As all the noise following rFactor 2 technical issues during the Virtual Le Mans race was starting to settle down, it's the sporting side of things that fuels yet another sim racing esports controversy after iRacing's edition of the Daytona 24h, with Williams Esports being at the heart of it all.
Everything started after qualifying. Pole position lap in the top class was performed by Alxander Spetz in the #1 LMDh car by driving on the apron instead of staying on the banked part of the oval. The rules clearly stated the apron was off limits, and cones were present at the beginning of the turns to further deter cars to take that line, but unusually, the software didn't trigger an off-track strike for using those bits of tarmac. Organizers explained the detection was manually removed to encourage teams suffering car damage to use the apron to crawl back to the pits without crowding the racing line unnecessarily.
Still, despite the driver having suffered a ban from the service, the team still kept, their pole position, and overall race result, although Williams purposefully switched to the face cam view for the whole lap on their own livestream. iRacing stated that the results are definitive once the race is finished, which hasn't been taken well by other competitors and the community, prompting complaints about the lack of live stewarding.
But the worst was yet to come, as sim racing streamer Pablo Araujo released a video exposing even more disturbing behavior from the team, this time in GT3.
As evidenced by replay footage, Williams Esports used a car that was out of contention after sustaining damage to help its other entry in the class. Car #2 purposefully waited in the pits and in the pit exit road to provide slipstream to its sister #55 car - which while questionable, isn't currently actively prohibited by the regulations - but more crucially, actively tempered with other competitors by defending position despite being several laps down. At some point, car #2 even pushed car #034, which was in the leader's lap, into a crash, effectively ending that team's race.
Tweets from Seb Hawkins, the esports team manager, and Jenson Button, Williams ambassador, tried to justify the LMDh car's tactics in qualifying, but haven't communicated yet on the GT side of things, as people are now calling for action from the organizers side.
UPDATE: Williams Esports has released the following statement on the 27th of January to address the described incidents.
Everything started after qualifying. Pole position lap in the top class was performed by Alxander Spetz in the #1 LMDh car by driving on the apron instead of staying on the banked part of the oval. The rules clearly stated the apron was off limits, and cones were present at the beginning of the turns to further deter cars to take that line, but unusually, the software didn't trigger an off-track strike for using those bits of tarmac. Organizers explained the detection was manually removed to encourage teams suffering car damage to use the apron to crawl back to the pits without crowding the racing line unnecessarily.
Still, despite the driver having suffered a ban from the service, the team still kept, their pole position, and overall race result, although Williams purposefully switched to the face cam view for the whole lap on their own livestream. iRacing stated that the results are definitive once the race is finished, which hasn't been taken well by other competitors and the community, prompting complaints about the lack of live stewarding.
But the worst was yet to come, as sim racing streamer Pablo Araujo released a video exposing even more disturbing behavior from the team, this time in GT3.
As evidenced by replay footage, Williams Esports used a car that was out of contention after sustaining damage to help its other entry in the class. Car #2 purposefully waited in the pits and in the pit exit road to provide slipstream to its sister #55 car - which while questionable, isn't currently actively prohibited by the regulations - but more crucially, actively tempered with other competitors by defending position despite being several laps down. At some point, car #2 even pushed car #034, which was in the leader's lap, into a crash, effectively ending that team's race.
Tweets from Seb Hawkins, the esports team manager, and Jenson Button, Williams ambassador, tried to justify the LMDh car's tactics in qualifying, but haven't communicated yet on the GT side of things, as people are now calling for action from the organizers side.
UPDATE: Williams Esports has released the following statement on the 27th of January to address the described incidents.
