iRacing hands out lifetime bans for “unacceptable” Spa 24 behaviour

It’s a rare occurrence that sporting conduct during an iRacing Special Event brings about such a public response from the platform, but recent behaviour in Split 22 has done just that.

Last weekend’s iRacing 24 Hours of Spa Special Event was, for the most part, a very popular and well-received race. But, some errant driving in one particular instance has seen iRacing permanently suspend some drivers.

14,480 drivers ran the day-long team-based sim racing event, and the top split (which was broadcast live) came down to just 0.013s between two Team Redline entries. Mega.

This is what a gap of 0.013 seconds looks like 🥵 pic.twitter.com/nyrucRrZbM

— Team Redline (@TeamRedlineSim) July 13, 2025

Things were a little different in the 22nd split, where a lone McLaren 720S GT3, thought to be driven by a group of young real-world drivers, looked to deliberately slow down the pack and in some instances, wipe out other presumed innocent drivers.

This aggressive defending of position, while not fighting for the top spots, often resulted in long trains of cars behind the McLaren, all trying to carefully navigate a moving roadblock.

Since the events, YouTube content creators such as Basic Ollie and Boosted Media published videos running through the instances of poor behaviour.

Then, following a post by the iRacing service on social media, which didn’t go into specifics, other sim racers with influence, such as Xabier Sánchez aka Heikki360, called for further action.

“While our policy is not to comment publicly on specific incidents or sanctions, this does not mean that no action has been taken,” said iRacing at the time.

The team involved, 00r0motorsport, claimed on social media that one of the competitors “was not the driver logged into his account at the time of the incident.”

Now, on 18th July 2025, iRacing has issued a formal statement, confirming a ban for those involved:

“The conduct seen during last weekend’s Spa 24 Hour event, where a team intentionally ruined other drivers’ races, was completely unacceptable,” said iRacing.

“While we don’t typically comment on disciplinary matters, the public nature of this incident warrants a response: decisive action was taken and the drivers involved were suspended indefinitely from the iRacing service.

“iRacing does not tolerate this kind of behaviour, in special events or any session. We take these incidents seriously, and our protest team reviews every protest received and responds accordingly.

We appreciate the community’s passion and support in helping us maintain a fair, competitive, and fun environment.”

This is largely an unprecedented move from the service – not the reviewing and actioning appropriate sanctions per se, but the public nature of the statement, which follows much online debate in sim racing circles.

Let’s hope this whole debacle helps improve the quality of sim racing community events for all, be that from iRacing’s communication and improved behaviour across all splits.