Le Mans Ultimate broke its attendance record on Saturday, October 24, during the in-game 24 Hours of Le Mans race. On that day, 11,941 players were online at the same time, compared to 8,565 during the previous peak last February. Its publisher, Motorsport Games, also announced that all 44 24-hour races were completed without any server outages—a much-anticipated result following a difficult summer for the online game.

A peak nearly four times higher than the usual traffic for Le Mans Ultimate

The peak on October 24 exceeded February’s by 3,376 players, representing an increase of about 39 percent. More importantly, it represents nearly four times the typical monthly traffic: in September, Le Mans Ultimate averaged around 3,000 players online, a level that had remained roughly stable since July.

Not all 11,941 players were competing in the 24-Hour Race. Steam counts anyone who has the game open, whether they’re playing solo, practicing, or participating in another online race. The number of participants in the event comes from Motorsport Games, which reported it in its press release on October 27.

44 24-hour races on Motorsport Games’ servers

The race took place at Le Mans, on the main 24 Hours circuit, with two start times, on October 23 and 24. The Hypercars, LMP2s, and LMGT3s shared the track on grids of up to 62 cars, and each team could field up to six drivers who took turns behind the wheel of a single car over the 24-hour period.

According to the publisher, more than 11,000 drivers across 2,700 teams took the starting line. Across all 44 races, they completed 820,029 laps and made 31,740 driver changes.

Stephen Hood, the CEO of Motorsport Games, notes that none of these races experienced any server outages. All of them ran on RaceControl, the online platform that the publisher develops and operates itself, and which also hosts the game’s championships.

A real test for the network after a challenging summer

In late July, version 1.4 replaced TCP connections with a protocol called Reliable UDP, which was intended to make online matches more reliable. Some of these changes then had to be reversed, although the studio has not abandoned this new protocol, which it says needs more time to mature.

On September 15, a patch fixed the false collisions that had appeared in version 1.4—those instances where players were penalized for contact without having actually hit anyone. The studio also organized test races open to everyone to collect data under real-world conditions—a 6-hour race at Silverstone followed by a 12-hour race at Le Mans with 62 cars—in preparation for the 24 Hours race.

For those who had stopped racing online this summer, this is a compelling reason to get back into it, since—according to Motorsport Games—the game’s biggest-ever edition of the 24 Hours race was a thrill from start to finish.

Free esports qualifiers for everyone

Season 13 of the online championships kicked off on October 6, featuring five championships over eight weeks. One of them is open to everyone: the GMR Esports Series qualifiers, which are free for a limited time and require no DLC or RaceControl Pro subscription.

Everyone drives the same car—the Genesis GMR-001 Hypercar—with mandatory setups, so that driving skill alone makes the difference. Races take place on Wednesdays and Saturdays and last 45 minutes for the first six weeks, then 1 hour and 25 minutes for the final two rounds, at Spa and Le Mans. A minimum Bronze 3 safety rating is required to register.

The top players will advance to the finals in December, with a full-time spot on the GMR Esports team in 2027 up for grabs. All you need to try your luck is the base game, which sells for €39.99 on Steam (PC only).