25 Sep Le Mans Virtual wins Leaders Sports Award

The 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual attracted some of the biggest names in motorsport and a huge global audience. The unprecedented success of the esports event has now been recognised by the Leaders Sports Awards, winning the Live Experience trophy. 

Motorsport Games, who operated the 24 Hours of Le Mans Virtual in partnership with the ACO and the FIA World Endurance Championship, joins Tottenham Hotspur, AC Milan, Bose/NFL and Ascot Racecourse as category winners. Full details can be found here. 

With the postponement of the real world Le Mans endurance race in June the decision was made to take the event online. Motorsport Games, the ACO and FIA WEC set to work creating the most ambitious esports race ever held in just five weeks. 

This unique event saw the worlds of professional racing and esports combine as each team of four had to include at least two professional drivers. Top motorsport and esports teams involved included: Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota, Aston Martin, Williams, Team Redline and Rebellion Racing while the driving line-up was also unsurpassed, including Charles Leclerc, Juan Pablo Montoya, Landon Norris, Jensen Button, Sébastien Buemi and many more. 

The event has set a record by viewership of an esports race. Global TV distribution included EuroSport, Sky Sports, ESPN, REV, J Sport and Supersport. The total TV and OTT viewership was over 14.2M and online streaming over 8.6m. The event also generated the most hours watched in comparison to any other sim racing event with 1,418,235 across Twitch, YouTube and Facebook.