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The Internet Games

Audi Drops Driver For Secretly Using a Ringer To Compete In Virtual Race (theverge.com) 75

Audi has dropped driver Daniel Abt in the all-electric racing series Formula E after he had a pro sim driver surreptitiously race for him during a virtual competition over the weekend. He has also been told to pay 10,000 euros to charity as a result. Abt said Tuesday that he thought the idea would be funny and that he had planned to release a video about the whole ruse. The Verge reports: Abt was supposed to be competing in the fifth round of Formula E's online sim racing series, which started up in April alongside virtual substitute series from Formula One, NASCAR, and IndyCar. The Formula E sim series was not only meant to give fans something to watch during the pandemic, but it was also supposed to keep the drivers and teams connected, all while raising funds for UNICEF. But Abt had tapped 18-year-old Lorenz Hoerzing, who has been competing in the sim racer section of Formula E's events, to run in his place. (Hoerzing has since been suspended from the sim racing series as a result.) Abt had someone even appear on the drivers' group Zoom call under the name "Daniel Abt" dressed in Audi red, but with a microphone blocking his face -- a noticeable departure considering Abt's lively presence on his personal streams of the previous races.

Hoerzing led most of the race in Abt's virtual car, but he came into contact with Mercedes-Benz driver Stoffel Vandoorne, allowing Nissan driver Oliver Rowland to take the win. This initially raised suspicions because Abt had previously struggled to compete in the earlier rounds of the virtual championship. The deception really started to unravel after Hoerzing finished third, meaning Abt was supposed to show up for the standard post-race interview with the top three drivers. But he didn't; Rowland and Vandoorne's Zoom feeds were instead placed next to a black box with Abt's name, and the broadcast hosts never even attempted to interview the Audi driver. During his portion of the interview, Vandoorne said was "questioning if it was really Daniel in the car." Vandoorne vented even more on his personal Twitch channel following the race and even tried to call Abt while streaming, but the Audi driver did not pick up. Organizers of the race were reportedly able to verify that Abt was not racing based on Hoerzing's IP address.
"I didn't take it as seriously as I should have," Abt said after he was caught. "I'm especially sorry about this, because I know how much work has gone into this project on the part of the Formula E organization." In a later video, Abt said he "won't be racing" with the Formula E team anymore.
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Audi Drops Driver For Secretly Using a Ringer To Compete In Virtual Race

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  • Shit, by that standard I'm a goddamn race car driver and a pilot too.

    Thanks to my copy of Mario Kart, and my DJI Mavic Air, that is.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Modern simulation came quite a long way, electronic sports have a solid viewer base as evidenced by this event, and physical sports were in a real nasty place during lockdown. A lot of leagues and teams are going deep(er) in debt across the sporting world.

      This before the problem of fans disengaging from sport because it's not there. Hence people responsible for organising sports events were basically flinging all kinds of shit at walls to see if something would stick. And since this is a very novel thing, y

      • by bobm ( 53783 )

        The problem is that there is no real penalty for crashing or going off the track (other than time)

        I watched a few minutes of the virtual F1 and on every lap the front runners were hitting barriers that would have put them out of a normal race. Not to mention the first turn pileups that incurred no one dropping out.

        If they add damage to tires it would be a totally different race.

        On MotoGP it was just comical, you could run off the track and be back on within seconds.

        I guess someone likes this but it's not

    • Coming from a Gen Xer ... okay boomer

      Real race teams recruit from the virtual leagues now, and some people who have never driven a real race car, only sim raced, do pretty well. It's that accurate (within obvious limits). When a simulation is accurate, the skills you learn are quite transferable to "real life". Obviously, G-forces and the fear of injury are the main differentiators, but if it was the same, it wouldn't need to exist.

      It's not the same, but if you excel at iRacing, you have a good chance of

      • by rho ( 6063 )

        Real race teams recruit from the virtual leagues now, and some people who have never driven a real race car, only sim raced, do pretty well

        I've never heard of this, but I don't exactly follow the sport. I'd be really shocked if the skills transferred over from sim to real. There are too many unsimulatable physical cues in actual driving that are pretty important. You don't even have to be a race driver, just driving a Corolla around and you can tell.

        Also race drivers seem to border on nihilism. If that's an important skill and it translates well from sim to real, maybe we should have another look at the effects computer gaming has on the brain

      • As a random question: Which wheel do you use?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:26PM (#60108574)
      Would you feel the same if your heart surgeon subcontracted to a guy in India?
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @10:45PM (#60108848)

          Theres plenty of ways in which heart surgery can fail and not kill you - do you like living with reduced mental capacity after a blood clot caused a stroke, or infection caused cardiac arrest?

          • by Binestar ( 28861 )

            do you like living with reduced mental capacity after a blood clot caused a stroke, or infection caused cardiac arrest?

            Silly question, clearly he already is.

        • Well if you're up-front and honest about it that's fine. If you're sneaky about it, it's probably fraud.
      • Would you feel the same if your heart surgeon subcontracted to a guy in India?

        Depends. I only want to make sure that strawman isn't built by slaves or child labour.

      • This is more like the heart surgeon in India subcontracting to a world renown doctor. By the way, there's no reason to believe a heart surgeon in India isn't competent just because they are from India! Maybe a better example is you hire a guy to take your family picture and he subcontracts to Ansel Adams.
    • The reason Abt was hired for this is because people want to know if real racers are any good at e-racing. If they are not it raises some interesting questions.
      • by niftydude ( 1745144 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:44PM (#60108640)
        It doesn't raise that interesting a question: "Are the simulations close enough to reality such that someone with trained in the real world can compete against someone trained in the simulation?"

        Answer: No - the simulations have a long way to go.

        I suspect most here could have guessed that was the case without even looking.

        Maybe they'll be closer in 10-20 years time.
        • by MobileC ( 83699 )

          And another interesting question: "Can your bosses take a joke?".

          Also...
          Most of the pro teams use simulators.

        • "Are the simulations close enough to reality such that someone with trained in the real world can compete against someone trained in the simulation?"

          Answer: No - the simulations have a long way to go.

          But the gamer who replaced Daniel Abt finished third in the race. He was beaten by Oliver Rowland and Stoffel Vandoorne, who are both real racing drivers.

          Clearly, Rowland and Vandoorne were more than able to compete with "someone trained in the simulation".

      • The reason Abt was hired for this is because he'd been racing Formula E for Audi since 2014.

        The "Race at home challenge" features two races per weekend; The first is a lineup if pro sim racers, the second is all actual Formula E drivers.

        So I don't know what questions are to be raised about this... the pro drivers are involved because they're the actual drivers, and it would make zero sense for Formula E to replace their normal races with e-sports and not involve their actual drivers somehow.
        =Smidge=

    • So what. The work was done.

      There is your mistake right at the start; you don't comprehend what work is being done!

    • Subcontracting is not the problem. Subcontracting while it's forbidden, though, is a different thing.

    • That's not ok if your contract doesn't allow it. This was presumably the case.
      The guy coudln't care less for simracing and might not want to do it but it was a race for the benefit of UNICEF and part of the appeal of watching it is knowing the actual drivers from the real world series are competing.
  • by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:02PM (#60108524)

    Is it me who has become an old biiter boomer or have young people become increasingly immature and childish with each generation ?

    Does everything have to turn into a fucking "prank" ? Is everything about the "lulz" these days ? Can't these people take anything seriously for a change ? Did he think for on minute about the possible consequences for his career ?

    Yeah yeah, I know... And get off my lawn, too.

    • by Anachronous Coward ( 6177134 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:08PM (#60108532)

      me who has become an old biiter boomer

      I'm glad to know you've still got your teeth.

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:11PM (#60108534) Journal

      “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” -Socrates, 400BC

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It wasn't really a prank, that's just a copout. Does Dwayne Johnson hire a body double for his movies? No. He hired the ringer because it's embarrassing and threatening for a pro racer to get schooled by basement dwellers.
      • Weird example to use:

        https://www.elitedaily.com/ent... [elitedaily.com]

        And it's absolutely not embarrassing to get schooled by video game nerds when you're a pro-whatever. Real life and video games, shockingly, are not the same.

        • My friends and I played guitar hero against the lead player in a professional band. He was really bad and we all took turns beating him. Good sport about it though, and like 30 years older than us.
          • A a guitar player in a professional band, I unequivocally state that guitar hero has no similarity with an actual guitar whatsoever. At least motor sport games have a steering wheel and an accelerator.

            • "Bonus challenge: You have just broken a string and have to successfully change it and retune before the start of the next song in 30 seconds. Difficulty: You have a Floyd Rose bridge."

          • My friends and I played guitar hero against the lead player in a professional band. He was really bad and we all took turns beating him. Good sport about it though, and like 30 years older than us.

            Well, yeah. As a guitar player myself I can tell you that there's literally no relationship in the motor skills required for press 1 of 5 buttons on a guitar-shape stick and playing an actual guitar with 6x13x4 combinations on the stick part of the guitar.

        • OK I learned something about the Rock today.
    • Interesting things will happen when you mix Nascar and Twitch. I'll be watching ironically.
    • Is it me who has become an old biiter boomer or have young people become increasingly immature and childish with each generation

      It's you! Especially if you're a boomer.

      Your generation refused to fight in Vietnam even when drafted, while young people voluntarily went to Iraq and Afghanistan. Your generation is throwing a temper tantrum about the lockdowns, while young people are staying home to save your lives. Your generation commits crimes at a higher rate, even at your advanced age, than young people d

      • Yeah, I'm a boomer too.

        Still paying my ungrateful millennials' bills

        so shurrup until you can pay your own

        Mac

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Funny, here in Norway the generation of early 2000s has become known as "generation perfect" because the culture has centered on performing in every way in life. It's like everyone's working on a glam version of themselves for Facebook and Instagram where you're supposed to be smart, sexy, fit, socially conscious, living the good life and more all at once, all the time. There's less freaks and rebels, less crime and binge drinking, there's even less teen sex because they're afraid of not performing well eno

  • Christ, people... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frank_adrian314159 ( 469671 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:45PM (#60108646) Homepage

    It's just a game. It sort of sucks, too, because high performance in one sport has almost no bearing on performance in a radically different one. It reminds me of the "Celebrity Home Game" episodes of Poker Night in America - you can be guaranteed that the only thing worse than the endless, banal conversation will be the quality of the poker. You see, old hockey/basketball/whatever players don't necessarily make good poker players. Similarly, people who race real cars probably aren't great at handling video game cars. Shit, you could probably get better viewing by putting the drivers' kids against each other.

    • Tom Brady's golf competition this weekend is more than proof of this.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        It still amazes me that people actually watch golf, I find it boring even to actually do it. If I wanted to go for a walk in the country that's what I'd do, I don't need to chase a ball to do it.

    • Well, in this case, the skills should be tranferable to a point so actual race car drivers should be better sim racers that random people who don't sim race.
      Obviously, people who dedicate much time to simracing should be very good at it and probably better than professional car race drivers.
      At the professional level actual race drivers use simulators to learn the circuits before going there physically. Another reason they should be at least passable at commercial sim racing games (though I don't know how
  • You ever notice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @08:47PM (#60108650)

    Every time someone gets caught cheating or doing something immoral or illegal that it was " just a prank / joke " ?
    Every time a company gets caught doing something unethical or illegal, that it was just a " bug or error " in a program ?

    No one is ever at fault for anything, it's always someone or something else.

    It's fucking pathetic.

    • I would liked to have seen Experian explain away that huge data breach by trotting out their music major CFO and having her say "it was just a prank".

      • by Corbets ( 169101 )

        I would liked to have seen Experian explain away that huge data breach by trotting out their music major CFO and having her say "it was just a prank".

        Congratulations. You got just about every part of that reference wrong - that takes talent!

    • Audi drivers are a-holes? Even virtual ones, it seems.
    • It's fucking pathetic.

      That's virtue signalling. I highly doubt if you ever do something wrong and get caught that you'll say "LOL. Got me, please take me to jail".

      Now you may have the moral high ground of not cheating in the first place, but if you did, no doubt you'll be just like everyone else.

      • Wha...? That's not virtue signaling. I feel you don't know what virtue signaling is. This is making up a bullshit excuse on short notice. Virtue signaling is broadcasting you have false beliefs to appear morally superior. Like saying #believeallwomen and then calling Joe Biden's rape accuser a lying bitch.
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @09:46PM (#60108752)

    That's why I always turn my ringer off. Sure I miss important phone calls and people get mad at me, but that's the price.

  • This isn't a real race... it's a half ass attempt at a racing simulator that doesn't compare to the real thing. I wouldn't take this shit seriously either. There is no real replacement for the feel of racing a car, the bumps, curves and inertia of taking a curve.

  • So, a real driver is busted for hiring a pretend driver to pretend to be the real driver pretending to drive. Got it.

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