Hey guys. So as some of you may have read, today Audi dismissed Daniel abt for a sim racing incident that happened over the weekend, Without going in to too much detail, he basically hired a sim racer to race the race at home challenge on Saturday, because he didnt want to compete himself. Now. I am on the fence with this, but i think that Audi made the right decision for 2 reasons:
If he didnt want to compete, he should have made formula e and Audi aware
The way in which he went around doing what he did, and the fact that other drivers were complaining about it, shouldn't have happened and been so obvious to the drivers.
What made matters worse, was that he was doing this in an Audi branded car, in an official sanctioned Formula E event. Formula E found out that it wasn't Daniel by tracing the IPs to a sim rig that wasn't Daniel's. Daniel was then subsequently disqualified, along with the other driver that was involved. The official Audi statement about the events that have happened is as follows: “Daniel Abt did not drive his car in qualifying and the race at the fifth event of the Race at Home Challenge on May 23 himself, but let a professional sim racer do so. He directly apologised for this on the following day and accepted the disqualification. Integrity, transparency and consistent compliance with applicable rules are top priorities for Audi – this applies to all activities the brand is involved in without exception. “For this reason, Audi Sport has decided to suspend Daniel Abt with immediate effect.” Suspended is basically the polite way of saying "you've done this wrong so cheerio mate!!" I think that this was the right thing to do, and hope that this is a learning curve for all the other drivers involved. As for the sim driver, he was also banned from the competition. As he was driving for Envision Virgin Racing, and I am a massive EVR fan, i am upset and appalled that this has happened, but know it is for the best so that it doesn't happen again. This evening Daniel released a statement that he put up on his YouTube channel, in which he basically explained the situation, how it came about, and it wasn't an intentional thing he was doing. He also expressed his pure sadness at being dropped by Audi, and that he never meant to do it. But from Audi's perspective, I can see why, as a team, they have decided to drop him. It isnt funny, as a driver that young people aspire to, to be doing things like that. And with DTM not happening for Audi next season, i think this was a stupid move from daniel tbh. As with who i think will replace Daniel, honestly I think either Robin Frijns or Nico Mueller will get the call up, with their experiences in formula e, and their factory driver status. If Robin gets the call up, I think either Nico will replace him at Envision Virgin, or Nick Cassidy will replace him, having smashed the lap record for the rookie test in Marrakesh earlier on in the year, and having sat in for Sam during the first two rounds of the race at home challenge due to Sam's poor internet connection and getting good results in both rounds. Anyway, lets finish off the blog with some good news. I'm now twitter "editor in chief" of the FE Addict twitter. Ill leave links at the bottom with all my other socials Let me know what you think Have a good week guys Natalie :)
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