Esports News: Drivers will treat Virtual Le Mans professionally, says Neveu

Following the postponement of the 24 Hours of Le Mans until September due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an inaugural virtual edition of the endurance classic will take place on the original date of 13-14 June.

The Esports event is a joint venture between the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the FIA World Endurance Championship and Motorsport Games.

The entry list features 200 drivers representing 50 teams, marking the biggest sim racing event to take place during the recent boom following the suspension of live racing.

Previous sim races have included incidents with drivers deliberately crashing into their rivals, claiming the events are "just a game" and should not be taken seriously.

The highest-profile incident came in the IndyCar iRacing series finale when Simon Pagenaud crashed into Lando Norris on purpose. Both drivers are set to take place in the Virtual Le Mans race next week.

But FIA World Endurance Championship CEO Gerard Neveu is confident the Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans will be treated like a professional event, emphasising that any actions by drivers would have implications on their team-mates sharing the car.

PLUS: How Esports drivers overcame 'mental torture' at Le Mans

"We have a big responsibility, we have to make sure the organisation of the race we provide with Motorsport Games and rFactor 2 will be at the level expected by everybody," Neveu told Autosport.

"We are already making very strong sporting regulations, because we want to do something serious with good organisation to make sure the people that invest a lot of time are involved in a good event.

"We're trying to maintain all the spirit of Le Mans, the team spirit, which is very important. It's four drivers, not only one. So if you start to do something wrong, you penalise your colleagues directly.

"I trust the competitors. I believe when you have a level of competitors like this, when you have official teams which is really important because you have official cars from Porsche, Aston, Ferrari, Corvette, Toyota - these people normally do things very seriously.

"We have to be optimistic and to trust them. This is part of the game. We'll organise everything, but we will not drive the car in place of the drivers, and not manage the team in place of the team managers. We will provide the stage, but they have to be the rock stars!"

The race will be run on the rFactor 2 sim racing platform, with the sporting regulations for the event designed to replicate real-life to give an accurate representation of Le Mans.

"When you do a race now in a single-seater sprint race, if you lost the connection of your computer, this is finished for you because you lost the connection for 10 minutes," said Neveu.

"Here what we'll try to do is have three minutes to reconnect. If not, the other drivers can take their place. You will have a penalty of course, because this is like a mechanical problem on the car, but you will continue to race.

"When you have a crash with the car, you have damage, that's the big difference. If you crash the car you have damage. You have a chance to go back to the garage in the pit lane to fix the problem and rejoin the race.

"You have to decide your four drivers' strategy in the race. Who is doing the different stints? Who is driving more during the night? Who is driving in the rain? It can happen! There is a minimum running time per driver, which is four hours. The maximum of seven hours per driver, not consecutively of course. So they will have to split the running time between themselves to see how they will do it.

"You have to change the tyres, you have to refuel. If you forget to refuel, the car stops at the side of the track. You have to manage all the things like this. Who is doing double stints or not? They will have to manage all the different factors."

Neveu said that while the Virtual Le Mans race would only be "complementary" to the real-world endurance classic, there would be plenty the organisers could learn from it.

"When you enter a new area like this, you have to be humble, and have to acknowledge there is a big gap of evolution," Neveu said.

"What we'll try to do is make the best that we can do now to organise a very good event. [So] 50 cars, a real 24 hours - it will be interesting to see where we are on the Sunday at 3pm, how many cars, how is the ambience, what is going on.

"It will be interesting to see. We will learn a lot. All of us have a lot of energy and enthusiasm."

The Virtual Le Mans 24 Hours will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv. The race starts on 13 June at 14:00 BST.