Why Audi Is Right To Suspend Daniel Abt

[mr_belowski]

Bonkers. I love sim racing as much as the next nerd, but it's a game. Yeah, it was a bit silly to hire a ringer but the response from Audi and some parts of the sim racing community is just nuts. It really *is* a game

 

[zwiss]

Audi ethics at work:

The world is really going crazy.
The main thing about Sim racing is that every body is having a good time.
Look at guys like Jardier: even if he is punted off he keeps a good spirit.
And now we are on the road to making it all DEAD serious...
As soon as some RL sponsors get involved... it's game over.

 

[Vitor M Sousa]

He tried to make a joke. His crime was not taking it seriously, not trying to appear better than he was. Whether not taking something seriously that's basically an imitation of what you actually do - like a farmer who destroys some other farmer's farm in farming simulator - is a crime worthy of being sacked by your real-life employer ... I don't think so.

Is said farmer representing his employer and respective sponsors on the farm simulator? I guess somewhere along this lines is the issue.
Audi doesn't need their name associated again with the word cheating after the diesel scandal

 

[Grudyjsy]

Aussie supercars have shown everyone how it’s done. Loving their coverage.

 

[ltcars]

When believing the video, I think the smartest thing for him would have been to immediately say in the post-race interviews, then it could be interpreted as a prank, if funny or not is a different decision. But by doing nothing he let the whole thing slip out of control

 

[David Mann]

As much as I dislike them for unrelated reasons, the actual eSports competitors who put in genuine effort to build their respective eSports championships over a period of several years, were basically ignored.

Thanks Austin, this is a good point that has been bugging me as well. While many of us in the hobby would love to see the best sim racers duke it out, whether they are IRL pro drivers or not, I don't think it makes sense to the stakeholders of these virtual race series. The large majority of the fans want to see the IRL pro drivers race, and they don't know or care about eSports pros. Furthermore, the eSports pros would likely outpace most of the IRL pros, which would potentially embarrass the IRL pros, their teams, and the organizing bodies of the IRL series. I think the actions of those such as Abt and Pagenaud arise from the embarrassment of not doing as well as they think they should (Abt), or by seeing eSports pros drive circles around them (Pagenaud; Lando is effectively an eSports pro for the sake of this agrument).

I'm not trying to excuse these misbehaving drivers at all. In any official event, they should be expected to maintain professionalism, as others have said here.

 

[BrettSinclair1]

Serious sim races suck.

 

[Ole Andreasen]

Audi doesn't need their name associated again with the word cheating after the diesel scandal

So basically you are saying that Abt is paying the price for Audi´s diesel f...up?
Audi actually cheated in the diesel scandal - about Abt´s "cheating"... well the jury is still out on that one I guess...
In my opinion the man made a joke in a rFactor2 race for Pete´s sake... and get fired as a real life racing driver. The world is even crazier than I believed it possible. Get real folks!

 

[Grudyjsy]

one thing that bugs me is comments like “ it’s just a game.” But isn’t real life motor racing just a game, as much as Football is just as game. Just because there is a huge amounts of money spent, that seems to make it more important. I have so much more respect for the drivers that have embarrassed simracing while they can’t race in real life. They haven’t called it “just a game.” Even if they think of it that way. I choose to Spend money and time on sim racing and enjoy it very much, it allows me to experience in some small way the competition, the nerves and excitement that go with racing. they all have the privilege to be paid to experience what some of us can only dream of. i would hope they respect that and don’t reduce it to a joke. We are their fan base after all. with the news of redundancies at mclaren today maybe the representatives of teams will now think more about their actions. Sport is only sport but if the boards and shareholders decide its has negative affect on its brand then they will put an end to it (Audi in dtm) . That people’s jobs on the line.

 

[Ryan Soucy]

Abt is a tool, probably only keeping the seat b/c his dad runs the team. Audi is secretly pleased b/c now they can put in a driver who can keep up with Di Grassi.

Hypothetical: you're playing golf with a new business acquaintance and you're playing for $10 a hole (I hate golf, btw, but bear with me). He shanks one into a sand trap. You see him and a golf pro disappear into the bunker, the ball comes flying out and lands 3 feet from the pin. Your acquaintance comes out of the bunker not even holding a wedge and patting himself on the back. You lose the hole and the $10 and then he admits the other guy shot it. Are you ever going to play golf with this guy? Are you going to willingly do business with this clown?

Sure, it can be JUST a game, but cheating is cheating. There's a proverb: its what you do when no one is looking that defines who you are.

Also, Formula E drivers have to be blandest of the bland. Who actually watches their streams? They are the Toyota Priuses of race car drivers. Which is ironic.

 

[Enagee]

Serious sim races suck.

Sounds like the people i see online....... If you overtake me i'll crash into you and i'll quit the race, i don't care, nothing to lose

 

[destinationriver]

If it's "just a game" and therefore unimportant, why bother cheating at all?

As he stated in his video, it was not an attempt to cheat.

 

[Kindly]

If it's "just a game" and therefore unimportant, why bother cheating at all?

Except he wasn't cheating. He was finishing 9th and didn't see value in taking a game for charity seriously. Apparently he was making a joke out of it and honestly recording what he was doing to show e-sports drivers in a different league. Esteban Gutierrez played bumper cars at Monaco and destroyed everyone else's race, which is cheating, yet strangely isn't being sacked by Mercedes and is being rewarded for a good race.

Cheating would be lying about diesel engine emissions which I'm sure such an 'integral' company like Audi would never do.

 

[Ole Andreasen]

I cannot remember ever encountering headers, such as Paul Jeffrey puts on here in these two "Abt" threads - that are so biased. Honestly. I thought Paul was to put up threads, and let people fight it out - but beginning with such a biased header - well it kind of blows my mind. Paul is entitled to his opinion, but in MY opinion, he can do so, in a post below, as everyone else.

Paul is a person of significance at RD and should bear that in mind when posting new threads, as far as I believe.

Not that it matters to RD, but I have had it. I have made my last post here. I´ll find my racing GAMES news elsewhere from now.

 

[Trebor901]

All these people bitching about people saying "its just a game" really need a reality check.

Before Covid19 sim racing was popular among the e-sports pro's nothing more really. It WAS just a game to most real racers.

Covid19 happened and all of a sudden sim racing has blown up and become the thing to keep real racers busy with sponsors jumping on the bandwagon way too quickly. Probably without discussing fully with the drivers as to what they WANT to do which ultimately is what has caused all this.

Once real motorsport returns you really think we will still see these live events on tv and other broadcasting platforms with real drivers and sponsors behind it? The answer is no we really wont. It will go back to how it was before with real racers driving real cars and sim racers on sims. So to them it WILL be "just a game"

The downfall has already begun with them pro drivers saying they will no longer be broadcasting and they will be the first of many due to all sorts of reasons whether that be not wanting to lose drives or just thinking this platform is more trouble than its worth for them.

I like sim racing as much as the next person but people basically publicly executing Abt over this is absolutely pathetic.

 

[AyrtJ97]

Does not surprise me. VAG is trying so hard to clean its image on recent years, none of their brands want to be associated with cheating (with more cheating, that is).
One can argue whatever he/she wants, but at the end of the day, this guys are getting paid not just for what they most like (driving a car around a circuit) but even for do it virtually on a "game". It is not just their reputations, but their sponsors' and teams' what's in stake, as they are professionals. Furthermore, this is not an open-lobby race, but a series backed by a real championship, so everyone has to take into account what that means. Wasn't it easier to just say "hey look, I'm sorry but I do not want to this any more/race this race"?
And all the drivers ranting about it? Well, it just shows that, while they can up their social media profile, it is ok, but if it has consecuences we don't want it.

With this statement I don't mean that drivers should be accounted for everything they do in any online race, but you have to know when it is too much. As I said earlier, it is not the same a full-backed series than an open-lobby race. But seriously, at any online serious event, be it with professional racers or casual sim-racers (like myself) everyone expects some degree of respect.

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

Covid19 happened and all of a sudden sim racing has blown up and become the thing to keep real racers busy with sponsors jumping on the bandwagon way too quickly. Probably without discussing fully with the drivers as to what they WANT to do which ultimately is what has caused all this.

Correct.

The companies shoehorning themselves into the scene have no idea what they've gotten into.

The best example is still Darrell Wallace. Someone else crashed into him 3 times in 18 laps at the most claustrophobic track in NASCAR - Bristol. In any online league, hell any public lobby race, quitting out, killing your livestream, and stepping away to do something else with your afternoon is the sane thing to do in that situation. Every sim racer has been in that spot before, and the only reasonable thing to do is leave the session. Everyone who actually plays these games, know that.

Instead, his sponsor had zero idea how common this situation was, threw a redneck hissyfit all over twitter as if Darrell had walked away from a real race, publicly fired him, and all of the mainstream NASCAR writers attacked Wallace for being "immature", which then led to thousands of other clueless NASCAR fans pretending like he has "attitude problems."

The guy's reputation was smeared for absolutely no reason, because people who just learned what sim racing was a week prior, didn't understand video game culture.

A goddamn joke.

 

[Stanislav Minakov]

I think all this is a big pile of something stinky. From the whole idea of cheating in the race you don't even take seriously and up to banning driver from the team

 

[Jan Larsen]

Anyone who cheats openly like that ( I mean, it wasnt exactly hard to detect, other drivers were on to him even before the race had ended) has to have no moral whatsoever, therefore any punishment, regardless of severity, is justified. To me he comes across a spoiled, total moron.

 

[ears]

Don't know why they're all saying they're not going to stream any more.

It wasn't his streaming that got him into trouble.