Sim Racing – Pointless or Great Tool?

It’s the start of 2021, it’s literally freezing outside, and COVID has kept us all home for the better part of a year now. But the itch to race hasn’t gone anywhere, so the obvious answer is sim racing, right? Well, it’s got some pros and cons so lets talk through those, show you a beginner setup, and some tips on how to learn as much as you can so when you get out on track in the real world you’ll be faster than ever.

First off, pros and cons. The pros are obvious, for relatively little money, you can race around any track you like, in any car, tweak your car’s suspension, gearing and setup, all while staying warm at home. You can put a thousand laps in around the Nordschleife, then do a virtual race at Spa, all for free. The cons mostly come from what kind of setup you want. If you go the ‘beginner’ route, even with VR, you get next to no feedback from the car. You can’t feel how much brake pressure you are actually giving it, or when one wheel starts to lose grip. You can’t feel how much G you are pushing through a corner. If you start to spend serious money, some of those do come back, but you are talking 20 grand or more – heck £100,000 gets you a full scale F1 car replica with full motion.

But, lets pretend you don’t have £100,000 and enough room to fit a full scale F1 car in your house, just pretend obviously… what can you start out with? Well, Logitech sent me their G923 wheel and pedals to review on my tech channel TechteamGB, so that’s a pretty good place to start. This combo is around £300 right now, or around £200 for the ‘last gen’ G29 or G920 versions if you’d prefer. You will need a console or PC to use this, I’ll leave that up to you (if you want to know more about PCs at various budgets, I’ve done plenty of build guides on my tech channel linked in the cards above!). VR is generally more strenuous on a system, so if you want to use that you’ll need to have a higher spec PC, if that’s what you’re using.

As for games, there are a load of great options. A lot often have more ‘arcady’ physics, but some are closer to reality, like Assetto Corsa, Project Cars 2 is pretty decent, and there is iRacing and rFactor for more involved racing. Assetto Corsa has a load of mods available for it, including cars and tracks, plus VR support so lets use that.

So, you’ve got your wheel clamped to your desk, pedals out, everything plugged in and you are in game. What next? Well, you can jump straight into online races, but it’s probably best to get a hang of the physics and tracks first. I use the ‘hotlap’ option, pick a car, say the SF70H Ferrari F1 car, and a track, like Spa, and jump in. Remember to check your settings for keybinds to the buttons on your wheel, and game settings like automatic gearing or not.

When on track, get a feel for the car. How fast you can take it round corners, where the braking points are, all the usual stuff you’d do in a new car on track. You might find you are spinning out a lot, or understeering off of corners, that’s pretty normal. Even with VR, it can still be really hard to gauge distance and speed, plus no information on tyre grip. Here’s where the learning comes in. Take the theory knowledge about weight shifting, balancing the car through corners, grip coming out of a corner, even how to get the most out of all wheel drive vs rear wheel drive vehicles, and practice in game. Try taking a corner a little slower and apply more power through it, or try braking earlier so you can be accelerating through a corner so you don’t overload the front wheels and understeer. There is so much you can try, and learn, all for free. Amazing, isn’t it?