Just a curious thought.

With our current technology and with sims getting more realistic each year. Would sim racing (Live for Speed, iRacing, NASCAR 2003, RBR, w/e) be adequate in preparing someone for real life racing.

Can racing in a high powered car in Live for Speed ever be a replacement for kart experience?

Going on with this thought. Would sucking in a sim mean that you have no talent for racing, just like sucking badly in karting would probably mean you have no future in motorsports?

Again, just wanted some thoughts on whether sims would be a valid tool to train and prepare someone for jumping into motorsports in real life.

Sims can already teach racecraft and any serious racing driver should in my opinion spend some free time league racing to nourish extra skill with dogfighting other cars.

They could and should, in time when sims are a bit more advanced than they are now, give drivers more knowledge of how to adapt to changing environmental conditions. They can help now in understanding the very basics of car setup by giving some tangeable experience to "what does setting my rear anti-roll bar really tight actually do?" and the like

Sims will never teach you how to take a particular corner perfectly on a given track. In this regard karting is not a necessary step now, it's my view that karting and good quality sim racing teach a lot of the same things right now, and the bits sims dont teach can be skipped by going straight to cars. It never was necessary to be a good kart racer to be a good car racer.

However, outright performance in a sim is no indication of real on track performance, or vice versa. Personally i'm not actually that good at LFS but i'm pretty handy in a go kart. When I was 'on top of my game' with LFS I was reasonable and could place highly in the leagues I entered - but never was a winner, and the edge has gone with my lack of practice. With the real thing I never seem to loose it to quite the same extent and get back on top much quicker.

I think this is because in sim racing the constantly fixed environmental conditions allow "the perfect lap" to be quite repeatable, making some people with skills to suite to go really fast in an unrealistic sense, the cue's to give particular driver inputs are the same each lap, and in real racing this is never the case, every lap feels unique and you physically feel different each lap.

Even if there was a 100% realistic sim, as in complete and accurate modelling of all car components, physics and track properties, you'd still be sitting in front of a 2D monitor in your comfy chair, using a (relatively speaking) cheap hunk of plastic that calls itself force feedback wheel. So the answer is: no.

Of course you can always ramp up your surroundings to be closer to reality, build an actually good wheel + pedals (technically probably the easiest part to get right if you're dedicated), add 360° projectors around your car frame combined with some magic trickery to make it look 3D, etc. etc.

But even if you go to such great lengths, it wouldn't be like the real thing. A really important factor in real racing are the forces acting on you, and there simply is no technical solution for that. Current "personal" motion simulators are, to put it bluntly, a joke. And at that point it's already much cheaper to just go race in a real car.


From a technique standpoint, a simulator may give you a slight advantage, because you can freely find out what a car will do in what situation without actually risking your life. Assuming a completely accurate simulation, you can test out what will work and what won't, see which lines work better and what driving style is required to preserve your car, all without actually spending more than what's on your electrical bill. Not to forget the racecraft aspect (how to behave around other cars), which is probably one of the bigger things you can learn from a sim.

But you have to keep in mind that all that knowledge is highly theoretical and the missing forces are a huge disadvantage in regard to driving fast. Sure you can learn to feel/predict the sim and drive insanely fast in it, but that's a completely different way of driving than the real thing, where you can actually physically feel the car with your whole body and become one with it. Having to rely on visual and audio cues only makes it a lot more difficult to sense certain things in the sim, like for example when the car starts to oversteer - any mechanical cues from the FF wheel come far later than you'd feel in a real car. The second you drive in a real car you also throw out your way you drive in the sim completely, simply because the input is vastly different.


tl;dr: sims can give you a slight advantage in some aspects, but it will never replace actual driving experience.

If you have no experience in any form of motorsport of any kind, then yes, sims are beneficial. If I hadn't ben playing GT and Forza for a couple years before I started racing school I would've been hopeless. I think they helped a lot. They allowed me to understand what my instructor was telling me.

Once you've been racing for a while, it kinda falls off. I can see the usefulness of sims for learning the basic idea of new tracks, and to some extent fitness (some of the bigger professional rigs give your arms a good enough workout), but you won't learn anything on 'em from a purely driving perspective. That said, it's better than doing nothing.

If you're looking for something to prepare you for the track, then iRacing is probably the best bet, followed closely by LFS. I suggest iRacing because it has the most accurate tracks and you will probably find the one that you will be driving. IMO this is the biggest benefit a sim can offer.

Quote :

. I suggest iRacing because it has the most accurate tracks and you will probably find the one that you will be driving

iRacing's content is extremely US centric though, so for a lot of us here this benefit is lost.

Although really, beyond 10 laps in a sim and you've learned as much as is useful to learn regarding layout / corner gear.

Yes, very usefel. Actually, I'd say necessary.

But not for learning tracks or cars.

Quote from tristancliffe :

yes, very usefel. Actually, i'd say necessary.

But not for learning tracks or cars.

+1

I think racing sims teach you little about car control, seeing as every car is different and virtual cars rarely match their real life counterparts very accurately. This would explain why I'm a much more successful sim racer than real racer, although practise time plys a part as I've been sim racing for about 11 years and racing for only 3.

However what sims do teach you is racecraft, especially LFS, with its stable online code which allows wheel to wheel racing, it really is very relevant to real life, LFS taught me how to drive side by side with other cars for half a lap without touching.

Quote from Becky Rose :

In this regard karting is not a necessary step now

I agree with you there, but I'm wondering how long it will take Intrepid to make a post explaining how karting is the most important thing in the world.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

I agree with you there, but I'm wondering how long it will take Intrepid to make a post explaining how karting is the most important thing in the world.

The tragedy about karting is that so many people tell karters when they step into cars "forget everything you learned in karting". Big mistake! They end up being slow and cautious, forgetting the basic principles of tire grip and brake control that they learned in karts. When I first went to Skip Barber, to do a high performance driving school, they embraced my karting experience and helped me learn the not-so-great differences between a car and a kart, and I was instantly fast in road cars. I'm sure that experience will benefit me greatly again when I go back for a 3-day Formula school.

Karting is important, but not essential. I think every driver should get karting experience. It's not necessary to be the best karter ever, or even in your series - it's about perspective, and learning to use a specific item of the car in the way it is intended. It is a pure form of learning. You don't learn how to walk, then how to crawl.

Besides, you can start karting as early as you want, but you generally can't start racing cars until you're 14 or 15. That's a big head start if you start karting at 8!

ffs here I go AGAIN

There is an arguement driving karts from an early age were better able to drive with higher forces at an older age. Williams did this test a few years back. Don't know the details but the results found guys that had raced karts had a better sense of yaw, rotation, and g-force (than even RAF pilots). Add that to the intense competition of top flight karting, and team communication development means if you want to race F1 you need these level of skills.

Button/Kimi/Alonso/Hamilton/Schumacher all came through that system. the results speak for themselves.

In regards top sims - Simulations act as a good supplement, but not replacement. If you know how to use them corrcetly they are fantastic. however use them incorrectly and they can have the complete opposite results.

obviously if you do something from an early age your brain will get much more adapted to dealing with whatever is nescessary to do it successfully
by the same logic skipping karts entirely and going into cars with proper suspensions and all that other rubbish right away (at the same early age) would make a better driver than one who started with pedal karts

Quote from Shotglass :

would make a better driver than one who started with pedal karts

You don't have to start young to be fast, you just get less time to rise up the ladder if you don't is all.

Sure you could argue if a good driver started younger they'd be even better, but the difference isn't so great that it is necessary.

I've seen plenty of late starters in karts handing it to folk who'd grown up through the ranks. *shrug* Starting age isn't everything.

well that might just be a case of naturally talented people who only get the money to race later in life vs rich kids with zero talent worth mentioning

im pretty sure though that a kid that starts out young enough to catch the brain while its still busy builing completely new networks from scatch will end up being much more adept to handling the additional workload of say a f1 steering wheels buttons

Quote from Becky Rose :

I've seen plenty of late starters in karts handing it to folk who'd grown up through the ranks. *shrug* Starting age isn't everything.

Senna, Hamilton, Kimi, Alonso, Schumacher all started young... so if you want to be an F1 champion in the modern era then yes it is everything. F1 teams are increasingly keep an eye on Cadet karters even to lead one team to have a policy not to hire drivers who hadn't started from a very early age thought if a driver is bring a lot of cash I imagine it would be a flexible policy

However we are talking F1 here not generally. No you don't have to start young, not at all, but in terms of elite elite motorsport you really are up against it.

But this is about sims. With better and mroe available technology sims will become increasingly important.

Quote from Intrepid :

However we are talking F1 here not generally. No you don't have to start young, not at all, but in terms of elite elite motorsport you really are up against it.

The passion has to be there. I can only speak for myself, I saw my first GP at 9 and havnt missed one since (although incidentally I wouldve missed 1 if it wasnt for your much hated BBC iPlayer).

I started in karts once I was earning enough money to pay my own way in my late teens, I came second in my first club race, won my maiden championship and never placed outside the top 5 or 6 that I can recall unless something broke. I was good in a kart, a natural, because the passion was there almost as soon as I was big enough to go in the big swimming pool without all the kiddy wee in.

Now i'm not comparing myself to any all time great F1 drivers (unless you want to put some of the F1 drivers i've beaten onto your list in which case I will) all i'm saying is that an early start in karting really doesn't make much difference. If the love is there then what is lost by not having a silver spoon is made up with by knowledge and an intimate understanding of racing and the dynamic of motorsport.

Obviously I didnt go all the way, and many drivers more talented than me didn't either, but that's not the point i'm making. At the top flight of motorsports every driver is unique. There is no upper cap of overall driver skill, it doesnt go from 0% to 100% with all the top drivers scoring near 100% because at the very top the disparity in relative performance of the drivers is just as great at the junior levels - everyone is unique, and everyone has a different story.

Until I was in my late teens the best most real life relative experience I had of driving a race car was Geoff Crammonds Formula 1 Grand Prix on the Amiga, and if little me could whip those veteran asses from day 1, i'm pretty sure an all time great F1 driver would have irrespective of whether they started in karting at an early age or not.

Sure starting in karts early isn't a bad thing, but all i'm saying is what is being learned is no more useful than just having a truely deep passion for the sport. I lived for the day I could get into a race car and have a go, it's what I dreamt of at night as a young'un. I didn't need to actually get in a go kart, I needed to want too - and that gave me all the motivation necessary to learn everything that I could, and I do not believe my case is unique.

It just makes more sense to invest money and effort into younger drivers because they will be able to stay in the sport longer. But Bruno Senna could be on the grid next year, and he started his motorsport career quite late, and Damon Hill started really late.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

It just makes more sense to invest money and effort into younger drivers because they will be able to stay in the sport longer. But Bruno Senna could be on the grid next year, and he started his motorsport career quite late, and Damon Hill started really late.

He didn't race karts after the age of 10, but he spent plenty of time driving and racing them with one of the best karters/F1 drivers of all time there for constant coaching and advice.

I am half sure he did some ICA stuff before he entered some car series but not 100% sure

However using Bruno Senna, and Damon Hill as examples is misleading (look at their surnames)

Quote from Intrepid :

However using Bruno Senna, and Damon Hill as examples is misleading (look at their surnames)

Yes and no, racing talent IS hereditary: If the child inherits the parents passion, then they learn from a young age whether they are racing or not.

more than that a good name will get you high in motorsports no matter how crap you are

real life and computers will never be equal, real life rules, computers are just a guesstimate.

for a race driver a sim can aid in tecneque but will Never peplace real driving. you don't get that rush of cold air or the smell of petrol or the sence of doom when your heading into a wall

Quote from Shotglass :

obviously if you do something from an early age your brain will get much more adapted to dealing with whatever is nescessary to do it successfully
by the same logic skipping karts entirely and going into cars with proper suspensions and all that other rubbish right away (at the same early age) would make a better driver than one who started with pedal karts

Well, for one, you can't do that - I know of no country that lets pre-teens drive race cars (even a few states in the US go so far as to ban anyone under 18 from driving race cars, it causes problems in Indy Lights and Star Mzda, etc).

And two, lots of people are recommending to me that I don't start racing GT cars right off the bat - I should get experience in Formula cars first. The reasoning being, a Formula car driver can drive anything (and numerous examples of F1 and IndyCar drivers moving to tin tops proves that), but someone whose raced tin tops all his life will not find it an easy transition to go to Formula cars. Obviously it's not a hard and fast rule, but as a general idea it seems to hold. So on that basis, since karts are so twitchy and hard to control on the limit, it's good training for any kind of driving, suspension or no. There's also some evidence that motocross racers have something extra in the car control toolbox, as well. Probably something to do with balance.

But, in my own experience, having a breadth of knowledge and experience helps, period. Driving road cars offered revelations about karting, and driving karts offered revelations about road cars. I'm sure getting some Formula (F2000 or F3) experience will have similar results. It's probably in my, and every other young driver's best interest to drive everything you can.

Sims probably fit in there somewhere, too.

I love this topic.

Quote from lizardfolk :

Again, just wanted some thoughts on whether sims would be a valid tool to train and prepare someone for jumping into motorsports in real life.

At an amateur or hobbyist level, yes I would think so. To be driving at a "reasonable" pace online in a sim like LFS enforces a base level of competency. These are high level concepts (line, apexes, braking points, balance, oversteer, understeer) that are more mental than anything else and should carry over intact to the real world. So once you get out there you at least know what you should be doing in the car. Getting fast is another matter...

....so... for a hobbyist like myself (trackdays), can sims help learn how to find speed? Perhaps maybe. Learning the characteristics of the car and track to find the line through consecutive corners, find the braking points, find how to keep momentum, find how soon you can get on the gas, and hopefully find some speed.

Because you're on your own. You don't have telemetry. You don't get to watch the alien replay from an onboard. It's up to you to drive your own car, and instead of merely memorizing what other people are doing, a SIM could teach you the process of finding that out yourself for your own equipment.

FFS, I've seen some people out there that really don't know what the frack they're doing. Those people could really use some SIM time.

Quote from Shotglass :

more than that a good name will get you high in motorsports no matter how crap you are

loléd at this

IMO sims can help to understand the behavior of a car. I dont think you can learn to catch a oversteering car without real driving experience but maybe you imagine what happens when you take a corner too fast or brutal hit the brakes and so on..