2020 Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans (Live Stream)

[Paul Jeffrey]

Welcome to the central discussion thread for the first ever official 24 Hours of Le Mans - virtual edition.

This weekend marks an historic moment for the genre of sim racing, as the WEC, Automobile Club de l'Ouest and Motorsport Games are set to host what could well turn out to be the largest organised virtual race in history - the Le Mans 24 Hours Virtual.

Held as an officially sanctioned event in place of what would have been the real Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend, the race features an incredible selection of official teams, manufacturers and drivers. Two Formula 1 World Champions, three Indy 500 victors and seven outright Le Mans 24 Hour winners join together with some of the finest rFactor 2 sim racers racing side by side with their real world contemporaries .

Held at the beautiful Le Mans circuit in rFactor 2, and making use of the LMP2 and GTE content within the simulation, the race is set to become a high watermark for the increasingly popular esport movement we are experiencing at present.

You can catch all the action live here:

 

[Piero Favretti]

Fantastic work Studio-397! How far you have taken rFactor 2 which is the best platform for an event like this. Thank you!

 

[GP20]

It's simple to understand, they have broken the rule by changing the track.
After that we never saw all these broken engines that appear during the race (including german's engine). And the speed during this long straight was the cause.

 

[Alex Townsend]

Really amazed by this. Top notch production and at a glance you could almost be fooled into thinking it was the real thing.
Good to watch and enjoying it but it's already midnight here and I'm fricking tired... lol
Will try to check back in a few hours

 

[passenger]

I just saw the Live Stream with a couple of drivers featured in small screens, and the one on the top screen had a normal seat and, what looked like a Logitech Shifter and maybe a Logitech
wheel... The guy below though had a DD wheel and pro seat. Hmm, a bit of a shock to see
'non-pro' gear here...

BTW, I love seeing this, such an important event, on rFactor 2. This will make a lot of good for
the best Sim.

 

[Deleted member 217114]

Too bad the stream doesn't have subtitles. Would loved that. Can someone send them a message to enable it

 

[b)b]

Is it just me, or are the kerbs abused a tad more than they would be in real life ?

 

[mozzie]

My eyes and ears are bleeding at how bad this looks. Cars look like they are bars of soap being dragged over a rock when driving over curbs and the track surface. All GT cars have the same engine note and LMP2’s sound like mosquitoes.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

My eyes and ears are bleeding at how bad this looks. Cars look like they are bars of soap being dragged over a rock when driving over curbs and the track surface. All GT cars have the same engine note and LMP2’s sound like mosquitoes.

Still better than iRacing's 10 year old graphics engine.

 

[GP20]

Looks great here.

 

[Prutscher]

VLN Virtual with IRacing is nothing about this

TV Stream on Eurosport 2 is fantastic for germans!

 

[davehenrie]

So what's up with Alonso? I thought I saw him pulling out the pit on his camera but his pit timing says he's been in the pit for ages

Alonso missed his pitbox, probably due to another car infront occupying a tiny bit of his pitbox. But after a long time trying to get lined up for the pit work to begin, he was sent back out and ran out of fuel trying to limp back. Fuel is the one repair you can't do in rF2, game over.

 

[davehenrie]

My eyes and ears are bleeding at how bad this looks. Cars look like they are bars of soap being dragged over a rock when driving over curbs and the track surface. All GT cars have the same engine note and LMP2’s sound like mosquitoes.

Watching on ESPN2 for the first two hrs, everything was crisp and clear. Then went to the you tube stream and it was not optimized for fullscreen. There it looked much less clear.
As far as the curbs, they were scanned with the laser so are probably close to the actual curbing. However, the cars may not respond visually or physically to those curbs so the effect of driving over them may...may be more pronounced.
The Porsche is the 2018 version which did indeed scream, but we've recently seen threads of folks with high end audio that have been complaining about it. I always think the engine sounds are too tame in rF2(and most TV presentations) I used to love the 24hr broadcasts at night when the pit reporters did longer interviews... You'd hear the bellow of a Vette, the scream of a Judd or Ferrari, More sound, less talk.

 

[Lesley Buurlage]

Alonso missed his pitbox, probably due to another car infront occupying a tiny bit of his pitbox. But after a long time trying to get lined up for the pit work to begin, he was sent back out and ran out of fuel trying to limp back. Fuel is the one repair you can't do in rF2, game over.

actually it was a bit more complicated, alonso got a stop-go penalty from the race director right as he accessed the pit lane, and apparently that overruled his original pit stop so instead of pitting he served the penalty, but then he wasn't able to get refueled which meant he ran out

 

[daveclifton]

I just wanted to say, I've been sim racing since 1992 starting with Geoff Crammond's F1GP. Opinions and details aside, did we ever see this day when half the F1 field, and a plethora of racing legends, would be sim racing and taking it this to this level?

Truly a glorious day for this community. FANTASTIC. This is just awesome.

So many drivers have said you can't replace the true experience of a real race, but they are now saying that this virtual experience is damn good too. Their enthusiasm is amazing. I love it so much. They are finally realising that virtual racing can be the gateway, not a replacement, for the real thing.

The penny may, at last, fall in September when a record audience, who have driven this circuit so many times, tune in to watch the real Le Mans 24 Hours. A great day.

 

[TTM75]

I wrote earlier on this thread that this is a new beginning of the virtual racing.. All of you can laugh on my comment, but before 2050 all races will be raced on virtual. All hardware will be take huge steps forward in coming years and we wont seen any differences between real and games. Covid 19 is changed our lives forever.

 

[budgetek]

This race and the stream is really impressive. All the dialogues with racing superstars. Incredible. Fingers crossed for studio 397 to make to the end withou significant issues. I enjoy it so much.

 

[groove200]

It’s a great day to be a sim racer for sure . Feels like my ‘hobby’ has just broken through to the mainstream . Feeing a bit sentimental .

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

It’s a great day to be a sim racer for sure . Feels like my ‘hobby’ has just broken through to the mainstream . Feeing a bit sentimental .

Indeed!

But there's still more to go here. It feels like current simracing is either pick-up racing style or extremely serious with a goal of being a pro sim-racer.
What used to be well organized leagues with serious driving, but loads of jokes and fun times evolved in to the pro-stuff, leaving a gap behind.

 

[Davy Jones]

I was watching earlier but had to leave and came back later. I saw Alonso having issues when first in pits, trying to line up the car in the the box slot I guess and now his team (including Rubens Barrichello) are out so what happened does anyone know?

 

[Deleted member 217114]

Yes, but on the other side I am scared of the EA, Ubisoft, Blizz-Activision effect. When it becomes more popular it can mean studio's going to make it less simulation to cater the mainstream, ie. quick fast races, minimal effort in practicing, hopping from car to car without mastering it , etc.

The biggest advantage is that the simgear-scene will probably see more innovations, and hopefully the price will drop here and there too. There's a tinywiny-short lived advantage on the used market: After Covid / Lockdowns the market will be flooded by used simgear which will be cheap due offer/demand.

@SeriousNewb He crashed, went pits to refuel, got d/p, but it bugged out and couldn't refuel, so he had to do another lap which he ran out of fuel.

Edit: Perhaps I am wrong but I do not see any yellows or full yellows. That is kinda a bummer. It can spice up stuff a bit without drivers falling asleep.

Edit2: Red flag at the moment.