Disaster strikes for Team Redline in tenth hour virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans

Published on 14 June 2020 by Kees-Jan Koster

During the night hours Team Redline, the sim race team, consisting of Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and sim racers Atze Kerkhof and Greger Huttu, had to stop the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Oreca 07 in the LMP2 class with number 20 suffered from technical issues with the game, after driving a large part of the first eleven hours in the lead.

The #20 car of Team Redline suffered some light damage during its last pitstop, but is still setting some fine lap times, with Max behind the wheel. The Dutchman laps the 13,6-kilometre-long Circuit de la Sarthe in 3:27.

After the leading #16 Veloce Esports 2 car with Eamonn Murphy has issues and falls back, Max was handed the lead. Just before midnight he has about a ten second lead on Raffaele Marciello in the #01 Rebellion Williams Esport. After the top of the field mand another pitstop, the Italian is able to reduce the gap to 5 seconds.

At 00.25 disaster strikes for Team Redline. Max encounters some glitches in the game causing him to crash into the wall and the #20 car suffers a lot of damage. During the necessary repairs Team Redline looses a lot of time, almost four minutes are lost and the team falls back from P1 to P13. Fifteen minutes later Max enters the pits again, after which Atze Kerkhof takes over the wheel, in an attempt to reduce the gap in the remaining fourteen hours.

Around one thirty Kerkhof sets the fastest lap to 3:25.336. At the time he is the quickest driver on track, but the #20 Team Redline is in twelfth position. In the lead, Louis Delatraz is driving the #01 Rebellion Williams Esport car. 2 Seas Motorsport (#33) follows with Isa Bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa almost a minute behind. The #04 ByKolles – Burst Esport has come up to third position.

Within fifteen minutes after Kerkhof entered the cockpit of the #20 car, he cannot control the car because the artificial intelligence takes control. The AI crashes hard into the wall and the team cannot get into the server again because of technical issues with the game. Sadly, this means for Team Redline the end of the virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans with Lando Norris, Atze Kerkhof, Gregor Huttu and Max Verstappen.