French esports powerhouse Team Vitality has announced its withdrawal from RENNSPORT, releasing its competitive roster and citing a fundamental lack of stability in the sim racing scene. The organisation is parting ways with Marcell Csincsik, Erhan Jajovski, Thibault Cazaubon, and Jiri Toman after more than two years together, drivers who originally competed under Romain Grosjean's R8G Esports before Vitality absorbed the lineup in May 2024.
Vitality didn't dress up the reasoning. "The current sim racing esports ecosystem no longer has a foundation within which teams can sustainably operate," the org stated. "Despite our optimism and ambition to elevate the Space, we came to the realization that the plans we originally laid out would no longer be attainable." The statement thanked the four drivers for their dedication, acknowledging a genuinely successful run that included a second-place finish at EWC 2024 and third at EWC 2025.
A Reversal in Months
What makes this notable is how sharp a U-turn it represents. Back in February 2026, Vitality had actually reaffirmed its commitment to sim racing even while exiting the RENNSPORT R1 competition, defiantly posting that "at a time when the sim racing scene faces uncertainty, we choose continuity. We choose growth. And above all, we choose our players. This is not a step back, The Hive is expanding." That optimism has now evaporated. The org is keeping a foot in the genre, but a much smaller one, continuing solely with its Gran Turismo trio of Kylian Drumont, Antonio Santos, and Kaj de Bruin, and only "at least until the end of the year." For an organisation that once touted RENNSPORT as its ninth game and a key EWC asset, retreating to a single racing title with a hard expiry date is a stark climbdown.
The EWC Was Holding the Scene Up
The timing, landing during the Esports World Cup 2026, is ironic but entirely logical, because the EWC's decision is essentially what triggered this. RENNSPORT was one of two titles dropped from the EWC 2026 lineup, cut alongside the foundational StarCraft II, with Trackmania and a returning Fortnite taking their places. That removal pulled the financial rug out from the whole title.
The numbers explain why the EWC made the call, and why Vitality followed it out the door. RENNSPORT featured at both EWC 2024 and 2025, pumping a $500,000 prize injection into the scene each year, but the title never escaped its niche. Viewership peaked at just 9,482 concurrent viewers at EWC 2025, by far the lowest of any game at the event, and competitor numbers reportedly regressed year over year despite the Esports Foundation's incentives for orgs to field teams. Without that annual cash injection, and crucially without the associated Club Championship prize money that makes fielding an EWC roster worthwhile, the Business case for staying in RENNSPORT simply evaporated for Vitality.
More:Team Vitality Signs Neia
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