Opinion: Esports – Professional Accountability needed after Indycar Clashes

Deep into the Indycar iRacing Challenge Indianapolis 500 finale on Saturday, current reigning ‘Indy 500’ Champion and Team Penske’s Simon Pagenaud appeared to intentionally crash into leader and McLaren F1 star Lando Norris, whilst Dale Coyne Racing’s Santino Ferrucci also swerved into Oliver Askew as the cars reached the finishing line and ended the race in farcical fashion.

This unsavoury ending to the race not only showed the two drivers up, especially with Pagenaud being caught on livestream planning the incident, but also brought up the suggestion if he and Ferrucci could be bringing the series into disrepute by their reckless actions.

The Indycar iRacing Challenge has been a rousing success up until this weekend. The presentation, action and simulation were all proving to be a hit for the fans and enjoyable source of entertainment whilst no racing can take place offline.

Along with a majority full driver roster, Indycar has used its guest stars well. The likes of Australian V8 Supercars champion Scott McLaughlin and McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris had brought a new audience to Indycar, which at a time where Indycar needs to promote itself highly to stay relevant in top-tier world motorsport was duly welcomed.

However, with 2019 Indy 500 winner Pagenaud caught on livestream planning to ‘take out’ Lando after a collision involving the two earlier in the race. You have to look at how this looks on a series which has seen full branding approval from both Indycar and its series sponsors.

All drivers are in up-to-date liveried cars, and driver live-streams will often highlight personal sponsors. The race is broadcast live on NBC Sports, Sky Sports F1 and on Indycar’s YouTube channel, and with Lando Norris’ inclusion and the #VirtualGP hype that F1 2019 was producing fading, the last two races have seen a big increase in European F1 fans watching the American single seater series.

Norris had already won last weeks race at the Circuit of the Americas, and entered ‘The Brickyard’ as a contender to win the race at the famous circuit.

However contact with Graham Rahal at turn two earlier in the race put the Frenchman a lap down, and with his race engineer unhappy the two agreed they would stop the young Brit from what seemed like a race win and possible podium lockout for Arrow McLaren Schmidt-Peterson Racing with Oliver Askew and Pato O’Ward.

The race until then had seen a few mishaps, but nothing not to be expected not only in sim-racing, but in the race itself. However, unfortunately the final three laps became somewhat embarrassing with Pagenaud’s intentional incident. This is along with Marcus Ericsson losing a potential win on the final lap after O’Ward’s reckless attempt at re-taking the Swede.

The race then ended in controversy as Santino Ferrucci seemingly side swiped Oliver Askew and cost both the win with Scott McLaughlin somehow coming from sixth on the last lap to first across the line.

Pagenaud quickly tried to cover himself by apologising to Norris saying his intention was to “Hold you up and allow Askew to win” but his race live stream was quickly shared on social media of the plan.

Questions have to be asked of Pagenaud’s actions. This was not the act of a Indy 500 champion, yet that of a petulant child who did not want to see a Formula One driver come and win a race at the famous oval. After he felt he was cost the chance at retaining his title, this time virtually, as said by his race engineer Ben Bretzman, who orchestrated the move and may equally find himself in hot water.

Indycar has been enjoying success with its Esports series on iRacing, but moments like this could cause hundreds of not thousands of fans not to return to Indycar. The drivers need to be aware that while it may only be a simulation, that they are still in team colours, in-front of sponsors and on national television and actions like this can not happen.

What message does that send to young fans watching? If a race doesn’t go your way and you feel aggrieved that you can rightly ruin the race for others? Or perhaps that even if someone has made a mistake that you have the right to take retribution?

Equally, we have already seen the likes of Kyle Larson lose his drive in NASCAR after actions on his own live-stream during a Motorsports Esports event, and whilst they are of a much different nature and Larson’s removal justified, the consequence of both is that of negativity from the viewing fans.

This could do irreparable damage to the reputation of the Indycar with new fans that may have been exposed to the sport from the Indycar challenge, and with the increased F1 fans following who may have stuck around when the series returns to ‘real life’, this race will certainly have soured their view of the series and its drivers. The race last week saw an extra 30,000 views compared to the week prior on YouTube, not to mention viewing figures on Sky Sports F1.

Santino Ferrucci doesn’t have a great reputation in Europe after his spell in Formula 2, and his actions crossing the line will hardly help the young American to gain any fans, but he commented on the race finish;

“Just coming to the finish line, and I was trying to get closer to him [Askew], and I went through him, I don’t know why. I mean, trying to steer a little closer to him because I knew the drag race would be tight. I just didn’t expect the cars to go sideways. I wanted to get a little closer there but did not expect to do that.

“That’s my bad. I apologize for doing that to Oliver. That was definitely his race to win. But at the end of the day, it’s a video game, and we had fun. It’s not anything you’d ever do in real life, but it’s a tight race.” – Santiago Ferrucci.

Using the excuse “It’s a video game” can only roll so far. This is a professional sports company with their name and branding across it and actions like that will not only put off new fans but disenchant those who enjoy Indycar and sim racing, and whether they like it or not, they had a responsibility to race as if it were real.

It’s a weird time. Sim-racing is enjoying a boom, and we are lucky to have professional drivers turning their hand to it for their and our entertainment, but if I were the Indycar bosses I would take a long look at the professionalism and actions of those involved and perhaps remind them that just because they’re sitting at home on a simulated race, it makes it no less necessary to uphold the values of the sport.

Executive Vice President of iracing.com Steve Myers also added to the fray;

“This was an Indycar private series with participants exclusively chosen by them. We are not in the business of policing anyone’s private league for racing issues. Does it suck that he made a mockery of a great opportunity for the series and iracing. Absolutely”

Coming from the viewpoint of a sim racing fan, when you see scenes like this it is incredibly frustrating. Sim-racing is a growing medium that sees fans put thousands of pounds into equipment and hundreds of hours into practice in the hopes of getting just a fraction of the feeling that the professional drivers do on the track.

Yet it’s the professionals that let the side down, and actions that we saw at Indy, and equally as part of Formula One’s #VirtualGP make it hard for the casual fan to take it seriously, or see it as anything but a ‘video-game’.

You need to be made accountable for your actions both on and off the track, and it will be up to Indycar to see if perhaps reminding Simon Pagenaud of his responsibilities, and while that may not seem like a big deal. Sponsors will not want to get the bad press surrounding a driver who lost the ability to think clearly and ruin the end to a largely successful online championship that could have benefited the series in the short and long term.

We get it, it’s not ‘real’.

However, if you turn it into a farce. You ruin it for everyone, not just yourself.