(VIDEO) Max Verstappen furious after server problems virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans

Enjoy

Max Verstappen is fully enjoying his vacation. He does this not on a tropical island, but in a little room in Monaco, where his gaming PC is located. Enjoying may not be the right word. This weekend’s virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans did not go as he had hoped. The race is arguably the most important in the Le Mans Virtual Series, in which Verstappen’s RedLine team is currently on top.

Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans

The Red Bull driver decided to end his participation in the virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans after his team suffered connection problems Sunday morning at a little before seven. The driver himself had not saved on his Internet subscription, as several cars experienced connection problems. The organization did not have its act together, making the race dramatic for many participants.

Server problems

The rules did not allow Verstappen’s team to make up the laps it lost during the server problems. As a result, they fell back to 13th place. The team therefore decided to give up. Verstappen even threatened to delete the racing game from his computer.  

“You prepare for months for this race, lead in the championship, try to win this race and then they handle it like this. It’s laughable. I quit because I don’t want to drive in place 15 for six hours. I better go to the casino in Las Vegas, I have a better chance of winning there.”

Security breach

There were also server problems in the first hours of the race. Several participants were thrown out of the server, halting the race. The organization behind the race, Studio 397, has since released a statement, “During the third edition of the virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans, two major server problems caused two red flags. This was related to global connection problems caused by a security vulnerability resulting from unintentional sharing of the IP addresses of participants connecting to the server.”

Third time

It is not the first time Verstappen has failed to cross the virtual finish line at the long Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans. During the first two virtual editions, things also went wrong, but for different reasons. For example, Verstappen crashed in leading position last year. The year before, technical defects also caused a failure. In the video below, you can see Max’s reaction when he learned this weekend that he was the lost rounds did not recover.