The 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual is exactly what it is, a virtual version of the legendary 24-hour race held in France every June.
The top eRacers and real-life racers from around the world are competing for a $250,000 purse. Drivers such as Romain Grosjean, Felix Rosenqvist, and back-to-back Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen are taking part in the race.
While the race is currently at the halfway point (at the time of posting), things got off to a rocky start as an apparent security breach forced moderators to throw a red flag early in the race.
The race had already been stopped once before just after the four-hour mark, but after an hour delay, it didn’t take long after racing resumed that a second red flag was displayed.
Organizers released a statement on the suspected security breach.
“Unfortunately, the two servers that have been used for the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual have had a suspected security breach.
“We are now taking the actions necessary to increase security and will aim to re-start the race as soon as possible.”
After nearly 90 minutes, the race resumed and as of the 11-hour mark, things have run smoothly since.
In fairness to organizers, technology doesn’t always work as we want it to all the time. You have hundreds of people from all around the world participating, in addition to broadcasting the race, and sometimes issues happen from time to time.
It’s just one of those unique things exclusive to virtual racing. Red flags in real life might be a result of torrential rain or a bad crash, and red flags in the virtual world might be the result of a security breach or a server crash.
[Traxion]
