A high-ranking Sony official has spoken out to address the troubled launch of Driveclub, the company's ambitious, socially inspired racing game that has faced ongoing issues since release in October.

PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara admitted that Sony and developer Evolution Studios are "embarrassed" by the game's rollout. He adds that the free PlayStation Plus version of the game, which was supposed to launch alongside the main game in October, is still on hold.

"We apologize and are trying to sort it, and we'll hopefully learn from it so we see it less in future" -- Fergal Gara

"It's a disappointment," Gara told IGN about Driveclub's technical troubles. "When you lay your soul out as being '4ThePlayers', then what you certainly don't want is games that are not fully ready. It certainly wasn't any ill-intention on behalf of the team. It's ambitious as a game; they're as embarrassed as we are and all you can do in those situations is say sorry."

Gara went on to say that Sony is "doing our damnedest to make things right." PS4 owners holding out for the PlayStation Plus version of Driveclub are going to need to wait a little while longer, he added.

"We don't want to introduce the PS Plus Edition until we're confident the servers can take the load," Gara said, explaining that Sony is close to getting there.

"Unleashing it on the millions of PS Plus users is the next step, but we want confidence in the capacity and concurrency figures," he explained. "I'll say again: we apologize and are trying to sort it, and we'll hopefully learn from it so we see it less in future."

Driveclub was originally supposed to be released in November 2013 as a PS4 launch title. However, the game suffered multiple delays, another topic Gara covered in the interview.

"[Delays] are always frustrating, and it's certainly never our intention to sell a false promise," he said. "You work with the best information available at the time. It's the right decision to delay but, of course, to delay and then have issues is certainly not ideal, but it's better than releasing a broken game."

Earlier this week, Evolution Studios released Driveclub's dynamic weather update.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com