The 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual, and the Le Mans Virtual Series championship spin-off, were popular, but in 2023, the tentpole event was beset by technical maladies. Now, with the Le Mans Ultimate title on the way, it is set for a return.
Images: Motorsport Games/Studio 397
Hundreds of thousands of views across YouTube, Twitch and Facebook streams. Live French television coverage. Post-race one-hour highlight packages were shown on linear and OTT platforms the world over.
It may not have been an event that the likes of you and I could have competed in, but the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual was watched by a significantly sized audience – and crucially, to those who may be new to sim racing.
During the event, stability issues with the rFactor 2 platform and allegations of server attacks robbed the event of a clean running. Consequently, its annus horribilis (a mixture of flags and a disenfranchised Formula 1 champion) grabbed the headlines.
Since then, the event and associated championship have been on hiatus while work on a new sim platform by Studio 397, Le Mans Ultimate, became the priority.
In the meantime, ESL R1 made a big splash in the competitive sim racing scene, hoovering up teams and drivers with the lure of massive prize pools. But, as the year progressed, the viewing figures dwindled. It is set to return, but plans are yet to be confirmed.
In addition, the most-watched series of them all – F1 Esports (now F1 Sim Racing) – is believed to be stuck in an interminable contractual battle. Sim racers who turned full-time, living the dream, are stuck twiddling their thumbs alongside, presumably, team managers, owners and sponsors.
The idea of competition is alive and well, just look at the recent iRacing Daytona 24 participation figures. But in terms of audience, eNASCAR and PSGL are among the few to gather significant viewing figures presently.
However – a return to some form of Le Mans Virtual Series may be around the corner.
“If you are asking potentially, then the answer to potentially is yes,” theorises Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood when quizzed by RaceDepartment about a renaissance.
“The reason being that I restricted a lot of things internally to try and change the company’s focus and deliver a great sim racing game in Le Mans Ultimate.
“I have closed the door on a lot of things until we got that into a reasonable place. Now, I think it’s in a reasonable place, and it will launch on the 20th as planned, Le Mans Virtual is something that feels quite near term.”
“Previously, when we were running Le Mans Virtual and getting huge audiences around this, we had no official Le Mans game. So, it makes perfect sense to combine the two. Now you have the official Le Mans sim with the official content and running a new Le Mans Virtual is very attractive to us.”
“A lot of teams, a lot of manufacturers and a lot of potential partners are knocking on the door saying, ‘When are we going to have another Le Mans Virtual’, so there is no shortage of requests.
“I think you should expect to hear more on that in the very near future.”
2023 Le Mans Virtual 2023, running on rFactor 2
The rFactor 2 Online system, ‘powered by RaceControl’, does have the ability to hold ‘special events’ and track prior performance. With a variation on this to be included in Ultimate, a 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual for both the crème de la crème and the community is not beyond the realms of possibility – if far from confirmed.
Besides, adding a ranking system, safety ratings and scheduled races does not guarantee that the underlying netcode can handle the stress of the pinnacle race.
“One of the biggest challenges of running Le Mans Virtual on rFactor 2 was actually ownership and understanding of that code,” explains Hood.
“It is incredibly difficult, or it has been historically, for the team to identify the issues that were caused the red flags and server issues in the past.
“One of the reasons that we dampened and tempered the expectations around Le Mans Virtual in the future is that until we had a plan in place for resolving that, we didn’t want to announce anything.
“So, for me to hint at Le Mans Virtual being announced, possibly in the near future, I think we’ve got a path to resolving that. It is less about entirely changing the code, but making the code more readable so that we could identify and replicate issues – making sure they were stamped out.
“Work is actively done in that department, and any of those improvements will be validated in the community.
“Every kind of title has its issues. I was watching some stream earlier of somebody racing and the car in front of them did a big barrel roll and then landed back on the track. I’m not saying we won’t have internet issues either and I’m sure there’ll be lots of videos online.
“But fundamentally, the netcode is a big area of focus for us.”
While the return of the Le Mans’ apogee sim racing competition seems to be just around the corner, the development team’s more immediate task is to learn during Ultimate’s early access period – the RaceControl technology available from day one with ranked races.
Will you be diving into online races when Le Mans Ultimate launches? Let us know in the comments below.
Images: Motorsport Games/Studio 397
Hundreds of thousands of views across YouTube, Twitch and Facebook streams. Live French television coverage. Post-race one-hour highlight packages were shown on linear and OTT platforms the world over.
It may not have been an event that the likes of you and I could have competed in, but the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual was watched by a significantly sized audience – and crucially, to those who may be new to sim racing.
During the event, stability issues with the rFactor 2 platform and allegations of server attacks robbed the event of a clean running. Consequently, its annus horribilis (a mixture of flags and a disenfranchised Formula 1 champion) grabbed the headlines.
Since then, the event and associated championship have been on hiatus while work on a new sim platform by Studio 397, Le Mans Ultimate, became the priority.
In the meantime, ESL R1 made a big splash in the competitive sim racing scene, hoovering up teams and drivers with the lure of massive prize pools. But, as the year progressed, the viewing figures dwindled. It is set to return, but plans are yet to be confirmed.
In addition, the most-watched series of them all – F1 Esports (now F1 Sim Racing) – is believed to be stuck in an interminable contractual battle. Sim racers who turned full-time, living the dream, are stuck twiddling their thumbs alongside, presumably, team managers, owners and sponsors.
The idea of competition is alive and well, just look at the recent iRacing Daytona 24 participation figures. But in terms of audience, eNASCAR and PSGL are among the few to gather significant viewing figures presently.
However – a return to some form of Le Mans Virtual Series may be around the corner.
“If you are asking potentially, then the answer to potentially is yes,” theorises Motorsport Games CEO Stephen Hood when quizzed by RaceDepartment about a renaissance.
“The reason being that I restricted a lot of things internally to try and change the company’s focus and deliver a great sim racing game in Le Mans Ultimate.
“I have closed the door on a lot of things until we got that into a reasonable place. Now, I think it’s in a reasonable place, and it will launch on the 20th as planned, Le Mans Virtual is something that feels quite near term.”
Demand From Teams Palpable
In recent years, the 24-hour virtual race in partnership with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest happened in January, preceded by championship rounds. However, for a 2023-24 season to happen, the venerable rFactor 2 would have been the platform in use again, with Le Mans Ultimate still in its embryonic stages.“Previously, when we were running Le Mans Virtual and getting huge audiences around this, we had no official Le Mans game. So, it makes perfect sense to combine the two. Now you have the official Le Mans sim with the official content and running a new Le Mans Virtual is very attractive to us.”
“A lot of teams, a lot of manufacturers and a lot of potential partners are knocking on the door saying, ‘When are we going to have another Le Mans Virtual’, so there is no shortage of requests.
“I think you should expect to hear more on that in the very near future.”
Understanding The Netcode A Priority
One of the criticisms of the prior series was the lack of a community-driven race event – you couldn’t load up rFactor 2 and enter an official 24 Hours of Le Mans event with some team-mates. It was only for the elite-level drivers and teams, save the supporting Cup series.The rFactor 2 Online system, ‘powered by RaceControl’, does have the ability to hold ‘special events’ and track prior performance. With a variation on this to be included in Ultimate, a 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual for both the crème de la crème and the community is not beyond the realms of possibility – if far from confirmed.
Besides, adding a ranking system, safety ratings and scheduled races does not guarantee that the underlying netcode can handle the stress of the pinnacle race.
“One of the biggest challenges of running Le Mans Virtual on rFactor 2 was actually ownership and understanding of that code,” explains Hood.
“It is incredibly difficult, or it has been historically, for the team to identify the issues that were caused the red flags and server issues in the past.
“One of the reasons that we dampened and tempered the expectations around Le Mans Virtual in the future is that until we had a plan in place for resolving that, we didn’t want to announce anything.
“So, for me to hint at Le Mans Virtual being announced, possibly in the near future, I think we’ve got a path to resolving that. It is less about entirely changing the code, but making the code more readable so that we could identify and replicate issues – making sure they were stamped out.
“Work is actively done in that department, and any of those improvements will be validated in the community.
“Every kind of title has its issues. I was watching some stream earlier of somebody racing and the car in front of them did a big barrel roll and then landed back on the track. I’m not saying we won’t have internet issues either and I’m sure there’ll be lots of videos online.
“But fundamentally, the netcode is a big area of focus for us.”
While the return of the Le Mans’ apogee sim racing competition seems to be just around the corner, the development team’s more immediate task is to learn during Ultimate’s early access period – the RaceControl technology available from day one with ranked races.
Will you be diving into online races when Le Mans Ultimate launches? Let us know in the comments below.
