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Simracing and its importance for real life racing


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#101 noikeee

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 09:58

I don't think it makes sense, because (most) top simracers are disconnected from the real life physics and feeling, in some cases their pace might be due to exploiting the particular game's physics; but even if their pace translates really well to a team's sim and is remarkably consistent, you don't want to develop your car into becoming great in the sim, you want to develop it into feeling great in real life and the feedback of a real life driver then is invaluable.
 
But it's not impossible some team at some point might try it as an experiment.


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#102 PayasYouRace

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 15:20

This is where the difference between good racing drivers, good test drivers and good sim drivers can be exploited depending on what sort of development you're trying to do.

As an example, I was speaking to an accomplished test pilot a few years ago. He was excellent in the real world because he had a great analytical mind and would be able to put an aircraft through a throrough programme. When flying in a basic sim (a fixed cockpit with blacked out canopy, flying on instruments) and he'd be totally taken in by the simulation, despite having no motion or outside visual cues. In emergency sim runs he'd occasionally panic, even though nothing could happen to him.

In his case the sim was great for his development but he wasn't necessarily good to develop the sim or the aircraft via simulation.

#103 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 16:53

And sims need to be calibrated to the real world, so that will include the driver. 

 

Maybe within a really sorted car model having a top iRacer do it would help them fine tune setup and the wider context of whats needed would be handled by the engineers knowing what is/isn't needed further. 

 

But otherwise you'd just be optimising for the simulator, when the simulator is there to help optimise for the rear world. iRacing and etc is a self contained unit, the McLaren simulator is to prep for the meatspace. 


Edited by Ross Stonefeld, 12 February 2016 - 16:53.


#104 chunder27

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 17:29

I think you might eventually find that motorsport might be entirely sim based in many generations time. Meaning there will be no need for money or physical teams or headquarters, logistics in the same ways as there is now, you could basically be a Formula 1 driver living in a house in Luton if you could afford the kit needed to play the sims to the levels needed graphically or physically. You  might be employed by Ferrari or Red Bull, do all the PR from home, test, race, do everything virtually.

 

It is already starting to happen in sports like football  where top European teams now have their virtual counterparts and the same thing could happen in motorsport.  If F1 teams had any nous at all they would be pushing people like Iracing to develop a top level F1 sim or league that could sort of employ the best sim racers to compete against each other virtually, it could offer them and us amazing advances, but sadly it would be not be very exciting to watch or spectate! So people wouldn't be able to make as much money out of it as they do currently so it will hit many walls!

 

I am not talking about GT Academy that is nothing more than a marketing exercise for Polyphony, Sony and Nissan, anyone with that much time and training lavished on them with an interest in racing would be as good as the people who have won that series.

 

there is nothing to stop it, every reality will be able to be created virtually, either by using headsets or advanced seating and driving pods.



#105 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 17:52

I have no interest in watching online competitions. Of anything. 

 

Especially when they are things I could be taking part in myself? 



#106 noikeee

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 18:06

I agree it's hardly the same at all and I've got far less interest, but kids these days spend their days watching others game on Youtube and Twitch, so maybe the future generations won't find it weird.



#107 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 18:29

But presumably they also play those games?



#108 EightGear

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 18:49

I think you might eventually find that motorsport might be entirely sim based in many generations time. Meaning there will be no need for money or physical teams or headquarters, logistics in the same ways as there is now, you could basically be a Formula 1 driver living in a house in Luton if you could afford the kit needed to play the sims to the levels needed graphically or physically. You might be employed by Ferrari or Red Bull, do all the PR from home, test, race, do everything virtually.

It is already starting to happen in sports like football where top European teams now have their virtual counterparts and the same thing could happen in motorsport. If F1 teams had any nous at all they would be pushing people like Iracing to develop a top level F1 sim or league that could sort of employ the best sim racers to compete against each other virtually, it could offer them and us amazing advances, but sadly it would be not be very exciting to watch or spectate! So people wouldn't be able to make as much money out of it as they do currently so it will hit many walls!

I am not talking about GT Academy that is nothing more than a marketing exercise for Polyphony, Sony and Nissan, anyone with that much time and training lavished on them with an interest in racing would be as good as the people who have won that series.

there is nothing to stop it, every reality will be able to be created virtually, either by using headsets or advanced seating and driving pods.


There are simracing leagues which are considered to be the kind of 'F1' of simracing already. The iRacing world championship for example, but also Formula Simracing using rFactor2.

There even are (were?) officially sanctioned NASCAR and V8 Supercars championships on iRacing.

Personally I'm involved in the largest simracing community of my country and recently there have been good developments going on, including nice opportunities connecting simracing to real life events. Just last week the Dutch version of Motorsport.com stared broadcasting the Indycar series of our community, for example.

#109 ardbeg

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 19:28

I have no interest in watching online competitions. Of anything. 

 

Especially when they are things I could be taking part in myself? 

I used to say the same, but I admit watching quite a few races last year and considering that it is still early days I think that the experience of watching an online race is not so far off from watching the real thing.

Here, the race start at minute 40. I do not remember if it was a particularly good one, but Greger Huttu does not start from the pole so I can imagine there will be some action.

Try watching it, you might be surprised.

 

EDIT: Watch the Indycar race Radoye linked below, it is better


Edited by ardbeg, 12 February 2016 - 20:19.


#110 Radoye

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 19:32

There are simracing leagues which are considered to be the kind of 'F1' of simracing already. The iRacing world championship for example, but also Formula Simracing using rFactor2.

There even are (were?) officially sanctioned NASCAR and V8 Supercars championships on iRacing.

Personally I'm involved in the largest simracing community of my country and recently there have been good developments going on, including nice opportunities connecting simracing to real life events. Just last week the Dutch version of Motorsport.com stared broadcasting the Indycar series of our community, for example.

 

This year there was an officially sanctioned IndyCar sim racing championship, with real IndyCar drivers occasionally taking part.

 



#111 Juan Kerr

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Posted 12 February 2016 - 21:42

I used to say the same, but I admit watching quite a few races last year and considering that it is still early days I think that the experience of watching an online race is not so far off from watching the real thing.

Here, the race start at minute 40. I do not remember if it was a particularly good one, but Greger Huttu does not start from the pole so I can imagine there will be some action.

Try watching it, you might be surprised.

 

EDIT: Watch the Indycar race Radoye linked below, it is better

Nothing evolves properly without full-on human competition and at some point in the future the simulators will be near-perfect so however far they've already come is as important as the final developments because it's is part of the evolution.



#112 Kucki

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Posted 13 February 2016 - 02:34

iRacing posted a funny video of Rubens Barrichello pushing his sons car who ran out of fuel during a race.

https://youtu.be/gZopymnta8A

#113 scg92

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Posted 13 February 2016 - 02:41

I haven't been on this forum nearly as much as I used to, but it's great to see so many people talking positively about simracing and iRacing inparticular. A couple of posts above talk about the F1 series on iRacing, but there's now also a pro series for the GT3 team championship (largely 3 hour races with driver swaps) which is sponsored by Blancpain like the real European series. My team was one of 40 in the world to qualify for this series, so I'll be driving in it when it all kicks off in April. There's around $25K US in prizes in this championchip - not massive by any means compared to some other online games, but still pretty cool and this will surely continue to grow as more people see how serious and exciting the racing is.

 

There have been whispers that opportunities to get into real GT cars might arise from this series.... At the ripe old age of 23 I've probably missed the boat on getting an opportunity in the real world from it, but I know some seriously talented guys in their teens who could go somewhere. There were also some real life pros (including a Le Mans winner) competing in the qualification races for this series, and I drive regularly with guys like Shane van Gisbergan and Scott McLaughlan online.



#114 scg92

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Posted 05 March 2016 - 08:34

This is the first round of the iRacing WCS with the McLaren MP4-30.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=MtvYCfu8OOc



#115 MikeV1987

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Posted 05 March 2016 - 10:55

This is the first round of the iRacing WCS with the McLaren MP4-30.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=MtvYCfu8OOc

 

Awesome

 

I want this sim so bad



#116 Reemann

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Posted 05 March 2016 - 11:48

 

I am not talking about GT Academy that is nothing more than a marketing exercise for Polyphony, Sony and Nissan, anyone with that much time and training lavished on them with an interest in racing would be as good as the people who have won that series.

Really? What happens when the competition involves thousands such people?



#117 Seanspeed

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Posted 05 March 2016 - 16:36

Really? What happens when the competition involves thousands such people?

To be fair, those entrants were chosen *because* they were the top drivers in GT already.  And that does involve being better than thousands(hundreds of thousands) of others.  

 

My problem with looking at top sim racers is that like noikee says at the top of the page - getting to be the fastest 0.01%  in a certain sim often comes down to exploiting the game's 'unrealistic' aspects in order to find time.  Especially in something like GT, which is quite a bit more forgiving than some of the more dedicated sims you see on PC.  I've watched plenty of top GT guys drive and often, they are doing some pretty ridiculous things, not in a 'wow awesome' ridiculous way, but in a 'ok that would never be possible in real life' kind of way.  They're still incredibly skilled at what they're doing and to be fair, that's kind of what being fast is all about - pushing to the limits of what you are given - but it's not necessarily teaching good real life skills at that point.  



#118 superden

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Posted 05 March 2016 - 17:46

I like playing sim-racing games at home or online but I cannot imagine anything more boring, or less rewarding than watching other people play them. However you market it, it's not real. Part of the joy of motorsport is just how visceral it can be and 'virtual' racing competitions just do nothing for me at all, they just leave me cold and utterly disinterested.

But hey, maybe it's just my age.

:lol:

Edited by superden, 05 March 2016 - 17:51.


#119 chunder27

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Posted 06 March 2016 - 10:58

Sean is absolutely right.

 

I bought Dirt Rally the other month, a fairly realistic rally sim. You have daily events there, and I was finding myself that if I did a ton of practice over a stage and go the point where I knew the stage like a track, I might be say within 10 seconds of the top guys times.

 

Then I watched their laps, they were cutting corners, using cheats, using driver aids etc.

 

I do not profess to be quicker than anyone, but the way I play games is the way I watch films, I immerse myself in the whole deal and try and make it is real as possible, so if there is tape somewhere I do not cut through it, if there is a cut I will take it a bit, not go up a gear and drive over 100 metres of grass flat out (meaning I would have had to practice doing that tens of times to get it fast and right).

 

Gaming is about very different things to driving fast in real life on a track. Doing these things for real would mean certain multiple accidents and injury.

 

Winning a sim competition is about cheating fairly. Winning GT Academy is about that and also your overall profile, Mardenborough was by no means the quickest in his year, but he fitted a profile that suited the sponsors, you have a monumental catchment of possibles If you do what Nissan and Sony do, it's a very clever marketing angle.

 

Promote the kid with nothing, spend tens of thousands on training him, getting him fit. You could do the same with literally thousands of kids and get identical results, it's like being recruited for the military!! Train them and they will be killers, leave them and they might be, but you will never know what they do in tight situations!

 

As the two guys above have said, watching it is like watching paint dry, or watching Formula E!  But there will come a time I think when F1 teams and others will ahve sim teams and departments.

 

Iracing is a magnificent game, but it costs a lot of money to play it properly and is heavily geared a lot of the time to US racing, which I find utterly dull to watch, but OK to drive in.

 

There have been many instances where top sim guys have been put in race cars, notably Huttu who the coaches could tell was quick, he knew what to do, but he got car sick!  That happened to me in a race car too, so imagine how many drivers could be out there if they conquered that rather limiting ailment, bleieve me it sucks more ass than you can imagine!



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#120 PayasYouRace

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Posted 06 March 2016 - 21:42

I'd rather watch a guy like Dan Nerd3 play a sim than the actual "pros".

 

 

Warning, some NSFW language!



#121 Maxioos

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Posted 11 January 2019 - 20:35

Max has done some hours Sim racing past weeks.

 

 

He made new World record. 

 

Smoooooothhhly does it check out  Max Verstappen F3 World Record at Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval in iRacing 

 

https://www.facebook...00356494038710/

 

 

And, was training his anger management. Could use some fine tuning......

 

https://clips.twitch...lyHareAllenHuhu


Edited by Maxioos, 11 January 2019 - 20:37.