Why Audi Is Right To Suspend Daniel Abt

[Vanisch]

Cheating is cheating....
That doesn't help. People like Mr. Abbot should know that.
Such fraudsters do not belong in motorsport
but it's funny that Audi of all people is betting on morality

 

[Daniel Monteiro]

I think this whole thing is blowing waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion (I hope my emphasis has been clear).

I also think that some "simracers" have totally lost the plot, and even more surprisingly, so did Audi.

(come on, there is no such thing as a "simracer", just face reality: we're all "car video-game players" no matter how much some of us try to deny it and make it sound like it's more than that)

Or...

It's all a matter of perspective; people will disagree, that's nothing new, and for some this is somehow more than playing a video-game ( )

That said:

• Nobody except Daniel Abt will ever know if he really wanted to win a race, or if he just wanted to do the funny surprise like he mentioned on his statement. Fact.
• None of the drivers mentioned above (Vergne, da Costa or Calado) ever mentioned that they support cheating. Does stating that they no longer want to stream mean that they think cheating is legit? Some people are jumping to some judging conclusions faster than a bullet here...
• Just because car video-game players take these games seriously, does it mean that real racing drivers should? If you think so, then can you tell me why?
• The fact that Audi sacked him (as well as Kyle Larsson, etc...) makes me lose faith in simracing, and here is why: Those people surely did not want to fire the drivers for such little crap, but they had to because the simracing community made such a fuss about it that it scaled up and became too loud to let be, risking the creation of precedents.

I think we all need to realise we are responsible for everything we write and say, and it all has consequences. And that we are just playing a video game.

P.S.: @Austin Ogonoski boy am I glad you chimed in, just puts back some faith in simracing to me, thanks man.

 

[ivanalesi]

I think such episodes are taking the fun out of sim racing. If this sport wants to grow, it'll have to forget about this uber serious approach.
It's made for fun!
Now all the drivers will stop streaming unless it's in their contracts and even then they'll behave just like during interviews... the streams won't be popular and growth would be severely diminished.

If this approach continues, sim racing will never reach mainstream! Most people want to have FUN, got it?

 

[Cote Dazur]

He cheated, got caught, gets consequences on his action. Sounds fair to me, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. If money is involved it is not sport or game anymore, it is business.

 

[Faceplant]

You have new era F1 drivers drivers, like LeClerc and Verstappen racing. You have the generations prior like Herbert, villeneuve (with a freaking controller), hakkinen, rocking esports....then there are the mid to bottom of the pack former F1 names we needed Formula E to remind us still existed.

 

[kmanitou]

I still can't decide what's worse: learning too much about the personalities behind the wheel or seeing how seriously these video games are being taken. Maybe motorsports are too woke for me after all.

 

[Peter Kerényi]

I have conflicting thoughts about these stuff.

On one hand, don't cheat, act like a sportsman that represents a brand or sponsor, don't swear, etc.

Abt could have handled it differently and it would have been fine or he should have just suffered through a few more races and show them in the real world. Being sacked by a works team for it? Larson as well, blown way out of proportion. What Pagenaud did I think was worse from a sportsmanship point of view but I still wouldn't fire him from his "real" job.

This whole thing was super for simracing in the beginning but recently it has been getting worse. Just look at the quality of racing in the recent Monaco Virtual GP. I no longer have the urge to watch these events honestly.

 

[BrunoBæ]

I don't get when people try to downplay and say its just a game..... Just a game? He shouldn't be bothered about losing.

The reasonality behind this "its just a game thing" is that this is an excuse invented after the cheating.
Invented solely because the cheating was reveailed.
If it hasnt been revealed neither Abt or his colleagues would have called it "just a game".

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: It sounds like moral standards are good and double standards are double as good for these guys

 

[Grudyjsy]

If anyone goes on the internet wearing their employers logo under the companies name then they face the consequences if they do anything to negatively impact the employer in the public eye. This goes for everyone in real life, not just motorsport. Not thinking isn’t an excuse. If this was organised by the drivers as a bit of fun then fine, but it wasn’t. The drivers pulling out of online streaming etc will be back quickly enough, they need the exposure. Maybe the team is at fault for not thinking of this outcome and laying down the law to the drivers (their staff) before hand. But then again they are adults and should know better.
The other big issue I have is that he made a mockery of an event he hadn’t arranged, that was promoting UNICEF. I don’t think of him as cheating more of being massively disrespectful to FE and UNICEF.

 

[5-Card-Major]

Austin...

I agree with your view on this situation with Abt. But your phrase at the beginning...

"...the bioweapon outbreak." Huh?

 

[kmanitou]

Austin...

I agree with your view on this situation with Abt. But your phrase at the beginning...

"...the bioweapon outbreak." Huh?

Found the normie.

 

[AccAkut]

The reasonality behind this "its just a game thing" is that this is an excuse invented after the cheating.
Invented solely because the cheating was reveailed.
If it hasnt been revealed neither Abt or his colleagues would have called it "just a game".

CatsAreTheWorstDogs: It sounds like moral standards are good and double standards are double as good for these guys

in this case it's not down to the driver to decide if its a game or not, they are part of big teams and sponsors who decide about the seriousness here. If Audi decides they want their drivers to take it serious and represent the brand, there's no place for goofing around.

This ofc is only the special situation of these "replacement races" we have right now. I'm 100% sure they will be largely forgotten about once real circuits open again, tho ofc no one knows when that will be

 

[kedy89]

Audi saying that "integrity, transparency and consistent compliance with applicable rules are top priorities" for them is a joke itself.

 

[UMC 22]

I don't understand the people defending the guy because he cheated in a simulated race.

This whole issue is not about whether it was simulated or real, because that distinction has no meaning here. You can't look at what we, as a bunch of unpaid amateurs, do after work as a hobby a few nights per week, compare that to a big eSports event featuring paid, professional drivers with big sponsors and large amounts of money changing hands, and say that they're in any way similar whatsoever. That's just silly.

The guy is a professional sportsman who decided to cheat at the sport in which he was (supposed to be) taking part. Now he's got to pay the price for being caught, which could mean losing his "job"... just like any other sportsperson who commits this kind of act.

Like it or not folks, eSPORTS is now considered a valid sport and is rightly being treated as such. That means rules and regulations, it means penalties, and it means eradicating the cheaters by setting a strong example right from the start. It also means teams and sponsors distancing themselves from anyone caught acting wrongly, just like they do in any other professional sport. This kind of thing is hardly unsual.

 

[CDwyer]

I dont understand the correlation between Abt being suspended, and the the other racers/streamers, streams.
How is retreating from an online presence, in anyway connected to Abt's punishment?
The cynic in me says they dont want to get caught cheating either, but I know thats not what it is, but I dont see the link, they seem to see.

 

[Dicra]

If anyone goes on the internet wearing their employers logo under the companies name then they face the consequences if they do anything to negatively impact the employer in the public eye. This goes for everyone in real life, not just motorsport. Not thinking isn’t an excuse. If this was organised by the drivers as a bit of fun then fine, but it wasn’t. The drivers pulling out of online streaming etc will be back quickly enough, they need the exposure. Maybe the team is at fault for not thinking of this outcome and laying down the law to the drivers (their staff) before hand. But then again they are adults and should know better.

This is the first valid argument by someone who thinks that the punishment is justified I've come across. Yes, he did not act in a way that benefits his company, and that's something the company needs to handle in a way they think is appropriate.

If he really tried to cheat, there would have been waaaaay less obvious ways, especially, like, not announcing it beforehand, not coming out of the blue with vastly increased pace, manipulate it so that there was a cam showing the sim racer's hands and another cam showing his face and not the monitor, while he'd actually just hotlap for himself, an IP changer for the sim racer in order to disguise him being from Austria etc etc etc.

This was no attempt to snatch some glory. If it was, he'd be beyond retarded. The facts point towards him vastly misjudging what his actions meant to some people.

I'm a bit confused, though. There is this weird expectation that real racers take sim racing seriously. For them, it's a weak replacement of what they're doing. It's an imitation. It's exactly NOT what they are paid to do, what they live and breathe for.
For us, it's the only way to come even close to what these guys are doing. For us, it's an imitation of a thing we'll never have, and that makes it worthwhile to put time and serious effort into it - it's not a question whether we should take it serious, most of us do, because it's, in a way, living our dream.

Can that be said for real drivers? Can it be expected of them? Yes, there are the sponsors and the series they race in behind it, like in the real world. However, none of them put price money into it, or anything of value. There aren't even stewards. Believe me, all of them are painfully aware that this is a cheap way to keep fans engaged, and nothing more.

 

[Chris Down]

That said:

• Nobody except Daniel Abt will ever know if he really wanted to win a race, or if he just wanted to do the funny surprise like he mentioned on his statement. Fact.

For sure, and if nothing else there seems to be pretty strong evidence that he's telling the truth that he was just trying to do something fun:

• The idea was already publicly talked about, in a stream, in front of however many people. It wasn't hidden, it seems like a spontaneous "wouldn't that be interesting" thought that went too far.
• No attempt to actually fake this in any "real" way happened. This wasn't designed to look legit for more than a weekend, and it shows (no VPN, no attempt to remove the previously mentioned stream, etc).

Getting angry at drivers for not taking sim racing very seriously is certainly not the way to get them to take it very seriously. The way to do that is to improve community, standards, and quality of racing and simulation. Instead, a vocal minority has made sim racers look more immature than I thought possible.

 

[Chris Down]

I dont understand the correlation between Abt being suspended, and the the other racers/streamers, streams.
How is retreating from an online presence, in anyway connected to Abt's punishment?
The cynic in me says they dont want to get caught cheating either, but I know thats not what it is, but I dont see the link, they seem to see.

I don't find it at all surprising that other drivers are saying they won't stream any more. If the boundaries for acceptable behaviour aren't clear, which they aren't, and violating the boundaries could lose you your drive(!), why take the risk?

We can't be surprised when many drivers stream what seems to be destruction derby events with no consequence that at least one driver hasn't got the message that it's not ok to fool around in another stream just because it's "official". There's simply not enough of those kind of events happened yet to know where event organisers/your team will draw the line between some fun, and something that could ruin your career.

 

[Pepega123]

Some of these real drivers are actual cowards, shameless.
Stopped streaming completely: "good bye streams", does it even matter? Nobody watched your streams anyway.
Generic drivers with no personalities, just wealthy and a seat in Formula-E.
If you honestly need to cheat in a video game, you don't deserve a career anywhere, must be so hard to turn a virtual steering wheel in the comfort of your own home. Lazy bums.

 

[Ole Andreasen]

It appears he had already openly talked and joked about doing this on his stream, in front of thousands. That is not an attempt to deceive. Rather, it is a clear indication of the fun and 'non-seriousness' he was treating it with. i.e it is a game and vastly removed from his real job.
It was supposed to be fun, a bad choice, and it has backfired on him.

After watching his video, he seems sincere, and I think what happened in the game world has ended too harshly for him in the real world. The punishment does not fit the crime.
I hope that Audi watch his video carefully and perhaps show that they are big enough to accept it as the mistake it is, and reverse their decision.

My thoughts exactly.