Over the weekend, the first major iRacing endurance Special Event of the year was held and it saw the first entry ever by Ferrari's sim racing program. However, it was not without controversy.
It seems we cannot go for long without some drama stemming from the top split of an iRacing Special Event. Some of the most prominent names on the road racing side of the service can be found doing battle in many of these high profile endurance races.
Just this year, there are the likes of the Bathurst and Sebring 12-hour events, the 6 Hours of The Glen and Indianapolis, Petit Le Mans, the new-for-this-year Suzuka 1,000km, and last but by no means least, 24-hour races on the Nordschleife, Spa-Francorchamps and, having just rolled around over the weekend, Daytona.
With a lot of prestige that comes from winning these events, many teams are fielding top-tier talent with drivers constantly attempting to gain iRating so they get placed in the broadcasted primetime event. One team making their first Special Event appearance was Ferrari, with their 499P debuting on iRacing in December, they managed to get two entries into top split.
The number 50 car driven by Michele Constantini, Ole Steinbråten and Niklas Beu ended up victorious, winning by a lap over the second placed Grid-And-Go.com eSports entry. They also shared the grid with F1's Max Verstappen, who after triumphing in the GTD class during last year's event, was attempting to repeat that in GTP.
However, the winning Ferrari entry were accused of utilising an exploit which resulted in them losing the win.
Not even Verstappen was exempt from the chaos, meeting with the tyre barrier after attempting to lap a GTD car at the first horseshoe and aquaplaning straight off, forcing him to pit for repairs. Having been in the lead at this point with six and a half hours remaining, this surely cost him victory as the lead Ferrari soon picked up the pieces.
However, the Ferrari team had avoided a similar fate. About an hour and a half earlier, the lead 499P being driven by Steinbråten - a former sim racing teammate of Verstappen's at Team Redline - went to lap a GTD car at the same corner, seemingly locked up and was surely heading for the tyre wall. But almost immediately, the car disappeared from the track and reappeared in the pitlane.
After some initial confusion as to what happened, the community began to suspect something was not as it should have been. They soon began theorising that in an attempt to avoid lengthy repairs, Steinbråten quickly closed the sim on his PC so that it would force the software to tow the car back to pitlane, in doing so, avoiding incurring damage with the car sliding uncontrollably into the tyre wall.
The incident occurred just after the eight hours remaining mark, and can be seen below around four hours and 16 minutes into part 2 of the iRacing YouTube broadcast.
Now though, if you look on the Daytona 24 event tab in the UI and click to the top split results for the 12:00 UTC timeslot, Ferrari are listed right at the bottom as having been disqualified. As a result, the Grid-And-Go.com entry in the Acura made up of Peter Zuba, Sean D Campbell, Dumitru A Dimcenco and Gabriel Streitmatter are now declared the overall winners.
Such a measure has seemingly never been undertaken before, with two other infamous instances of exploits being exercised by teams in top split Special Events not seeing the classification changed.
Williams got a lot of flack for this, and also for seemingly running some of their GTD entries to act as a barricade in an attempt to help some of their front running cars. What resulted was a ban for Spetz (that he has since served and has now moved to Drago Racing). Team Manager Seb Hawkins (who now manages Guild Esports' sim racing division) soon left the team as well, but the result still stood.
Just a couple of months prior to this the Spa 24 Hours tyre dipping controversy had happened. In the lead-up to the event, it was found that tyre temps would drop considerably if players ran the tyres in the grass, resulting in less tyre wear and setting lap times up to half a second faster than not doing it.
The MAHLE RACING TEAM entry took pole position courtesy of Felix Quirmbach, but his lap was reminiscent more of something that would be found in a World Rally Championship game. How the lap never got automatically invalidated, that is beyond comprehension. But as the situation became more clear to the other teams, they all began adopting it.
Some teams like URANO eSports refused to engage in the affair, and simply withdrew. But iRacing did not amend the result, merely saying going forward that such a practice would not be permitted. They ended up overdoing it as they banned many drivers in the Porsche Esports Contender Series for supposedly doing the same during the round on the Silverstone International circuit, going from the Link corner onto the Hangar straight.
The closest we could find was section 8.1.1.12 which states "Drivers may not use the Enter/Exit/Tow Car control (also known as 'Reset') to gain positions during a race.", which is not what Ferrari did as they did in fact lose the lead as a result. In the past, if an exploit was utilised and not explicitly stated in the sporting code, it would typically get added in and there was nothing that could be done about it.
In the case of the Williams Daytona pole lap in 2023, that was already covered in the sporting code which is why action was taken.
With iRacing disqualifying the entry, either this signals that they are taking further measures now to punish those who utilise exploits even without covering it in the sporting code, or this is indeed covered in the sporting code somewhere.
Either way, this has soured what on the surface appeared to be a fairytale victory on top split debut for the Scuderia.
What do you make of Ferrari's disqualification from overall victory in the top split of the iRacing Daytona 24 hours? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our iRacing forum!
It seems we cannot go for long without some drama stemming from the top split of an iRacing Special Event. Some of the most prominent names on the road racing side of the service can be found doing battle in many of these high profile endurance races.
Just this year, there are the likes of the Bathurst and Sebring 12-hour events, the 6 Hours of The Glen and Indianapolis, Petit Le Mans, the new-for-this-year Suzuka 1,000km, and last but by no means least, 24-hour races on the Nordschleife, Spa-Francorchamps and, having just rolled around over the weekend, Daytona.
With a lot of prestige that comes from winning these events, many teams are fielding top-tier talent with drivers constantly attempting to gain iRating so they get placed in the broadcasted primetime event. One team making their first Special Event appearance was Ferrari, with their 499P debuting on iRacing in December, they managed to get two entries into top split.
The number 50 car driven by Michele Constantini, Ole Steinbråten and Niklas Beu ended up victorious, winning by a lap over the second placed Grid-And-Go.com eSports entry. They also shared the grid with F1's Max Verstappen, who after triumphing in the GTD class during last year's event, was attempting to repeat that in GTP.
However, the winning Ferrari entry were accused of utilising an exploit which resulted in them losing the win.
Ferrari Daytona 24 2025: What Happened?
With the Tempest weather system debuting on iRacing the season after last year's Daytona 24, there was a lot of expectation that rain would liven things up at the world centre of speed for the running of the event last weekend, and it sure did. The iRacing overlords gave the people what they wanted, and nobody it seemed was spared the wrath of the rain.Not even Verstappen was exempt from the chaos, meeting with the tyre barrier after attempting to lap a GTD car at the first horseshoe and aquaplaning straight off, forcing him to pit for repairs. Having been in the lead at this point with six and a half hours remaining, this surely cost him victory as the lead Ferrari soon picked up the pieces.
However, the Ferrari team had avoided a similar fate. About an hour and a half earlier, the lead 499P being driven by Steinbråten - a former sim racing teammate of Verstappen's at Team Redline - went to lap a GTD car at the same corner, seemingly locked up and was surely heading for the tyre wall. But almost immediately, the car disappeared from the track and reappeared in the pitlane.
After some initial confusion as to what happened, the community began to suspect something was not as it should have been. They soon began theorising that in an attempt to avoid lengthy repairs, Steinbråten quickly closed the sim on his PC so that it would force the software to tow the car back to pitlane, in doing so, avoiding incurring damage with the car sliding uncontrollably into the tyre wall.
The incident occurred just after the eight hours remaining mark, and can be seen below around four hours and 16 minutes into part 2 of the iRacing YouTube broadcast.
Now though, if you look on the Daytona 24 event tab in the UI and click to the top split results for the 12:00 UTC timeslot, Ferrari are listed right at the bottom as having been disqualified. As a result, the Grid-And-Go.com entry in the Acura made up of Peter Zuba, Sean D Campbell, Dumitru A Dimcenco and Gabriel Streitmatter are now declared the overall winners.
Such a measure has seemingly never been undertaken before, with two other infamous instances of exploits being exercised by teams in top split Special Events not seeing the classification changed.
Past iRacing Special Event Controversies
Rewind the clock back two years and another F1 team's sim racing division was also up to no good at Daytona. Williams Esports in an attempt to get pole position for the 24 hour race instructed their driver Alxander Spetz to run down on the apron below the banked corners. They saved a lot of time doing this, taking pole position and also went on to win the race.Williams got a lot of flack for this, and also for seemingly running some of their GTD entries to act as a barricade in an attempt to help some of their front running cars. What resulted was a ban for Spetz (that he has since served and has now moved to Drago Racing). Team Manager Seb Hawkins (who now manages Guild Esports' sim racing division) soon left the team as well, but the result still stood.
Just a couple of months prior to this the Spa 24 Hours tyre dipping controversy had happened. In the lead-up to the event, it was found that tyre temps would drop considerably if players ran the tyres in the grass, resulting in less tyre wear and setting lap times up to half a second faster than not doing it.
The MAHLE RACING TEAM entry took pole position courtesy of Felix Quirmbach, but his lap was reminiscent more of something that would be found in a World Rally Championship game. How the lap never got automatically invalidated, that is beyond comprehension. But as the situation became more clear to the other teams, they all began adopting it.
Some teams like URANO eSports refused to engage in the affair, and simply withdrew. But iRacing did not amend the result, merely saying going forward that such a practice would not be permitted. They ended up overdoing it as they banned many drivers in the Porsche Esports Contender Series for supposedly doing the same during the round on the Silverstone International circuit, going from the Link corner onto the Hangar straight.
The Sporting Code
The disqualification of Ferrari in the Daytona 24 seemingly marks the first time in one of these top split Special Events that a result has been changed. There has been no official word from iRacing on the matter, and looking at the sporting code, it is difficult to find a line that could cover what Ferrari will have infringed upon.The closest we could find was section 8.1.1.12 which states "Drivers may not use the Enter/Exit/Tow Car control (also known as 'Reset') to gain positions during a race.", which is not what Ferrari did as they did in fact lose the lead as a result. In the past, if an exploit was utilised and not explicitly stated in the sporting code, it would typically get added in and there was nothing that could be done about it.
In the case of the Williams Daytona pole lap in 2023, that was already covered in the sporting code which is why action was taken.
With iRacing disqualifying the entry, either this signals that they are taking further measures now to punish those who utilise exploits even without covering it in the sporting code, or this is indeed covered in the sporting code somewhere.
Either way, this has soured what on the surface appeared to be a fairytale victory on top split debut for the Scuderia.
What do you make of Ferrari's disqualification from overall victory in the top split of the iRacing Daytona 24 hours? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our iRacing forum!
