 2. And for all intents and purposes, it was pretty close to the real thing.

Alongside professional sim racers, a total of 115 real world motorsport drivers competed, including Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, Bruno Senna, Juan Pablo Montoya, Simon Pagenaud, Antonio Felix Da Costa, Charles LeClerc, Antonio Giovinazzi, and many, many more.

24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Highlights, Results and Aftermath
24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Highlights, Results and Aftermath

And the whole thing was broadcast on TV networks across 57 countries with presenters Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish. If you missed the live action, then here’s a handy highlights video.

Not only that, but many of the teams were run as official factory efforts. Some squads were collaborations between manufacturers and top sim racing teams, with others as the eSports division of the factories.

24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Highlights:

Watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Race Highlights

In the field were a total of 30 LMP teams who were all competing in identical Oreca 07 cars, and 20 GTE teams who could choose the Aston Martin Vantage, Corvette C.7R, Ferrari 488 GTE or the Porsche 911 RSR.

Most teams were split between professional sim racers and their real world motorsport counterparts, although some teams either went with a single sim racer, or fielded a complete team of real world racers to use it as practice for the resumption of the World Endurance Championship.

24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Results

The LMP and overall victory eventually went to the Rebellion Williams Esport #1 Oreca LMP driven by Louis Deletraz, Raffaele Marciello, Kuba Brzezinski and Nikodem Wisniewski.

They were followed home by the pole sitters, the 04 Bykolles – Burst ESport team with Tom Dillman, Esteban Guerrieri, Jerney Simoncic and Jesper Pedersen, and third went to the #13 Rebellion Williams Esport of Augustin Canapino, Jack Aitken, Marc Gassner and Michael Romanidis.

The GTE class victory went to the #93 Porsche 911 RSR of Nick Tandy, Ayhancan Guven, Joshua Rogers and Tommy Ostgaard, beating the Aston Martin Racing entry of Nicki Thim, Richard Westbrook, Lasse Sorensen, and Manuel Biancolilla, and the third placed Corvette of the R8G team with Daniel Juncadella, Matthias Beche, Risto Kappe and Erhan Jajovski.

There were drama for a number of teams, including the FA/RB team of Fernando Alonso and Rubens Barrichello which ran out of fuel following a penalty for a collision. The Team Redline favourites of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris experienced technical issues, as did the Ferrari AF Corse entry of Charles LeClerc and Antonion Giovinazzi

The 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Overall Results
The 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual Overall Results
The 24 Hours of Le Mans Class Classification
The 24 Hours of Le Mans Class Classification

24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual – The Aftermath

There are a few things which came out of the event, beyond various motorsports ‘fans’ running around social media and motorsport websites complaining that a virtual event isn’t real.

Studio 397 has released an official statement, following on from some technical issues which included two server issues leading to red flags and restarts.

And some tech glitches unfortunately affected Verstappen, Norris and LeClerc among others. Which would be three of the most popular drivers competing in terms of current lockdown fandom. Although Simon Pagenaud swapping his entire sim rig after a breakage shows that racers can overcome most things.

Obviously the internet is quick to complain and ask why the series didn’t use their particular favourite racing sim, and how there could be issues with a sim race on a scale that hadn’t been done before (in terms of professional involvement from drivers and media).

And that’s a bit of a shame, really. The current global pandemic has put a spotlight on sim racing that’s never been available until now, and many people have been working towards an event like this for decades. As a site which originally launched back in 2010, we certainly thought real world and sim drivers racing together in an FIA event would take many more years.

The coverage was also excellent, with the presenters, English commentary team and a whole host of interviews with legendary Le Mans drivers really conveying the feel that this was a proper event rather than just messing around until real motorsport resumes.

That more serious approach was also notable in the driving style of everyone participating, as aside from the occasional unfortunate incident, competitors were all keeping it clean and fast.

Having watched several hours of racing on both Saturday and Sunday, the virtual event was fairly indistinguishable from the real thing, with a similar amount of tension and drama as LMP cars weaved through the GTE traffic.

Hopefully the sim racing world can focus on pulling together to celebrate the best of the hobby (for most of us non-professionals), before the lifting of lockdown restrictions means the spotlight will return more to real world racing. After all, the more people we retain in the future as spectators or drivers within sim racing, the better it is for all of us, whether they’re in rFactor2, iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione, Gran Turismo or Forza. And it means bigger audiences, more customers and increased support for sim racing hardware manufacturers, game developers, and even sim racing websites!

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Blog, Esports, FeaturedContent, pc, rFactor 2, Video Tagged With: 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual, FIAWEC, rFactor 2, Studio 397, World Endurance

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

Latest Videos

Next Level Racing Go Kart Plus Cockpit Goes On Sale

Next Level Racing Go Kart Plus Cockpit Goes On Sale

Designed mainly for families with younger sim racers and adult drivers, the Next … Watch now

Gran Turismo 7 September 2023 Update Adds 3 New Cars

Gran Turismo 7 September 2023 Update Adds 3 New Cars

Some very different Japanese hatchbacks will arrive as the free Gran Turismo 7 … Watch now

RC Revolution Launches On Steam With A Free Demo

RC Revolution Launches On Steam With A Free Demo

It's been announced for release on PC, consoles and mobile towards the end of … Watch now

Hot Lap Racing Announced For PC and Switch In 2024

Hot Lap Racing Announced For PC and Switch In 2024

A new simcade racing game might be worth following, with Hot Lap Racing … Watch now

Overpass 2 Release Moved Forward To September 28, 2023

Overpass 2 Release Moved Forward To September 28, 2023

Things are presumably going well for developers Neopica and publishers Nacon, … Watch now

More Videos

Subscribe to the weekly ORD Newsletter and never miss Sim Racing news

* indicates required

View previous campaigns.

Powered by MailChimp

Popular Posts

  • The Full RIDE 4 Motorcycles List
    The Full RIDE 4 Motorcycles List
  • The RIDE 5 Motorcycle List
    The RIDE 5 Motorcycle List
  • The Automobilista 2 Track List
    The Automobilista 2 Track List
  • Car Models and F2 Update Due In October 2023 For F1 23
    Car Models and F2 Update Due In October 2023 For F1 23
  • How to perform stunts in MX vs ATV Alive
    How to perform stunts in MX vs ATV Alive

Useful Links

Sim Racing Game Car Lists
Sim Racing Game Track Lists
The Best Sim Racing Wheels For Beginners

Categories

Connect with us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2023 Hot Mod Media · Design & Marketing TWOTW · Disposable Media · FPSPrestige · OnlineRaceDriver · The Guitar List · Rescars · Rescogs