As an independent platform to provide matchmaking for sim racing games, Low Fuel Motorsport have stopped supporting rFactor 2 due to low participation.
The free LFM system provides series and events for Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa and EA Sports WRC, with an Elo rating system for skill-based splits, and an Safety Rating for licenses. Which enable you to pick free and paid racing based on your abilities, even if a sim racing title doesn’t natively include that functionality.
Support for rFactor 2 was added in October 2022, but has ended with an announcement in December 2023.
“Unfortunately, the popularity of our rFactor 2 service has decreased a lot until the end of this year. The manpower, resources and of course, money we would have to invest to keep it running for just a few people enjoying it is just too much. The decision was not easy, but we had to decide where we needed our limited resources the most.
“For this reason, we decided to shut down our rFactor 2 service at the end of the season. We want to thank you everybody for the time you spent here, for the races you did, and for the fun you had here!”
One reason for the participation dropping via Low Fuel Motorsports is that Motorsports Games launched the RaceControl system, debuting as rFactor 2 Online, in October 2023, adding rankings, safety ratings and more.
So there’s less need for a third-party service, particularly when rFactor 2 player numbers are still reported as significantly smaller than the likes of Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione. Although it does seem to have overtaken RaceRoom in the last few months (according to the figures recorded on Steam Charts).
With Assetto Corsa 2 arriving in 2024, it will be interesting to see what functionality might be included by Kunos Simulazioni, and what the future will be for third party sim racing platforms. Obviously Low Fuel Motorsports and others may focus less on ranking and rating systems in the future, but it’s a shame there’s no common API used by all sim racing titles to give a unified result across everything you might choose to race on. It’d certainly be handy if you could jump onto RaceRoom or rFactor 2, and have a rating which took into account previous experience on iRacing, for example.
Check out more on the latest and best Sim Racing Apps and Services, here.
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