Formula E Driver Fined $10K, Fired by Audi After Cheating Virtual Race

BBC – Formula E driver Daniel Abt was disqualified and ordered to pay £8,900 to charity for getting a professional gamer to compete under his name in an official esports race. Organisers also took away all points won to date by the 27-year-old German in the Race at Home Challenge series. Lorenz Horzing, who competed for Abt, finished third in Saturday’s race behind Britain’s Oliver Rowland and Belgian ex-F1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne.

Abt later apologised.

“I did not take it as seriously as I should have,” he said. “I am especially sorry about this because I know how much work has gone into this project on the part of the Formula E organisation. I am aware that my offence has a bitter aftertaste but it was never meant with any bad intention.”

Vandoorne suspected Abt was not driving and French racer Jean-Eric Vergne asked the German to turn his video on in the next race so they could confirm it was him.

That’s a nearly $10,000 fine in USD for those scoring at home. To add insult to injury, Abt has now been fired by his Audi Formula E racing team for this stunt. Here’s Abt’s statement regarding the incident:

What was Abt’s biggest mistake in this elaborate scheme? Not showing up for the post-race interview. Questions began to surface when Abt didn’t show up to the interview following his third place finish. Abt claims there was no ill intention behind the switch. The event  is merely meant to entertain fans and raise funds for UNICEF so it should be noted that it appears that Abt had nothing to gain financially from placing well.

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This should serve as a warning for all of those aspiring cheaters out there. If you’re going to do it then you better do it right. Say what you want about the Astros cheating scandal, but they cheated well — so well in fact that they won a World Series and it took three years for anybody to figure out they cheated. And they would have gotten away with it if not for that meddling Mike Fiers!

Professional race car drivers all over the world will be clamoring to get real racing back considering the consequences that we have witnessed from iRacing missteps. In April, NASCAR star Kyle Larson was suspended by NASCAR and fired by Chip Ganassi Racing  after using a racial slur during an unofficial iRacing event.

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