Or maybe that actually made him the perfect specimen.
Or maybe that actually made him the perfect specimen.
My coach used to teach in Formula 1 and he likes the way I do Laguna.
I am in no doubt sims are brilliant as a tool for learning. They clearly helped huttu. But let's get something straight here - the kid didn't break any lap records, and it's still a complete unknown whether he would be able to hack it anyway.
What I don't like about sims is they paint a mental picture of a circuit in your brain, and for me anyway, it creates a false foundation for learning a track. I don't want to be reverting to the virtual circuit in my brain at any point. I don't want my brain processing "oh that was similar" "that was a bit different!". It's a waste of time and brain power. All my knowledge of a track, the real nitty gritty, has to come from reality. It's a much more secure basis for future development, for me anyway.
Sims should be about building things in the brain that can be reverted to without having to process and correct information. for example how to approach learning a track, or how do deal with racing situations.
Look MadCat, it doesn't really bother me who your coach is. I've sat through speeches from F1 coaches which I totally disagree with. I am pretty sure he hasn't seen Hamilton, Alonso, or Vettel take T6 in a Skippy.
Sims are way way way way way too simple to yet accurately replicate the infinite complexity of the world we live in.
But as i said, what works for you, works for you.
I think racing sims teach a lot of things about racing most people here take granted. Stuff about racing line, basic setup principles, racecraft. How the car handles and what happens during braking, acceleration and cornering. Just by looking at the car you can kind of predict how it will handle. Like how you can drive a fwd car into the corner compared to rwd and how mid engine cars are more agile and so forth.
Stuff about traction circles and how to approach the limit and predict how things happen if you have not yet developed feel for the car. And more complex stuff like telemetry is exactly the same on software level. Add things like coping with excitement and other mental aspects are also similar enough to be helpful. Physically it is of course totally different and money investment also kind of forces a different approach to it. Among other things you may have got used to when sim racing that aren't there in the real car.
Also with limited track time all the stuff you can learn from the track is valuable and driving the track in sim certainly helps getting up to speed. The shifting points, brake points and line does not need to be the same but most of the time similar things happen both in sim and in real life when you go too far off from the ideal line for example.
There is lot of information in sim racing about racing stuff that is really hard to learn otherwise. Learning it on real track surely isn't the cheapest option. Reading it from a book is not the best way to do it either imho.
I have no idea how much it actually helps to have the tracks laser scanned but sim racing definitely does help. Sim racing does not probably make you ultimately faster in real life but it can help reaching your full potential faster and generally make make it a lot easier to learn new things. Sim racing definitely helps with the learning curve.
Stuff about traction circles and how to approach the limit and predict how things happen if you have not yet developed feel for the car. And more complex stuff like telemetry is exactly the same on software level. Add things like coping with excitement and other mental aspects are also similar enough to be helpful. Physically it is of course totally different and money investment also kind of forces a different approach to it. Among other things you may have got used to when sim racing that aren't there in the real car.
Also with limited track time all the stuff you can learn from the track is valuable and driving the track in sim certainly helps getting up to speed. The shifting points, brake points and line does not need to be the same but most of the time similar things happen both in sim and in real life when you go too far off from the ideal line for example.
There is lot of information in sim racing about racing stuff that is really hard to learn otherwise. Learning it on real track surely isn't the cheapest option. Reading it from a book is not the best way to do it either imho.
I have no idea how much it actually helps to have the tracks laser scanned but sim racing definitely does help. Sim racing does not probably make you ultimately faster in real life but it can help reaching your full potential faster and generally make make it a lot easier to learn new things. Sim racing definitely helps with the learning curve.
I have done two track days with my car at Watkins Glen in the past year and a half or so, and this past time my instructor was specifically telling me how shocked she was that I had only been on a real race track once before that time. Sims are not perfect in the physics department, but I knew exactly where I wanted my car to be at all times on the track and I was able to put it there. She also commented that I did a good job of staying on my own line through turns and not following the car in front of me when they would take a different(and usually wrong) line, this is something I think I definitely learned from sim racing without even really thinking about it.
Just to comment on something Intrepid said, I'm sure everyone's brains work differently, but at no time on the real track was I thinking to myself what was different being there in real life as opposed to the sim. I just don't see how that would ever even cross my mind, there's too much else going on to be thinking about a video game. In fact, I mostly learned stuff about the line at Watkins Glen in real life from the instructors that I take back to iRacing when I'm running laps in the sim.
Just to comment on something Intrepid said, I'm sure everyone's brains work differently, but at no time on the real track was I thinking to myself what was different being there in real life as opposed to the sim. I just don't see how that would ever even cross my mind, there's too much else going on to be thinking about a video game. In fact, I mostly learned stuff about the line at Watkins Glen in real life from the instructors that I take back to iRacing when I'm running laps in the sim.
A sim doesn't have to be all that accurate to be useful as the human brain has an amazing capacity to effortlessly fill in the gaps. If that were not true why would a driver waste their time visualising a lap prior to going out and doing a qualify run.
100% accuracy doesn't matter creating strong muscle memory interactions does and that doesn't have to be all by physical laps on a track it can be by visulisation or other techniques.
Although sims have a way to go and will not likely reach the level of realism I'd like to see any time soon I don't think they are all that far away from being a valuable tool to a professional driver and I can see it as being a more interactive version of visulisation in the not too distant future if not already.
100% accuracy doesn't matter creating strong muscle memory interactions does and that doesn't have to be all by physical laps on a track it can be by visulisation or other techniques.
Although sims have a way to go and will not likely reach the level of realism I'd like to see any time soon I don't think they are all that far away from being a valuable tool to a professional driver and I can see it as being a more interactive version of visulisation in the not too distant future if not already.
Track days is a world away from high level competition racing. What you're describing is very general techniques like lines and so on.
I am talking about learning a track to world-class detail. No sim is good enough for that, especially iRacing. It was it was then they would be selling it for a whole lot more to some F1 team.
You don't need to know EVERY particle of asphalt to 'know' or even be quick at a real track.
Having seen the notes from the leading bike riders from the 500 era I suggest the best ones knew every particle of asphalt.
As soon as you know what techniques to implement at corners to make yourself go noticeably faster in-sim you can then convert that over to real life... after that, the extra few seconds or tenths you need to be really fast is all down to what you learn at the track in person and wont be able to be learned in any sim...
That's going to be my input on the matter anyway
That's going to be my input on the matter anyway
A very good summary.
Sims, no matter how good (including F1 level simulators) will only teach you how to be quick in a quite general way - how to attack certain types of corner, or how to cope with camber and crests, or the use of kerbs. But the last few seconds or tenths (depending on the skill of the driver) have to be found solely at the circuit in reality, even if you've done 1000 simulated laps.
A sim is a fantastic tool, but it has limitations and those need to be realised to make best use of them. You can learn an awful lot in 1000 laps that will help all manner of aspects of your driving, but it won't help you do a perfect qualifying lap on your first flying lap of a weekend.
Good stuff.
As tristan said, sim's are good as a general rule to learn a track but there's nothing like actually getting track time. Too much simulation on general sims draws bad habits such as over turning the wheel, which is a common fault of sim racers.
However, as many have found out, having an accurate laser scanned track to get the correct idea of a track layout is a hell of a lot better than a non-scanned track!
However, as many have found out, having an accurate laser scanned track to get the correct idea of a track layout is a hell of a lot better than a non-scanned track!
Andy, as you know best, Wyatt Gooden is the best example of how sim racing helps speed up the process of adapting to a real car. 
Except didn't Wyatt race go karts before he started sim racing anyway?
A former professional drivers take on sim racing/iracing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azJFt-5ssmA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azJFt-5ssmA
... iRacing didn´t speed up his career because he raced go karts before simracing?
For something like 10 years.
The $45,000 he got for winning that championship is probably the biggest boost to his career in cars, I'd say.
No one claimed that it could. Sims only accelerate the learning process (at current), as you said. I think we're arguing about how much, and in what areas.
Ultimately your and Intrepid's arguments have a fatal contradiction - you assert that the simulator needs more accuracy, yet you claim laser scanning is useless, even though it is very clearly a more accurate technique than recreating a track from pictures.
I think we'd all agree that the more accurate the simulation (in both user-end feel and technical accuracy of the simulation aspects itself), the more useful it is to the driver, correct?
The brain trying to figure out what is similar and what is different is specifically the reason why I use sims in the off-season. It causes me to recall what is correct about the car or track or whatever the situation is. That helps keep me sharp.
When I'm on-track doing a private test day, while I'm trundling down the straight, I'm already thinking about what can be done differently in the corner I just exited. If I use a simulator's starting point, if I find that it's not working for me, then I think about what the differences are and alter it in my mental programming. In iRacing, it's usually subtler things, like the alignment of the car. In Gran Turismo it's big things, like the camber characteristic in turn 9 being way off. I don't use my practice laps at Infineon in the Solstice for reference in my Miata at turn 8, for instance, because the car in iRacing behaves really differently in there and the line and pedal inputs are totally different. But I do use it for referencing turn 2 because the line and pedal inputs are very similar.
The brain is really good at doing this, especially when practiced and especially when it has lots of experience to draw upon. The run down to the next corner, even in an F1 car or a fast kart where the straights can be as short as a couple of seconds, is plenty of time to get everything analyzed and reprogrammed, even when drawing upon decades of experience in a vast array of cars and tracks. Tachypsychia is a scary thing for some people, but not for drivers - it's dead useful.
Ha! I just got a promo code for a 1 year renewal for only 49 dlls. Gotta give it a try!!
No big deal i got one to. Does anyone know if they still do the rebate for members who have continuous memb?
Don't be ridiculous, full price all the way unless you've left.
Have fun boys.
Hmmm, the Rad at Oulton is fun but not too sure on the fixed setup.
The Lotus 79 is at Oulton next week and it's probably the most fun combo I've ever tried on iRacing. The 79 feels great after it's update, I'm glad it's not on the NTM.
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