10 things to prepare before a virtual Le Mans 24 Hours

This virtual endurance race, which is organised by the World Endurance Championship, Automobile Club de l'Ouest and Motorsport Games, will feature 200 drivers, including Formula 1 champions and real-life Le Mans winners.

But how do sim racing teams and drivers prepare for a 24-hour virtual sim race?

Veteran sim racing outfit Team Redline's founder Dom Duhan explains 10 things that every team needs to consider ahead of the Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Having the right equipment

Although sim racing offers a more level playing field than its real-life counterpart, having the right equipment can make all of the difference.

Duhan has plenty of experience in helping professional racing drivers transition their speed to the virtual world.

His team will field Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, and will also assist WEC outfit JOTA Sport on two additional entries, with current Formula E championship leader Antonio Felix da Costa and IndyCar star Felix Rosenqvist amongst the drivers.

"Getting the right equipment, especially for pro drivers - who are used to the real car - is important," Duhan tells Autosport.

"It's important that they have the right gears at home, pedals that give enough brake pressure, or a steering wheel that gives the right kind of force feedback.

"A lot of fiddling goes into making sure that everything feels exactly right and the driver is comfortable in pushing his limits on the sim."

Practice, practice and practice

Sim racing is a full-time career for an increasing number of people, and with the absence of real-life racing, it has become an obsession for many real-world racing drivers.

Unlike the real-life Le Mans, there is no limit to the testing competitors can complete.

Having a vast experience of the real-life Le Mans track will be of no benefit in the virtual endurance race - unless the professional drivers can learn how to be fast on the simulator rather than driving the sim how they would in the real world.

"Practice a lot, a lot," Duhan explains. "The pro racers can find their way around the track but of course a sim is a different beast.

"It takes time to get adjusted to the driving style in normal dry conditions - and then it takes even more time to do so when it is wet. Data analysis software is used to bring the guys up to speed. Well over 30,000km will be completed in total before the race starts."

Use practice time to develop car set-up

Just as in real life, an effective car set-up that balances the driving styles of all four racers sharing a virtual car can make all the difference.

Those set-ups are formed during the teams' private practice sessions. The more practice they can do, the more refined their car set-ups will be.

"The benefit of a sim is that you can do way more laps than normal and therefore can try a lot of different set-up adjustments," Duhan explains.

"Some things are found by a normal engineering approach, some things by experience with the sim software itself - but a lot is done with trial and error."

Assembling driver line-ups

All the car set-up work in the world will not win the virtual or real-life Le Mans without an effective driver line-up.

Some teams, who are fielding multiple entries in this weekend's race, have placed their four strongest drivers in their leading car, while other teams have opted to spread the most talented drivers across their entries.

Partnering drivers that have a prior positive relationship is also important. Verstappen and Norris have a long history of sim racing together, having won the iRacing Spa 24 Hours last year.

"Which drivers are a good fit together? If you have multiple cars, are you looking to put your best in one car or do you want to spread the talent equally?," says Duhan. "Also, since sim racers will work together a lot during the runup to the event, each car crew needs to gel together on a personal level as well."

Each entry must compromise a minimum of two real-world professional drivers and a maximum of two dedicated sim racers.

Planning the race stints

Most of the teams will have already fully mapped out the drivers will be racing in which stints throughout the 24-hour race.

As in real-life endurance racing, some drivers thrive racing through the night while others are experts in avoiding the inevitable opening-lap chaos.

"Who starts the race? Are the guys capable of driving more than one hour?", are questions Duhan considered when deciding which of his drivers should race at a particular point.

"Also, with some drivers located on the other side of the world, they are ideally suited to take overnight stints," he adds. "So a mix of pace, location and resting time determine when a driver gets his seat time."

Prepare for the race procedures

Many of the race procedures such as a safety car or a rolling race start are found in both the virtual and real-life Le Mans races.

However, the virtual edition does demand an extra level of technical understanding when it comes to the driver swaps during pitstops.

Each driver, particularly any professional racing drivers new to sim racing, will have practised the virtual driver swap mechanism before the race until they are comfortable with the procedure.

"A race start, safety car, full course yellow or a driver swap - these require certain routines that need to be developed and practised by the drivers," says Duhan.

"Engine mixtures need to be tuned down, pitlane speed limiter activated, pitstop requests must be made. Each driver at home can have a different steering wheel layout so he must ensure everything is there.

"But also, things like accessing the race server before getting in the car are routines that must be deeply ingrained in the driver's system before race day."

Race strategy planning

The nature of the ultra-realistic track and car modelling featured in rFactor 2 means the teams will need to factor tyre wear and wet-weather running into their practice programmes.

Rain is expected to feature in this weekend's race and is likely to provide a strategic curveball for the teams.

As well as their private practice sessions, there are multiple official practice races for the teams to get used racing in the 50-car field in a variety of different conditions.

"A lot of works goes into the strategic planning," says Duhan. "Determining the wear rate of the different tyre compounds provides important info as well as the pace of intermediate and wets in the various conditions we can encounter.

"This is input for our strategy calculations, which is thoroughly tested in practice races prior to the race itself."

Communications protocol

Communication between four drivers and engineers during any endurance race is critical, but it's particularly important during a virtual race when the drivers could potentially be spread across the world.

Duhan explains that there are contingencies in place if a driver is unreachable during the race.

"Information distribution is critical when everyone is in different parts of the globe," he says. "Radio channels will be established for drivers and engineers, one for each car. But we must also make sure we get all the information from race control and distribute it around the team, ensuring everyone has received this.

"On another level - when a driver is asleep at home, we need to wake him up before driving. What if his phone stops working? So, we will also set up a back-up list with phone numbers of girlfriends, wives, neighbours - whatever is needed to get our guys in the car."

Liaising with race organisers

Organising a virtual 24-hour endurance race with 200 drivers spread across 50 different teams competing in two distinct classes is no easy task.

The ACO and Motorsport Games released a detailed rule book to all of the teams that covers every potential scenario or headache the teams or drivers may face, as well as ensuring fairness and legality.

There's constant communication between the organisers of the race and the teams prior, during and immediately following the event.

"In the weeks prior to this race a lot of regulations are sent out," says Duhan. "As this is a fairly new concept for the ACO and regular Le Mans teams, clarification is often needed as the rulebook gradually grows into a clear document as the race approaches.

"The ACO and Motorsport Games are well engaged with the teams on a daily basis."

Making the most of the marketing opportunity

In the absence of real-life motorsport, sim racing is the best platform for manufacturers and brands to engage with their audiences. Even prior to the pandemic, numerous teams and drivers have used esports to build their fanbase and attract sponsors.

Unsurprisingly, many real-world racing outfits have partnered with experienced sim racing teams such as Redline.

Collaborations can be found throughout the field - including four LMP2 Rebellion Racing entries, which are being supported by Williams Esports, and the outfit is also supplying sim racers.

"The goal is to get as much content on all social platforms in the build-up," Duhan says. "Create engagement with fans and become the talking point of the race.

"With the attention of the motorsport world due to the lack of real racing, it's a great opportunity to bring in new fans of the team. With our newly formed partnership with JOTA and Redline, it's a great mix of access to the sim racing world and real racing world."

Motorsport.tv and Autosport will stream the entire Le Mans Virtual, with coverage starting from 1:30pm BST on Saturday. There will also be full coverage of all the action and updates across the Motorsport Network's websites and social media accounts