“At the End of the Day, It’s a Video Game”: Indycar Racer Discredits Esports After Bizarre Stunts

Published 05/04/2020, 2:44 PM EDT

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The IndyCar iRacing Challenge series took place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Saturday. Team Penske driver Scott McLaughlin convincingly won the race on the last second. Nonetheless, the end laps were loaded up with accidents. It uprooted a bunch of potential victors, taking them out of contention and into the fence.

Askew drove a McLaren one-two on the last lap of the race with his partner Pato O’Ward in 2nd position. The ex-F1 driver Marcus Ericsson and Ferrucci finishing the main four.

Ericsson grabbed the lead with a brassy move into Turn 3, however, O’Ward endeavored to re-pass him at the last corner and wound up slamming into Ericsson, removing them both from the race.

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This left Askew and Ferrucci in a race to the line for the race win. Ferrucci seemed to veer left on the rush to the finish line and the two drivers were sprung into the air giving Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin the race win. Ferrucci placed third and Askew, in fourth.

He was criticized for his brutal move, as he has been before, yet he disregarded it at first.

“It’s just a video game,” says the Indycar driver

The American Indycar racer inevitably owned up to fault for the occurrence. He referred to his experience racing in virtual NASCAR races as one contributing element to his forceful move.

“I watched everybody get slowed up there coming out of the last corner,” Ferrucci said.

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He says the NASCAR style of racing is to blame his aggressive move

“I was catching Askew, and I’ve been running a lot of different series lately, and I was trying to get on his door because of the NASCAR style.

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“I got a little too close, and I think I turned just a touch too aggressive, and that’s my fault. That’s definitely my mistake there.

“I did not mean to come across the line through the air to a virtual finish, but also at the end of the day, we’re racing on a video game, and I am second, he is first, and I was doing everything I could to put our car in first place in Victory Lane.”

The American driver even said It’s just a video game.

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“I think at the end of the day, it’s a video game. It’s virtual reality. It’s not anything that I think I’d find myself doing in a real car.”

 

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Written by:

Abhay Aggarwal

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Abhay Aggarwal is sports analyst at EssentiallySports. Having joined ES in early 2020, he has over 300 NASCAR, Formula 1, and Tennis articles to his name. Abhay has been an avid motorsports fan for over a decade, and he even attended the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011.
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