I’m a 2.7k driver in iRacing. Had some few track days after only having experienced the sim and I felt that I was in my natural spot. I can push the car and understand it’s grip and load even though it was my first time. Sim racing is getting closer and closer for sure I’m hoping iRacing eventually gets wet driving right. I believe that after all this wait they will eventually get it right
@@ewanmcintyre955 I race mainly using VR and I can tell you, when I go back to single screen I have a hard time hitting my braking points and lacking general awareness
@@ewanmcintyre955 it's a really really big jump in my opinion. It's not like you are necessarily faster then your fastest lap on a monitor. It's that just like in real life you learn a track faster, you are also way more consistent and you have a better understanding of your surroundings. VR is still in the early days, but it's getting close to monitor resolution with the Pimax Crystal. The downside is you need a seriously beefy PC.
@@ewanmcintyre955 VR is amazing for track awareness. Having depth perception helps hit braking points and apex's, and being in VR in general gives you a way better sense for where you are in relation to other drivers. I simply can't go back to using a monitor for racing games.
I do think there’s a significant jump in realism from monitor sim racing to VR sim racing. I’m too poor to afford VR but it looks so much more immersive! The sense of speed looks crazy
I got a used quest 2 for $250. The difference between monitors and VR is incredible. I honestly forget I’m not driving a real car, especially since I made my own 4 corner tactile transducer setup for $180 worth of parts. You can feel the tires progressively sliding, road texture, bumps, everything you would in a real car minus the g force. My mind gets so convinced I’m actually driving that sometimes my wife will tap me on the shoulder and it scares the hell out of me because there was no one in the seat next to me.
This would be fun to do. I'm at 5.8K in Iracing VR only. Almost exclusively with F3 and a few other open wheelers. Wish I could afford a couple track days in an open wheeler just to see how far off pace i'd be. I've literally never raced anything onroad before in real life. Maybe someday if I hit the lottery!!
Idk how it is where you life, but here in Germany you can drive many of the tracks have a program, where you can drive a f4 car for a few laps for 250-500€. Sure it's not racing, but it's definitely something I want to do in the future :)
Non competitive retired race cars can be had for relative cheaply. There’s definitely people that go for a track day car instead of a boat or a high end street car.
David Perel has great video's on how his real life Ferrari GT3 compares with the Sim and how it helped him from amateur to professional ferrari driver. Many more like him including Verstappen telling the same story. One of the many things that also helps is driving in traffic practice, specially in multiclass and rolling restarts for example as Max even shows in F1. There is no doubt that Sim Racing has a lot of realistic aspects in driving and race tactics
I've been Sim racing for a number of years, and for the last couple years I jumped into real cars on track, immediately I was on the pace, I new what I needed to do to go fast, the only big difficulty was the "fear", real world consequences, and then getting used to more feedback, learning to react to what you feel in your arse. I'd say Sim racing is 60-80% there.
I'm 36 years old, I used to Autocross, now I just do sim racing after I was disabled. Even tho you technically use different senses, you still learn basics such as racing lines, braking, aero along with other basics. G-force can be a nightmare to people not used to it but the general idea is there, you can learn to race in a sim
@@AsatorIV any sim driver that I have seen get the chance to drive a real race car has had no problem getting into the gym. Like Jimmy Broadbent. He was in average shape, then started working out like an athlete once he was working with Praga. It all comes down to how much time and what resources people have.
Nope, I dont have car / want one because of the cost, how dangerous it is and cars are not good for the climate and I really hate the sound of cars in real life. But I still like racing on my computer very much
congrats on the win! I came 2nd in my first academy race, started a rivalry which lasted 3 seasons and lots of very good racing.enjoy your academy season.
@@Driver61 haha! I used to do sprints and hillclimbs so cold tyre sprints was a welcome entry point to academy. You got a good time on the VBOX for Cadwell I saw! Wish we had the current academy tyres when we did our academy year, they look pretty good! Enjoy your year you will have a blast 👍🏻
In terms of getting up to speed quickly in sim racing there are solutions. I bought 4 bass shakers and a 4 channel 200w amp for $180. I downloaded simhub and now I have full 4 channel (one for each tire) vibration feedback to tell me progressive tire slip, road textures, engine vibration and more. Everything you’d feel in a real car minus the G force. Where it used to take me 10-30 laps to get up to speed depending on familiarity with the car and track now a new car takes me less than 10 laps and going back to a car and track combo I know I’m up to speed in 2 laps. Combined with VR to provide depth perception and good surround sound headphones almost all the downfalls of sim racing as stated in the video can be overcome. Sustained G force is yet to be though.
8:15 "something you cannot do in simracing" - very interesting. I agree if you speak of ACC or iracing, but as a top rFactor2 esports driver, I've been gathering grip info like you explain. Especially in the wet races, but also in the dry races, as long as it is not just short sprints. So I think it looks even more close between rF2 and real life than for other sims.
for wet racing, ive found that Gran Turismo has done a fairly good job of it. the Nordschleife's wet racing line is completely different than the dry line, so you have to adjust your entire lap. get into the dry line while it's wet, and you will be going off regularly
Im 18 now, I started karting at 11, but there was about a 1 1/2 year spell between early '20 to mid '21where I couldn't race do to financial reasons. So I started sim racing, it was for fun at first but as the first year past I started to get more serious about it. meanwhile my dad had no idea what affect it would have until we started racing again in the middle of '21 I was in a new, older class and I was immediately on the pace. my dad was shocked and frankly so was I but I then started to realize the great affect the sim had. especially throughout the last year as I have started racing SPEC Miata. at the start when I just did a couple of track days with an instructor the feed back at the end if the day was that every time the car stepped out I knew just how much throttle and steering input to give, but also that I absorb on track feedback almost instantly which when I heard him say these things I immediately thought that sim racing was the reason for this.
Great vid! Congrats Callum! And a thumbs up to the guy at the 12:50 mark who also avoided the carnage AND gave you back the position he could have "stolen". I do iRacing and a lot of actual racing with 24hrs of Lemons racing here in the US. There can be a fair amount of carnage and definitely a lot of slower moving cars to avoid on track. IDK why but it's seems much easier to avoid the carnage in real life than in the sims.
Probably self preservation kicking in vs just being able to send it in the sim with no consequences and minimal regulations on stuff like local yellows
Learning to fly in a helicopter in my sim rig with VR allowed me to instantly understand the dynamics. It basically stepped me forward in id say over 50% of the learning. Not quite real but 80% there minus the geforces 😊
@@tqracing ah yes because it's Forza and totally not the official formula E test simulator or uses the same base physics model as rfactor pro which all the F1 teams use
@@MRSPORTYTRUCKER Rfactor Pro was founded on the original Rfactor codebase, and it's a very separate entity from Rfactor 2. RF Pro is essentially an engine with some assets, and infrastructure to plug in different physics models. The F1 teams are plugging in their own physics and tire models, based on extensive testing of the real tires (something Studio 397 couldn't afford, even if they wanted to). RF 2 on the other hand has a ridiculously forgiving tire model, where you can drive things like Radicals and GT3's like drift cars. They are far from any real car or tire behavior.
@@tqracing the cars were like that several years ago, but I have seen side by side comparisons of real life Vs rf2 and it looks good, better than iracing or assetto corsa
I think it all depends on the game and also the rig you are using to simulate.. The more reallistic the game and also the rig, the closer it will be to real life.. But another thing to consider is the fact that most people in sim racing definitely knows its just a game and try to push to their limits, but when it comes to real racing then your life is also in risk if you push too hard, also other things like your body and health condition, the real feeling and many other things.
Jimmy Broadbend had a very interesting journey going from sim racing to real racing. I highly recommend following his channel and seeing how his journey was like.
My impression of sims in general is that they can get the car behavior very close to real life, and scanned tracks can be very accurate, but they're mostly limited by how we interact with those virtual elements. The Caterham series looks really cool, wish I could get into that myself.
I would love to see the whole of Callum's unedited races. Highlights are fun, but I get so much from watching other people drive wheel-to-wheel for many laps and having to maintaining that consistency under pressure.
@@mcdiskett2003 I find sims useful for learning tracks I've never been to, or the basics of a new car (1973 911? Drive it in the sim first!), but I'm pretty rubbish at hitting the limits in them - I'm bad at translating the digital feedback (sounds, wheel) to the feels you get directly from the car. Obviously the Caterham has spoiled me for life.
I was lucky to have learnt from a fairly young age how to control a car on many different surfaces with steering, throttle input, braking and hand brake through motorkhana and then later through khanacross. All that has translated to real world ontrack and real world car control. I know it's not something everyone has access to, but it has saved me many times in the real world, but also translates into sim racing.
Similar things happen with flight sims. As someone who has been sim flying since I was 10, I had certain advantages going into my license training. Flying from instruments and ignoring seat-of-the-pants feel was natural, since that's the whole thing in a sim. Basic control coordination also came easily, as did some of the counterintuitive aspects of flying (power to climb, pitch for speed, etc). But folks, nothing really prepares you for actually sitting in a chair in the sky, getting jostled about, and then deliberately pointing yourself at the ground to land. I've done carrier landings in sims. I've been jump-scared by R-27ET missiles (if you know, you know). But NOTHING in a sim is as scary as doing a power-on stall in a Cessna and knowing that, "If I screw up the rudder, we'll upside-down in 2 seconds." This kind of thing even goes to high levels. Air Forces around the world are encountering trainees who cannot fly formation or talk on the radio to save their lives, but who have a superhuman instinct for missile tactics. A DCS sim pilot may have hundreds of hours practicing live-fire A2A combat, whereas a grizzled real-life F-15 master might have only seen 2 junky 1960s Soviet missiles in a career. The training requirements are quite different for a combat sim guy vs the airline captain who just signed up.
i think teh diffrence is the mind is constantly working to see opertunintys and the more you train the better you get i feel if you only go racing and then do al ittle training without sim racing untill your next race your a little rusty the guy who is constantly racing will see an opertunity that a rust driver wouldent consider i also feel liek the training of teh racing line and seeing how you can knock off 0.100 sec on a lap in sim racing would translate into real racing some drivers just go fast and hope there lap times is on point i bet max drives 3 or 4 laps using the same lines to get an avrage then he will change it up on a specific corner and test again to get an avrage and over a test session he will know his absoloute optimum line i bet most drivers think they can go out and win with just going fast and doing what they think is the optimum line for that pinical in optimum line i really think sim racing shows you this a line you wouldent think works actually knocks off 0.200
This was extremely interesting to watch. What an amazing opportunity for Callum, and a wonderful demonstration of what hours and hours of training in simulated racing environments can develop. Better racing instincts, reaction time, general wisdom for the track behavior, all of these things Callum already had under his belt and it allowed him to thoroughly learn the physics of the real race car.
I have no idea how it is to drive a GT3 car in real life but I was a gokart pro driver (from age 11) and for me it was way easier karting in real life than in the sim. The most important thing in karting is feeling the kart and the feedback, you practically drive with your whole body,(you are one with the car), you can't do that in a sim. Currently, I drive open wheelers in iRacing (formula vee which is the closest to a gokart) and it isn't as easy as in real life. So, for me, they are two very different things. The sim is harder because you lack the feedback of the car and the G forces. It is good for practice and learning the track though.
I do race FF-2000 in real life ( Royale-RP-30 and Vandiemen RF-85), so I decided to test out a sim in a professional sim racing facility. After a few test laps, I noticed that the brake force was not all that good ( to light pedal push). So I asked to increase the pedal force ( braking ) to 45Kg... That made a big improvement... The other aspect that I find less good is that I don't feel the car, I can' read it as we say. Sure the SIM seat moves but its not even near reality...I also found the steering a bit to sensitive especially on the straight, maybe not enough toe in or to much... it had 2.5 degrees which seems a bit to much... Caster did not seem to do its thing as it should by pulling out of a corner and training to auto correct to straight line driving. Finally and for me the biggest disadvantage is the lack of depth view.. I can hardly tell how close I am to a wall or barrier, or getting the right braking points. On the positieve side , its a great tool to learn to drive the lines on tracks that you not been on and overall practice in braking and over and under steer control... So yes , I do use it
I've done some sim racing but for me, my best sim results were between flying lessons some years ago, where I was able to remain current with things like checklists, radio calls, circuits, emergency procedures etc. Great for reinforcing routine. This was a well planned and executed video and much appreciated. I almost bought a Caterham years ago and ended up with a 964 instead. Couldn't fit the golf clubs in the little one. 🙂 Cheers and thank you from Sydney - Dave
Great video and great conclusion. Congrats to Callum on his first win in real racing! I'm glad Callum was able to confirm what Max states coming from the other way. He stated that by missing the G-forces, you have to adjust to having less 'data'. You have to rely more on what you see and hear in a sim. Callum confirmed this by saying that learning a track in real life goes a lot faster as you can actually feel the limit of the car. And he's a (sim) racer.
Spending a lot of time on my VR sim setup, I will say that whenever I get in my car on a circuit in real life everything just feels instantly easier... From simply feeling more from the car and feeling how the tyres are reacting. The sim racing is a great tool for real life stuff and a great concept on its own too.
I did a track day at Zandvoort about a decade and a half ago. Final car was a weight reduced Gallardo. Also raced a Porsche GT3. Had a bit of oversteer with the GT3 and intuitively counter-steered after years of online racing, not even with steering wheels. The Gallardo I went half onto the gravel in turn one because the guy behind me was a bit overexcited and wanted to hump my Gallardo with his. Anyway got complimented by the coach and I knew the visual cues I learned trough years of sim style race games helped that day.
Can we get an update from Callum about racing on the same track as in the sim ? Is he quicker there, feels more comfortable ? How does it feel to be on a track that he have been in a sim ?
I'm currently using a sim to help get over my anxiety driving (fun fact with a controller im a beast but put a wheel and pedals and all that and I freeze up like in real life. It's actually so strange to me) it's really helping build my confidence with driving. I was super scared to sim drive on non residential roads but it's getting better
i develop my driving by testing various techniques then getting comfortable, and then i hop out to the mountain roads outside my town and test the techniques, have been sim racing for 3 years and got my license 2 years ago, this has helped me get quite good quite fast, even managed a 120kmh slip angle entry on an old e39 530d without going out of my lane, i had 1 minor crash in the beginning, but i just fixed the car and kept going
As a sim driver, I am grateful for this video. You have helped me understand the many connections between the sim and the real world. Very good video, congratulations!
Fascinating and really interesting. I have done a couple of track days at Cadwell on motorcycles, and loved seeing Callum drive through corners I knew well. I even felt some anxiety seeing him approach the off camber Mansfield. I hated that bend! I know we are all looking forward to following Callum's progress, and I wish him every success and lots of wins.
I got started in sim racing last year, and on track days this year. Sim racing was an amazing tool to learn the track before going there. As a first timer i was shiting myself, but was able to grind the circuit before going there, learning the braking points and traps of the track, and so many other things. My first track day was in the rain. First time driving a car hard, and I was able to catch my slides, and overall do quite well considering my beginner status 3rd track day was this weekend, on a very technical track. By the end of the first 15min session I had reach a lap time that more experienced driver called "the next level" (as in getting from absolute beginner to rookie) Sim racing is an incredible tool, that can really help build confidence, and that teaches you skill that are invaluable on track. To be honest I don't think I would have been able to do what I'm doing if I didn't have a year of simracing behind me
Surprised a lot of others aren't mentioning Jimmer. Jimmy really came from nothing dealing a lot of personal demons, sim racing in his actual SHED, then gradually having success in real life, notably driving in a Praga, with Sim Racing practice on a Praga helping him out.
Sim racing is great fun. Not everyone can get on a track but there a loads of people who love cars and driving so sim racing whether comp or lazy Sunday drive is always a winner. ❤
I don’t think any some razor says it’s 100% like real racing that would be super ignorant… it’s obvious in the ways that it helps you which is learning tracks and learning driving etiquette, along with driving techniques would be crazy to say it doesn’t help especially with the more money you throw at it the more realistic you can make your set up…. I also love the videos.
Great video! It explains everything. I did a lot of track days(and I was fast) before sim racing and it was ridiculously hard to go fast, find the cars limit.
I credit SIMS for giving me a HUGE jump start, when I started doing track days, years ago. I started back with Gran Turismo. It taught me weight transfer, how to brake without ABS, how to coordinate braking and throttle with steering input, and how to modulate a throttle. Of course the game actually motivated me to get out there. At my very first track day, I did really, really well and I've been addicted ever since. I'm told I'm a pretty good driver and I have to give all the credit to SIMS. Since then, I use them to memorize courses before I have an event. They are a great tool to use and I feel it's very easy for a SIM racer to do well in a real car.
IRL it took me a year of Clubmans and practice days to learn even the basics of setup and I see sim racers getting very sophisticated in no time at all. Dancing on the pedals is another skill that sim racers can get instinctively right because they can put in the hours and hours.
You should just put him in some amateur karting competition ;). I barely do any sim but I had like three years when I took park in indoor karting competition. Amateurish like hell, but format with 3x10min quali and the race learned me to check the gokart first corner, especially that on 30s lap the difference from kart to kart could go as high as 2s. And it stayed with me - I dooing that in cars, and even in sim when I'm having a chance to try some nice equipment ;).
Callum's reaction to winning that race is my exact reaction anytime I win a race in iRacing. I hover around 2.1-2.3k, so a bit behind Callum, but I don't win often. When I get one, I can't contain the excitement. I have very much considered taking one of your courses, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet.
Great video guys 👏🏻 & well done Callum I didn't realise the link with this channel & your sim racing its a great story. I'm in Academy, white group & the other end of the grid right now. Callum did great winning Curborough & Cadwell as did Adam winning white group they are so fast, I'm like 10seconds a lap down atm they may as well be professional racers in comparison to me altho I appreciate they aren't. I really related to the fear factor part; I've done some (limited) sim work at DPR which was a great help but then was 15seconds off my sim time on track! At Snetterton my home circuit which I know well. All down to anxiety in the real car & that self-preservation mentioned. I have now halved that deficit with more seat time & increased confidence in grip but was really interesting to hear it does translate from sim to the real world on track that gives me more hope to push even further towards my sim time which was into the 2m17's at Snett. Keep up the good work, cheers guys
One thing I noticed, at least with Drifting, is that the way the world comes at you is a little different. It feels like you're going faster, almost like you're sitting on the corner when you initiate. Awesome video. I agreed with everything I had experience with. And everything else seemed well explained. For Drifting though I will say VR or 1st person is a big part to making it feel like how you have to control the car in real life. In 3rd person it completely changes where and how you look.
Before i started sim-racing i regularly visited karting tracks and track days with rental cars like an M2 or MX5. Then covid happened, had to drop all of that, but got a wheel and got into sim-racing. Started doing it right after the pandemic started and ffw 2.5 years, 6 months ago i decided to visit the tracks i drove most regularly. Not only did i shatter my best times in both karts and the M2, i started doing the best times at the tracks, simply by applying all the techniques which were wired into me from sim-racing. Now i wasn't braking late, slowing down way too much in the corner and then hard trying to accelerate, thinking this is the fastest way to drive. No, I learned from sim-racing to carry the speed through the corners and that's where real time savings come. It also pays off in my everyday driving. I already lost count on the amount of accidents i prevented by following simple things like paying attention to the road much further ahead, staying alert and aware of the cars around me and knowing where the limit of the grip is in different conditions. It's amazing how sim-racing transforms your driving and helps you discover and perfect your driving style.
I started with sim racing and ended up winning in monza in a formula car and competing in kz2 in karting which is insanely difficult (0.15% of all people doing karting is fast enaught)
It's interesting that you say you have to build up pace lap after lap in sim racing. I typically like to do the exact opposite, have an empty track and push the car faster than I think it'll stick and work back from there.
Excellent video. As a casual sim racer, now I know that it IS possible to try going to real life race and not being total garbadge, 70% simillarity is pretty good in my opinion :D. Thanks for this video, very informative.... ;)
It would be awesome to see they crew use rally racing simulation games and see how it helps them in an actual rally. The built WRX could be adjusted for rallying and would make for an amazing series.
While i would love to see the wrx rallying, i would start with something slower😅 Rally can get very dangerous very quickly... The ford ka has been used in rally, it could be a good school car😂
I started sim racing(technically my very first taste of racing) about 3 years ago. I played a lot of sim racing but then in 2021 and 2022 sim racing helps me to win real life races with more experienced drivers. So far it is karting but it was great fun
Well done Callum! That's a seriously impressive result for a first race, whether you have a great teacher or not. I hope the guys are not ribbing you too much for the shouts of delight, you earned them! Very interesting piece on this. I've heard some older racers say they don't, or rarely use sims - occasionally to help them learn their way round a new track so that when they're there, they can spend more time learning the more fiddly bits rather than needing to spend that time learning where and when the next corner is, etc. Other, younger drivers are well into sim racing and given the much younger average age of this new generation of F1 racers, it can't be doing any harm. I first heard about serious sim racing watching World Touring Cars, where one of the Hungarian drivers had won his seat through a sim challenge (up until then, my only experience with computers and racing was on the SEGA Megadrive(?) Formula 1 game, which came with 5 others on the cartridge that was with the machine we bought the kids back in the late 90s, I think. I did become the world champion a few times lol). He was surprisingly good for a total rookie to 'real racing', and continued on for a number of years (at least until I lost interest in WTC, which was a good few years later; he might still be racing afaik). Jaan Mardenborough (I hope I've spelled that right!) is a successful endurance/sportscar racer who, in his late teens iirc, won a sim competition and ended up with a seat in WEC. It wasn't long before he was at the Le Mans 24 hour. I think he's got a pro career now - though I'm not one to keep up with personal info about drivers. He's definitely spoken about like he's a pro. It definitely seems like pro teams are taking sim racing seriously, and have been for a while.
I don't have a lot of money, and have a cheap PXN V9 setup (unfortunately without force feedback), and I can't afford iRacing. I instead play Dirt Rally 2.0 and have played Asetto Corsa. I got the chance to drive an cheap-ish, yet race worthy rally car that could also be set up for a track, an old Yugo 65 with a Fiat Bravo engine and a 5 speed H pattern gearbox. I was surprised at how similar it felt. I did have some issues catching slides, because with my PXN I have to rely on sound and visuals to catch a slide and correct it due to the lack of force feedback. And then ofcourse, G force. I work out, so it is doable, but I don't think I'll make it a full race distance without training for it😂. Great video, lads!
What I had most problems with was actual driving techniques in the cockpit. I simrace with paddles and autoclutch and I do mostly GT3/GT4 racing. Then I went to a track to do a first day of a Formula 3 licence. There one drives a Formula Renault with clutch and a sequential gearbox and that part I really struggled with (even though I drive my daily car with H shifter and clutch). It took me loads of time just to know what gear I was in and I also had problems knowing if I actually had done a shift or not so shifting caused a lot of disturbance for me. This was by far the hardest part but also one that after some time one gets over completely (they day was more or less over by then). There was no rain when I went but I can imagine that being a big change. I did not have any issues with fear elements and this formula car could not take any curbs at all on that track so that was not really in play. The training was also not a race so that also reduced the fear element. We were many cars at the circuit when we did timed laps but overtaking was just allowed at blue flags on a certain straight so it was all quite safe. I do recognize the slow 'creeping up against the limit' thing though but I also noticed that I did the same mistakes I do in the sim (I zoom out and forget to break if things go too smooth) so that part carried over too.
VR makes simulators even more useful IMO. Looking into turns, looking to the side to see if people are there, checking mirrors and stuff. It's all a factor in VR, and the added depth perception makes a huge difference. There's a video of one of the best sim-drifters trying a real drift car on youtube, it's amazing how quickly he was up to speed and how good he was at it in real life. After countless hours of shooting bows in different VR games, I'm almost convinced I'd do allright with a bow in real life.. I know that Eleven Table Tennis VR has made me OK at ping pong.... Simulators are not to be scoffed at. Especially VR sims.
I went to a race rack in Poland two weeks ago to drive a Porsche GT3 997 as a chrismas gift from my girlfriend. I told the guy that I've been playing iracing for the last 6 years and that I've never driven the track in the game ( Poznań circuit, I believe it's only available on Asetto Corsa) but I've watched onboards from it many times so he didn't have to tell me which way to go. After we've finished he told me that it's unbelievable how a person that has never driven such car can go that quick and confident. It marks the times we live in. I just could get myself prepered for it by just playing a game.
Add in race craft, mind games and car setup and racing is nothing like a track day. One trip to a kart track with a racer vs a track day’r gives you an idea of the difference.
I’ve done both for over twenty years and yes, I think there’s a lot of overlap. The biggest differences I’ve found are: 1) Feel. In a real car, I respond to what I feel. I feel the balance change and control it with brakes, throttle and steering. This is impossible in a sim, so you have to react to what you see instead. I drive sims more than real life, and there’s always this revelatory moment when I pull out of a real pitlane that I can feel everything! 2) Tyre models. Sims just aren’t quite realistic enough. 3) Texture and bumps in the track. These cause perturbations in balance and grip in real life. They don’t exist in sims - all the tracks are perfectly smooth, like F1 tracks (Silverstone for example). Somewhere like Cadwell (shown at the beginning) doesn’t feel like that.
Concerning 1), would you say you're more reliant on the feel of the steering in the end? Since it's the only thing apart from the screen/sound giving you feedback?
Thanks for the video. Interesting like always. On a sidenote i have to say i`m hoping those "natural tracks" (sorry, don`t know if there is a special word in english for this since english is not my first language) which are embedded in the landscape will live on as long as possible. i know there are still some of them in the UK and USA. but sadly a lot of them in other places are died already. Cadwell Park looks just amazing!
I own a 6 DOF SimXperience G-Seat and G-Belt with a couple of shakers. It's not like in a real race-car, more like a normal road-car I would guess and certainly better than nothing. But I think the seat of pants is more coming from vibrations from tyre-scrubbing. Having a tactile feedback system with four or more shakers has more benefits if setting it up properly and also archived for just about a 10th of the price.
I’ll give you one that wins all arguments: Every time I am watching something on tv/RUclips, my parents ask me if it’s a game or if it’s a IRL race… they don’t know anymore. So that tells me sim racing is real racing :P … but also, having to reach the limit in one lap instead of having multiple laps to reach the limit is so difficult, it’s an art
i'm just a casual sim racer, and it takes me on average 11 laps to get up to speed. i do a lot of road driving in real life, with lots of dirt road mixed in, but there's really no racing equivalent of that.
I'd definitely agree with you, I race and drive an LMP3 car in real life and sim race too, but the real world is in some ways easier because you can feel. In the sim I have to intellectualise what I am feeling based on tyre noise, wheel vibration and vast knowledge of the track. I think if you can drive and race in real life, you can do well in sims, but the other way around doesn't always turn out for everyone. My boss, the great Paul Stokell is obviously a fantastic driver and is currently racing in the world GT program with Audi, but his ability to jump into a sim and drive well was immediate, he got the hang of it rather quickly.
I raced just about everything growing up from motocross to flat-track quads to carts up to dirt-track late models. What I feel keeps me from being a better sim racer is the lack of spatial sense and car feedback that you only get in the real world. Finding the limit is so much harder when you can't feel the slip angle.
2:42 you can see the other driver signaling for him to get his place back, really cool those small details that you can only get with a open cockpit car.
im not a fully fledged sim racer, although i have the proper gear and use it from time to time. my only "racing experience" would be on karts, a few times. As someone who has never been on a serious racing environment, i felt at home on the kart, i was able to make corrections, judge a good racing line, finding the grip limit and working around it, while avoiding traffic. it's definitely not even close to what Callum was able to prove, but it's definitely something and can show that sim racing is a very good tool to understand the in and outs. Hell, i can say with certainty that i was able to learn the basics of driving, manual transmissions and what behaviour i can expect from certain inputs to the car. Thanks to it and was able to translate it to real life while i was on driving school.
Iv never been deep into sim racing but would like to improve. always been perplexed as to how im always around 2 seconds off aliens yet when iv jumped into competitive karts and track days iv challenged for fastest laps within a few laps.
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Big congratulations on Callum's maiden win in racing, more amazing is it was his first race! What a way to start! Thanks for another great upload!!
Spoilers!
Well he was racing against people who've never raced before either
@@Alex-tu9bh he's never raced before... thats the whole point of caterham academy
I'm saying none of them have raced before so there all on the same level
@@Alex-tu9bh ah ok I get you
I’m a 2.7k driver in iRacing. Had some few track days after only having experienced the sim and I felt that I was in my natural spot. I can push the car and understand it’s grip and load even though it was my first time. Sim racing is getting closer and closer for sure
I’m hoping iRacing eventually gets wet driving right. I believe that after all this wait they will eventually get it right
I wonder if VR is a big jump as far as realism and being able to better know your surroundings
@@ewanmcintyre955 it definitely feels more natural in VR especially spacial awareness of cars around you
@@ewanmcintyre955 I race mainly using VR and I can tell you, when I go back to single screen I have a hard time hitting my braking points and lacking general awareness
@@ewanmcintyre955 it's a really really big jump in my opinion. It's not like you are necessarily faster then your fastest lap on a monitor. It's that just like in real life you learn a track faster, you are also way more consistent and you have a better understanding of your surroundings. VR is still in the early days, but it's getting close to monitor resolution with the Pimax Crystal. The downside is you need a seriously beefy PC.
@@ewanmcintyre955 VR is amazing for track awareness. Having depth perception helps hit braking points and apex's, and being in VR in general gives you a way better sense for where you are in relation to other drivers. I simply can't go back to using a monitor for racing games.
I do think there’s a significant jump in realism from monitor sim racing to VR sim racing. I’m too poor to afford VR but it looks so much more immersive! The sense of speed looks crazy
I got a used quest 2 for $250. The difference between monitors and VR is incredible. I honestly forget I’m not driving a real car, especially since I made my own 4 corner tactile transducer setup for $180 worth of parts. You can feel the tires progressively sliding, road texture, bumps, everything you would in a real car minus the g force. My mind gets so convinced I’m actually driving that sometimes my wife will tap me on the shoulder and it scares the hell out of me because there was no one in the seat next to me.
A vr headset is cheaper than triple monitors/tvs or a super ultrawide.
I have vr and it eh kinda sorta helps but in my opinion I don’t think it helps much and sim games are not super close to the real deal
I don’t enjoy racing games at all, but with PSVR2 I got Gran Turismo and it’s incredible.
@@sunnohh What are your credentials in racing IRL?
I get last place in both. Very accurate.
I didn’t expect to end up in a Driver61 video, but congrats on the win Callum! Hope to see you in July at Thruxton! 🏎️🏎️
This would be fun to do. I'm at 5.8K in Iracing VR only. Almost exclusively with F3 and a few other open wheelers. Wish I could afford a couple track days in an open wheeler just to see how far off pace i'd be. I've literally never raced anything onroad before in real life. Maybe someday if I hit the lottery!!
Idk how it is where you life, but here in Germany you can drive many of the tracks have a program, where you can drive a f4 car for a few laps for 250-500€. Sure it's not racing, but it's definitely something I want to do in the future :)
Non competitive retired race cars can be had for relative cheaply. There’s definitely people that go for a track day car instead of a boat or a high end street car.
David Perel has great video's on how his real life Ferrari GT3 compares with the Sim and how it helped him from amateur to professional ferrari driver. Many more like him including Verstappen telling the same story. One of the many things that also helps is driving in traffic practice, specially in multiclass and rolling restarts for example as Max even shows in F1. There is no doubt that Sim Racing has a lot of realistic aspects in driving and race tactics
David Perel thumbing up and replying to one of my comments about FFB setup is one of the highlights of my life
@@smeghead666 I chatted with him a few times when he was still mostly racing on GT Sport. Great dude.
I've been Sim racing for a number of years, and for the last couple years I jumped into real cars on track, immediately I was on the pace, I new what I needed to do to go fast, the only big difficulty was the "fear", real world consequences, and then getting used to more feedback, learning to react to what you feel in your arse. I'd say Sim racing is 60-80% there.
Seems like you need money to make it more accurate. Not having to worry about your car would be nice haha
@@ihavealife002 exactly lmao, it makes a colossal difference on whether or not you can easily replace the car if you damage or wreck it
I'm 36 years old, I used to Autocross, now I just do sim racing after I was disabled. Even tho you technically use different senses, you still learn basics such as racing lines, braking, aero along with other basics. G-force can be a nightmare to people not used to it but the general idea is there, you can learn to race in a sim
Sim drivers are all just training for when they get the chance to do the real thing
I’m just training for the day I drive a real car😂😂😂😅
If that were true, they would also work out to be able to handle the forces in anything faster than a road car.
@@AsatorIV any sim driver that I have seen get the chance to drive a real race car has had no problem getting into the gym. Like Jimmy Broadbent. He was in average shape, then started working out like an athlete once he was working with Praga. It all comes down to how much time and what resources people have.
Don't Forget Money bro, there A lot sim racers stuck to do in real car because this problem
Nope, I dont have car / want one because of the cost, how dangerous it is and cars are not good for the climate and I really hate the sound of cars in real life. But I still like racing on my computer very much
congrats on the win! I came 2nd in my first academy race, started a rivalry which lasted 3 seasons and lots of very good racing.enjoy your academy season.
Was pushing hard to try and beat your Curborough record 😜 Didn't manage it! Callum
@@Driver61 haha! I used to do sprints and hillclimbs so cold tyre sprints was a welcome entry point to academy. You got a good time on the VBOX for Cadwell I saw! Wish we had the current academy tyres when we did our academy year, they look pretty good! Enjoy your year you will have a blast 👍🏻
Congratulations on the first win!!!!! I won my first real sanctioned race as an adult. Instantly hooked! Well done Callum!
9:11 rFactor 2? It has full wet weather simulation of grip and even rubbered in grip (or lack thereof).
In terms of getting up to speed quickly in sim racing there are solutions. I bought 4 bass shakers and a 4 channel 200w amp for $180. I downloaded simhub and now I have full 4 channel (one for each tire) vibration feedback to tell me progressive tire slip, road textures, engine vibration and more. Everything you’d feel in a real car minus the G force. Where it used to take me 10-30 laps to get up to speed depending on familiarity with the car and track now a new car takes me less than 10 laps and going back to a car and track combo I know I’m up to speed in 2 laps. Combined with VR to provide depth perception and good surround sound headphones almost all the downfalls of sim racing as stated in the video can be overcome. Sustained G force is yet to be though.
It’s great to see that despite heavy workload with serious stuff on the overdrive channel Scott still finds some time for this nice side project!
8:15 "something you cannot do in simracing" - very interesting. I agree if you speak of ACC or iracing, but as a top rFactor2 esports driver, I've been gathering grip info like you explain. Especially in the wet races, but also in the dry races, as long as it is not just short sprints. So I think it looks even more close between rF2 and real life than for other sims.
for wet racing, ive found that Gran Turismo has done a fairly good job of it. the Nordschleife's wet racing line is completely different than the dry line, so you have to adjust your entire lap. get into the dry line while it's wet, and you will be going off regularly
Wow that's outstanding Callum!
As others have said, adding VR to the mix can really take it up a notch. The situational awareness is night and day.
Im 18 now, I started karting at 11, but there was about a 1 1/2 year spell between early '20 to mid '21where I couldn't race do to financial reasons. So I started sim racing, it was for fun at first but as the first year past I started to get more serious about it. meanwhile my dad had no idea what affect it would have until we started racing again in the middle of '21 I was in a new, older class and I was immediately on the pace. my dad was shocked and frankly so was I but I then started to realize the great affect the sim had. especially throughout the last year as I have started racing SPEC Miata. at the start when I just did a couple of track days with an instructor the feed back at the end if the day was that every time the car stepped out I knew just how much throttle and steering input to give, but also that I absorb on track feedback almost instantly which when I heard him say these things I immediately thought that sim racing was the reason for this.
That's pretty cool
What game did you use for simracing, I want to get into racing Miatas too here in the uk
Great vid! Congrats Callum! And a thumbs up to the guy at the 12:50 mark who also avoided the carnage AND gave you back the position he could have "stolen". I do iRacing and a lot of actual racing with 24hrs of Lemons racing here in the US. There can be a fair amount of carnage and definitely a lot of slower moving cars to avoid on track. IDK why but it's seems much easier to avoid the carnage in real life than in the sims.
Probably self preservation kicking in vs just being able to send it in the sim with no consequences and minimal regulations on stuff like local yellows
Learning to fly in a helicopter in my sim rig with VR allowed me to instantly understand the dynamics. It basically stepped me forward in id say over 50% of the learning. Not quite real but 80% there minus the geforces 😊
You need to try rfactor 2, its a little buggy but has the best physics and has proper rain and wet and dry lines
Very true. Would love to know why rF2 get constantly ignored on the bigger simracing channels.
RF2 has real arcade physics.
@@tqracing ah yes because it's Forza and totally not the official formula E test simulator or uses the same base physics model as rfactor pro which all the F1 teams use
@@MRSPORTYTRUCKER Rfactor Pro was founded on the original Rfactor codebase, and it's a very separate entity from Rfactor 2.
RF Pro is essentially an engine with some assets, and infrastructure to plug in different physics models. The F1 teams are plugging in their own physics and tire models, based on extensive testing of the real tires (something Studio 397 couldn't afford, even if they wanted to).
RF 2 on the other hand has a ridiculously forgiving tire model, where you can drive things like Radicals and GT3's like drift cars. They are far from any real car or tire behavior.
@@tqracing the cars were like that several years ago, but I have seen side by side comparisons of real life Vs rf2 and it looks good, better than iracing or assetto corsa
Seeing Mount Panorama at 3:00 chucked a smile on my face. Love that track
Absolute gem of a track fr
I think it all depends on the game and also the rig you are using to simulate.. The more reallistic the game and also the rig, the closer it will be to real life.. But another thing to consider is the fact that most people in sim racing definitely knows its just a game and try to push to their limits, but when it comes to real racing then your life is also in risk if you push too hard, also other things like your body and health condition, the real feeling and many other things.
Jimmy Broadbend had a very interesting journey going from sim racing to real racing. I highly recommend following his channel and seeing how his journey was like.
My impression of sims in general is that they can get the car behavior very close to real life, and scanned tracks can be very accurate, but they're mostly limited by how we interact with those virtual elements. The Caterham series looks really cool, wish I could get into that myself.
I would love to see the whole of Callum's unedited races. Highlights are fun, but I get so much from watching other people drive wheel-to-wheel for many laps and having to maintaining that consistency under pressure.
I was just wondering what Toms take on sim versus real racing was, and here you are..
@@mcdiskett2003 I find sims useful for learning tracks I've never been to, or the basics of a new car (1973 911? Drive it in the sim first!), but I'm pretty rubbish at hitting the limits in them - I'm bad at translating the digital feedback (sounds, wheel) to the feels you get directly from the car. Obviously the Caterham has spoiled me for life.
I was lucky to have learnt from a fairly young age how to control a car on many different surfaces with steering, throttle input, braking and hand brake through motorkhana and then later through khanacross. All that has translated to real world ontrack and real world car control. I know it's not something everyone has access to, but it has saved me many times in the real world, but also translates into sim racing.
Similar things happen with flight sims. As someone who has been sim flying since I was 10, I had certain advantages going into my license training. Flying from instruments and ignoring seat-of-the-pants feel was natural, since that's the whole thing in a sim. Basic control coordination also came easily, as did some of the counterintuitive aspects of flying (power to climb, pitch for speed, etc). But folks, nothing really prepares you for actually sitting in a chair in the sky, getting jostled about, and then deliberately pointing yourself at the ground to land. I've done carrier landings in sims. I've been jump-scared by R-27ET missiles (if you know, you know). But NOTHING in a sim is as scary as doing a power-on stall in a Cessna and knowing that, "If I screw up the rudder, we'll upside-down in 2 seconds."
This kind of thing even goes to high levels. Air Forces around the world are encountering trainees who cannot fly formation or talk on the radio to save their lives, but who have a superhuman instinct for missile tactics. A DCS sim pilot may have hundreds of hours practicing live-fire A2A combat, whereas a grizzled real-life F-15 master might have only seen 2 junky 1960s Soviet missiles in a career. The training requirements are quite different for a combat sim guy vs the airline captain who just signed up.
i think teh diffrence is the mind is constantly working to see opertunintys and the more you train the better you get i feel if you only go racing and then do al ittle training without sim racing untill your next race your a little rusty the guy who is constantly racing will see an opertunity that a rust driver wouldent consider i also feel liek the training of teh racing line and seeing how you can knock off 0.100 sec on a lap in sim racing would translate into real racing some drivers just go fast and hope there lap times is on point i bet max drives 3 or 4 laps using the same lines to get an avrage then he will change it up on a specific corner and test again to get an avrage and over a test session he will know his absoloute optimum line i bet most drivers think they can go out and win with just going fast and doing what they think is the optimum line
for that pinical in optimum line i really think sim racing shows you this a line you wouldent think works actually knocks off 0.200
This was extremely interesting to watch. What an amazing opportunity for Callum, and a wonderful demonstration of what hours and hours of training in simulated racing environments can develop. Better racing instincts, reaction time, general wisdom for the track behavior, all of these things Callum already had under his belt and it allowed him to thoroughly learn the physics of the real race car.
This was a great video y'all 😀 THANKS 👍! Congratulations Callum, watching your journey was awesome 👍
I have no idea how it is to drive a GT3 car in real life but I was a gokart pro driver (from age 11) and for me it was way easier karting in real life than in the sim. The most important thing in karting is feeling the kart and the feedback, you practically drive with your whole body,(you are one with the car), you can't do that in a sim. Currently, I drive open wheelers in iRacing (formula vee which is the closest to a gokart) and it isn't as easy as in real life. So, for me, they are two very different things. The sim is harder because you lack the feedback of the car and the G forces. It is good for practice and learning the track though.
I do race FF-2000 in real life ( Royale-RP-30 and Vandiemen RF-85), so I decided to test out a sim in a professional sim racing facility. After a few test laps, I noticed that the brake force was not all that good ( to light pedal push). So I asked to increase the pedal force ( braking ) to 45Kg... That made a big improvement... The other aspect that I find less good is that I don't feel the car, I can' read it as we say. Sure the SIM seat moves but its not even near reality...I also found the steering a bit to sensitive especially on the straight, maybe not enough toe in or to much... it had 2.5 degrees which seems a bit to much... Caster did not seem to do its thing as it should by pulling out of a corner and training to auto correct to straight line driving. Finally and for me the biggest disadvantage is the lack of depth view.. I can hardly tell how close I am to a wall or barrier, or getting the right braking points. On the positieve side , its a great tool to learn to drive the lines on tracks that you not been on and overall practice in braking and over and under steer control... So yes , I do use it
I've done some sim racing but for me, my best sim results were between flying lessons some years ago, where I was able to remain current with things like checklists, radio calls, circuits, emergency procedures etc. Great for reinforcing routine. This was a well planned and executed video and much appreciated. I almost bought a Caterham years ago and ended up with a 964 instead. Couldn't fit the golf clubs in the little one. 🙂 Cheers and thank you from Sydney - Dave
Great video and great conclusion. Congrats to Callum on his first win in real racing! I'm glad Callum was able to confirm what Max states coming from the other way. He stated that by missing the G-forces, you have to adjust to having less 'data'. You have to rely more on what you see and hear in a sim. Callum confirmed this by saying that learning a track in real life goes a lot faster as you can actually feel the limit of the car. And he's a (sim) racer.
Spending a lot of time on my VR sim setup, I will say that whenever I get in my car on a circuit in real life everything just feels instantly easier... From simply feeling more from the car and feeling how the tyres are reacting.
The sim racing is a great tool for real life stuff and a great concept on its own too.
I did a track day at Zandvoort about a decade and a half ago. Final car was a weight reduced Gallardo. Also raced a Porsche GT3. Had a bit of oversteer with the GT3 and intuitively counter-steered after years of online racing, not even with steering wheels. The Gallardo I went half onto the gravel in turn one because the guy behind me was a bit overexcited and wanted to hump my Gallardo with his. Anyway got complimented by the coach and I knew the visual cues I learned trough years of sim style race games helped that day.
Rfactor 2 has the best caterham model and feeling!!!
Can we get an update from Callum about racing on the same track as in the sim ?
Is he quicker there, feels more comfortable ? How does it feel to be on a track that he have been in a sim ?
Lets also give some exposure to the fact that James Baldwin is without a seat and crowdfunding next year to hopefully race gt3 again
I'm currently using a sim to help get over my anxiety driving (fun fact with a controller im a beast but put a wheel and pedals and all that and I freeze up like in real life. It's actually so strange to me) it's really helping build my confidence with driving. I was super scared to sim drive on non residential roads but it's getting better
i develop my driving by testing various techniques then getting comfortable, and then i hop out to the mountain roads outside my town and test the techniques, have been sim racing for 3 years and got my license 2 years ago, this has helped me get quite good quite fast, even managed a 120kmh slip angle entry on an old e39 530d without going out of my lane, i had 1 minor crash in the beginning, but i just fixed the car and kept going
As a sim driver, I am grateful for this video. You have helped me understand the many connections between the sim and the real world. Very good video, congratulations!
Fascinating and really interesting. I have done a couple of track days at Cadwell on motorcycles, and loved seeing Callum drive through corners I knew well. I even felt some anxiety seeing him approach the off camber Mansfield. I hated that bend! I know we are all looking forward to following Callum's progress, and I wish him every success and lots of wins.
I got started in sim racing last year, and on track days this year.
Sim racing was an amazing tool to learn the track before going there. As a first timer i was shiting myself, but was able to grind the circuit before going there, learning the braking points and traps of the track, and so many other things.
My first track day was in the rain. First time driving a car hard, and I was able to catch my slides, and overall do quite well considering my beginner status
3rd track day was this weekend, on a very technical track. By the end of the first 15min session I had reach a lap time that more experienced driver called "the next level" (as in getting from absolute beginner to rookie)
Sim racing is an incredible tool, that can really help build confidence, and that teaches you skill that are invaluable on track.
To be honest I don't think I would have been able to do what I'm doing if I didn't have a year of simracing behind me
I want a full series of him driving. Loved the catterhan cars
we don't even need Callum to test this (but i'm happy for him) cause we can see Jimmy Broatbent
Surprised a lot of others aren't mentioning Jimmer. Jimmy really came from nothing dealing a lot of personal demons, sim racing in his actual SHED, then gradually having success in real life, notably driving in a Praga, with Sim Racing practice on a Praga helping him out.
@@sigmablock yup my dude made his dreams real and it's sooooo cool
Sim racing is great fun. Not everyone can get on a track but there a loads of people who love cars and driving so sim racing whether comp or lazy Sunday drive is always a winner. ❤
I don’t think any some razor says it’s 100% like real racing that would be super ignorant… it’s obvious in the ways that it helps you which is learning tracks and learning driving etiquette, along with driving techniques would be crazy to say it doesn’t help especially with the more money you throw at it the more realistic you can make your set up…. I also love the videos.
Great video! It explains everything. I did a lot of track days(and I was fast) before sim racing and it was ridiculously hard to go fast, find the cars limit.
I credit SIMS for giving me a HUGE jump start, when I started doing track days, years ago. I started back with Gran Turismo. It taught me weight transfer, how to brake without ABS, how to coordinate braking and throttle with steering input, and how to modulate a throttle. Of course the game actually motivated me to get out there. At my very first track day, I did really, really well and I've been addicted ever since. I'm told I'm a pretty good driver and I have to give all the credit to SIMS. Since then, I use them to memorize courses before I have an event. They are a great tool to use and I feel it's very easy for a SIM racer to do well in a real car.
IRL it took me a year of Clubmans and practice days to learn even the basics of setup and I see sim racers getting very sophisticated in no time at all. Dancing on the pedals is another skill that sim racers can get instinctively right because they can put in the hours and hours.
Great video! super cool to see a sim racer jump in and have success the FIRST time out 😮🤩
This is a great video introduction to what is racing that I needed to better understand what I watch! Many thanks
You should just put him in some amateur karting competition ;). I barely do any sim but I had like three years when I took park in indoor karting competition. Amateurish like hell, but format with 3x10min quali and the race learned me to check the gokart first corner, especially that on 30s lap the difference from kart to kart could go as high as 2s. And it stayed with me - I dooing that in cars, and even in sim when I'm having a chance to try some nice equipment ;).
Callum's reaction to winning that race is my exact reaction anytime I win a race in iRacing. I hover around 2.1-2.3k, so a bit behind Callum, but I don't win often. When I get one, I can't contain the excitement. I have very much considered taking one of your courses, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet.
Great video guys 👏🏻 & well done Callum I didn't realise the link with this channel & your sim racing its a great story.
I'm in Academy, white group & the other end of the grid right now. Callum did great winning Curborough & Cadwell as did Adam winning white group they are so fast, I'm like 10seconds a lap down atm they may as well be professional racers in comparison to me altho I appreciate they aren't. I really related to the fear factor part; I've done some (limited) sim work at DPR which was a great help but then was 15seconds off my sim time on track! At Snetterton my home circuit which I know well. All down to anxiety in the real car & that self-preservation mentioned. I have now halved that deficit with more seat time & increased confidence in grip but was really interesting to hear it does translate from sim to the real world on track that gives me more hope to push even further towards my sim time which was into the 2m17's at Snett.
Keep up the good work, cheers guys
One thing I noticed, at least with Drifting, is that the way the world comes at you is a little different. It feels like you're going faster, almost like you're sitting on the corner when you initiate.
Awesome video. I agreed with everything I had experience with. And everything else seemed well explained.
For Drifting though I will say VR or 1st person is a big part to making it feel like how you have to control the car in real life. In 3rd person it completely changes where and how you look.
Before i started sim-racing i regularly visited karting tracks and track days with rental cars like an M2 or MX5. Then covid happened, had to drop all of that, but got a wheel and got into sim-racing. Started doing it right after the pandemic started and ffw 2.5 years, 6 months ago i decided to visit the tracks i drove most regularly. Not only did i shatter my best times in both karts and the M2, i started doing the best times at the tracks, simply by applying all the techniques which were wired into me from sim-racing. Now i wasn't braking late, slowing down way too much in the corner and then hard trying to accelerate, thinking this is the fastest way to drive. No, I learned from sim-racing to carry the speed through the corners and that's where real time savings come.
It also pays off in my everyday driving. I already lost count on the amount of accidents i prevented by following simple things like paying attention to the road much further ahead, staying alert and aware of the cars around me and knowing where the limit of the grip is in different conditions. It's amazing how sim-racing transforms your driving and helps you discover and perfect your driving style.
I started with sim racing and ended up winning in monza in a formula car and competing in kz2 in karting which is insanely difficult (0.15% of all people doing karting is fast enaught)
It's interesting that you say you have to build up pace lap after lap in sim racing. I typically like to do the exact opposite, have an empty track and push the car faster than I think it'll stick and work back from there.
I saw many of that videos but I think thats on of the best so far never saw it that way
Where did the orange ad progress bar go? I always loved that about this channel! Please bring it back!
Excellent video. As a casual sim racer, now I know that it IS possible to try going to real life race and not being total garbadge, 70% simillarity is pretty good in my opinion :D. Thanks for this video, very informative.... ;)
I want more coverage of his journey! This is amazing
That track is totally nuts in BSB. How close are you to jumping the hill in a caterham? Do you feel weightless over the top?
It would be awesome to see they crew use rally racing simulation games and see how it helps them in an actual rally. The built WRX could be adjusted for rallying and would make for an amazing series.
While i would love to see the wrx rallying, i would start with something slower😅 Rally can get very dangerous very quickly... The ford ka has been used in rally, it could be a good school car😂
I started sim racing(technically my very first taste of racing) about 3 years ago. I played a lot of sim racing but then in 2021 and 2022 sim racing helps me to win real life races with more experienced drivers. So far it is karting but it was great fun
Well done Callum! That's a seriously impressive result for a first race, whether you have a great teacher or not. I hope the guys are not ribbing you too much for the shouts of delight, you earned them!
Very interesting piece on this. I've heard some older racers say they don't, or rarely use sims - occasionally to help them learn their way round a new track so that when they're there, they can spend more time learning the more fiddly bits rather than needing to spend that time learning where and when the next corner is, etc. Other, younger drivers are well into sim racing and given the much younger average age of this new generation of F1 racers, it can't be doing any harm.
I first heard about serious sim racing watching World Touring Cars, where one of the Hungarian drivers had won his seat through a sim challenge (up until then, my only experience with computers and racing was on the SEGA Megadrive(?) Formula 1 game, which came with 5 others on the cartridge that was with the machine we bought the kids back in the late 90s, I think. I did become the world champion a few times lol). He was surprisingly good for a total rookie to 'real racing', and continued on for a number of years (at least until I lost interest in WTC, which was a good few years later; he might still be racing afaik).
Jaan Mardenborough (I hope I've spelled that right!) is a successful endurance/sportscar racer who, in his late teens iirc, won a sim competition and ended up with a seat in WEC. It wasn't long before he was at the Le Mans 24 hour. I think he's got a pro career now - though I'm not one to keep up with personal info about drivers. He's definitely spoken about like he's a pro. It definitely seems like pro teams are taking sim racing seriously, and have been for a while.
did you write this
I don't have a lot of money, and have a cheap PXN V9 setup (unfortunately without force feedback), and I can't afford iRacing. I instead play Dirt Rally 2.0 and have played Asetto Corsa. I got the chance to drive an cheap-ish, yet race worthy rally car that could also be set up for a track, an old Yugo 65 with a Fiat Bravo engine and a 5 speed H pattern gearbox. I was surprised at how similar it felt. I did have some issues catching slides, because with my PXN I have to rely on sound and visuals to catch a slide and correct it due to the lack of force feedback. And then ofcourse, G force. I work out, so it is doable, but I don't think I'll make it a full race distance without training for it😂. Great video, lads!
What I had most problems with was actual driving techniques in the cockpit. I simrace with paddles and autoclutch and I do mostly GT3/GT4 racing. Then I went to a track to do a first day of a Formula 3 licence. There one drives a Formula Renault with clutch and a sequential gearbox and that part I really struggled with (even though I drive my daily car with H shifter and clutch). It took me loads of time just to know what gear I was in and I also had problems knowing if I actually had done a shift or not so shifting caused a lot of disturbance for me. This was by far the hardest part but also one that after some time one gets over completely (they day was more or less over by then). There was no rain when I went but I can imagine that being a big change. I did not have any issues with fear elements and this formula car could not take any curbs at all on that track so that was not really in play. The training was also not a race so that also reduced the fear element. We were many cars at the circuit when we did timed laps but overtaking was just allowed at blue flags on a certain straight so it was all quite safe. I do recognize the slow 'creeping up against the limit' thing though but I also noticed that I did the same mistakes I do in the sim (I zoom out and forget to break if things go too smooth) so that part carried over too.
One big thing is missing and that's BALLS so much easier to risk on sim were as in reality the same risk may get you killed
Such a great and balanced take on the subject. Thanks!
VR makes simulators even more useful IMO. Looking into turns, looking to the side to see if people are there, checking mirrors and stuff. It's all a factor in VR, and the added depth perception makes a huge difference.
There's a video of one of the best sim-drifters trying a real drift car on youtube, it's amazing how quickly he was up to speed and how good he was at it in real life.
After countless hours of shooting bows in different VR games, I'm almost convinced I'd do allright with a bow in real life.. I know that Eleven Table Tennis VR has made me OK at ping pong....
Simulators are not to be scoffed at. Especially VR sims.
I went to a race rack in Poland two weeks ago to drive a Porsche GT3 997 as a chrismas gift from my girlfriend. I told the guy that I've been playing iracing for the last 6 years and that I've never driven the track in the game ( Poznań circuit, I believe it's only available on Asetto Corsa) but I've watched onboards from it many times so he didn't have to tell me which way to go.
After we've finished he told me that it's unbelievable how a person that has never driven such car can go that quick and confident. It marks the times we live in. I just could get myself prepered for it by just playing a game.
If nothing else, it’s helpful to learn track layout. Showing up at a new track with some seat time helped get me up to speed quicker.
Add in race craft, mind games and car setup and racing is nothing like a track day. One trip to a kart track with a racer vs a track day’r gives you an idea of the difference.
im literally doing a dissertation about something like this so this is cool and helpful to think about other things
I’ve done both for over twenty years and yes, I think there’s a lot of overlap. The biggest differences I’ve found are:
1) Feel. In a real car, I respond to what I feel. I feel the balance change and control it with brakes, throttle and steering. This is impossible in a sim, so you have to react to what you see instead. I drive sims more than real life, and there’s always this revelatory moment when I pull out of a real pitlane that I can feel everything!
2) Tyre models. Sims just aren’t quite realistic enough.
3) Texture and bumps in the track. These cause perturbations in balance and grip in real life. They don’t exist in sims - all the tracks are perfectly smooth, like F1 tracks (Silverstone for example). Somewhere like Cadwell (shown at the beginning) doesn’t feel like that.
Concerning 1), would you say you're more reliant on the feel of the steering in the end? Since it's the only thing apart from the screen/sound giving you feedback?
I like to think of sim racing as just another Motorsport racing category. It’s still car racing but with its own quirks, like any category.
Thanks for the video. Interesting like always. On a sidenote i have to say i`m hoping those "natural tracks" (sorry, don`t know if there is a special word in english for this since english is not my first language) which are embedded in the landscape will live on as long as possible. i know there are still some of them in the UK and USA. but sadly a lot of them in other places are died already. Cadwell Park looks just amazing!
Nice timing with the Grand Turismo trailer launching.
The biggest issue is lack of that feeling of G - sims I struggle with as you don't have that feedback.
I own a 6 DOF SimXperience G-Seat and G-Belt with a couple of shakers. It's not like in a real race-car, more like a normal road-car I would guess and certainly better than nothing. But I think the seat of pants is more coming from vibrations from tyre-scrubbing. Having a tactile feedback system with four or more shakers has more benefits if setting it up properly and also archived for just about a 10th of the price.
Bloody hell this was really interesting! Quality video 👍
top notch content as usual. amazing!
I’ll give you one that wins all arguments: Every time I am watching something on tv/RUclips, my parents ask me if it’s a game or if it’s a IRL race… they don’t know anymore. So that tells me sim racing is real racing :P … but also, having to reach the limit in one lap instead of having multiple laps to reach the limit is so difficult, it’s an art
i'm just a casual sim racer, and it takes me on average 11 laps to get up to speed.
i do a lot of road driving in real life, with lots of dirt road mixed in, but there's really no racing equivalent of that.
wet lines are definitely simulated in rFactor2 btw. the realroad component of the game simulates all kinds of track interaction and weather
I'd definitely agree with you, I race and drive an LMP3 car in real life and sim race too, but the real world is in some ways easier because you can feel. In the sim I have to intellectualise what I am feeling based on tyre noise, wheel vibration and vast knowledge of the track. I think if you can drive and race in real life, you can do well in sims, but the other way around doesn't always turn out for everyone. My boss, the great Paul Stokell is obviously a fantastic driver and is currently racing in the world GT program with Audi, but his ability to jump into a sim and drive well was immediate, he got the hang of it rather quickly.
Super in depth video with real experience! Very interesting
Really fun video guys, cheers!
Get in there Callum!!!! Beautifully done
Callum is racing in Caterham series this season? Hadn’t heard.
Great video mate. Thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you!
I raced just about everything growing up from motocross to flat-track quads to carts up to dirt-track late models. What I feel keeps me from being a better sim racer is the lack of spatial sense and car feedback that you only get in the real world. Finding the limit is so much harder when you can't feel the slip angle.
Funny to hear this how you test the limit, my first time driving was like: I just start too fast and take it down where I need to.
2:42 you can see the other driver signaling for him to get his place back, really cool those small details that you can only get with a open cockpit car.
I caught that as well, very cool to see and even better for the driver to realize what happened and take the "sporting" path.
im not a fully fledged sim racer, although i have the proper gear and use it from time to time. my only "racing experience" would be on karts, a few times. As someone who has never been on a serious racing environment, i felt at home on the kart, i was able to make corrections, judge a good racing line, finding the grip limit and working around it, while avoiding traffic. it's definitely not even close to what Callum was able to prove, but it's definitely something and can show that sim racing is a very good tool to understand the in and outs. Hell, i can say with certainty that i was able to learn the basics of driving, manual transmissions and what behaviour i can expect from certain inputs to the car. Thanks to it and was able to translate it to real life while i was on driving school.
Iv never been deep into sim racing but would like to improve. always been perplexed as to how im always around 2 seconds off aliens yet when iv jumped into competitive karts and track days iv challenged for fastest laps within a few laps.