GSRH

News

Progress of Sim Racing As A Strategic Racing Team Advantage

Progress of SIM Racing As A Strategic Racing Team Advantage Showing my age now: I remember when this was a HUGE step forward in computer-based video games, an early form of POV style: This was “Pole Position” released in 1982 which became one of the most popular and successful arcade games in the world and was ported to a PC platform. Let’s see, 1982. What did a Formula 1 car look like in that year? How things have evolved I have had a technology-related career for most of my life and was fortunate to be at the forefront of the introduction of desktop computing – a PC on every desk; once upon a time, I was the person who put them there and kept them going. And from a time when you could pretty much know everything about a computer, to today when entire careers focus on one niche segment of high tech, so too has the use of computing in physical motorsport rapidly advanced and continues to accelerate. Far from playing computer games, today’s racing simulators are a critical competitive advantage with a direct impact on race-winning engineering decisions and driving tactics. Those drivers who until quite recently in some cases, dismissed sims as being too artificial, are now turning to them to find lost tenths, practice overtaking moves, and familiarise themselves with new track layouts. A very prominent example of the realization that sim racing has a credible, even crucial part to play in driving a physical car, is seven-time F1 World Drivers Champion Lewis Hamilton. Before the Styrian Grand Prix in 2021, trailing his Red Bull rival Max Verstappen in the driver’s championship, Hamilton made a number of visits to the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 factory in Brackley (12 minutes from where I am writing this) to help engineers accelerate car setup for the race. Hamilton said: “I think just really, you know, particularly after the last few difficult races we’ve had, I just went in to try and see if there's any way I could try and help the team just be better prepared.” We will come back to Verstappen. Anyone who has an interest in sim racing and a Twitch account will almost certainly have come across the smiling Lando Norris who seems equally at home racing physically or virtually. In many ways, Norris has become recognized as the benchmark for today’s crossworld racers and is credited with matching the performance of his then McLaren teammate Carlos Sainz, and even improving the design of the 2020 McLaren F1 car based on all his sim work. Norris’s sim setup is a £30,000 investment with Cool Performance supplying the complete setup. From a steering wheel that closely matches that of many F1 cars to the fully hydraulic pedals, every component of Norris’s rig was selected to offer him the best racing performance, as well as being far closer to the real-world racing experience. Norris’s preferred sim game is iRacing. Sim racing can give the stars of tomorrow a distinct advantage. Traditionally the route up the ladder to professional international motorsport started with karting. Lando was no different. But before he was a teenager he was able to supplement physical karting experience with an early sim rig, all manufactured by Logitech which, at the time, was primarily a steering wheel and pedals attached to an appropriate PC. And over the many years that Norris has competed in sim racing events, he has had the opportunity to develop a deep understanding of every track he has raced on – optimal lines; overtaking options; parts of the track where one car has an advantage over another. The opportunity to spend as much time as he likes on many of these tracks makes those tracks part of his subconscious thinking. I have no doubt he reacts to circumstances and situations on track almost instinctively, not pausing for a nano-second to consider options and consequences. And let’s consider another reality. Driving a real-world car on a physical track means that the only way you are going to find the limit is to risk putting that car in to the gravel, tyres or wall; all undesirable, time-consuming, and potentially costly. So imagine being able to find the limit with none of those constraints. You crash in the sim world? No problem. Start your run again. You can go off at the same corner time and time again until you establish the perfect path. Then you can practice that perfect path until it is a part of who you are. And then you can take it to the track. No late night rebuilds by the mechanics. No awkward conversations with sponsors to pay for a new body part. No embarrassing TV interviews. Now let’s talk about Anthony Davidson. Does anyone here watch Sky F1? Was that a silly question? Anthony is a Sky F1 commentator and analyst. I came across Anthony many times while covering the 24H of Le Mans when he was driving for Toyota and Jota Sport. Anthony is also a development driver for the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, working on their simulator program. https://fb.watch/c5L_RS8J9r/ Ahead of the 2022 F1 season, with all new cars coming to the grid, sim work was a massive part of car development. And two races in to the season, with Mercedes trailing Red Bull and Ferrari, sim work is even more important, allowing engineers to test new components that they believe will make the car faster, before committing to manufacturing, shipping, fitting, testing, and racing. Let’s also realize that sim-world/real-world is a two-way street. Not only do teams and drivers benefit from sim testing for real world racing. Real world data is vital for sim racing and testing. This year’s 18 inch wheels in F1 were tested extensively in sim environments thanks to mule car laps over the past 12 – 18 months. It is no longer “either/or.” One is mutually dependent on the other. And then COVID stepped in and offered another viewpoint. In 2020 when things got majorly messed up, the super smart and entrepreneurial people at the Automobile Club l’Ouest (ACO), organizers of the 24H of Le Mans, decided that a global pandemic was not going to stop them racing. And so the first Virtual Le Mans was hosted, and the outcome exceeded all expectations. Gerard Neveu, who, at the time, was CEO of the World Endurance Championship, led the building of the team that created, promoted and hosted the Virtual 24H of Le Mans which featured 200 drivers competing across 170 simulators. Among the drivers taking part were Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, Pierre Gasly and, of course, Lando Norris. The Le Mans-winning Toyota team competed alongside American giants Team Penske. The race was won by Rebellion Williams Esports on the rFactor 2 platform. Sure there were some problems, but for such a huge event, with so many dependencies, many of which were outside the control of participants, it was a massive success, 14 million view online, and was even recognised with the Leaders Sports Award for Live Experience at the end of 2020. One of the teams competing was WEC and Le Mans regular, Jota Sport. I went along to their factory before the virtual event, to understand more about their motivation for taking part in the online race. I was amazed at the huge investment they made in their simulator room. The team was kind enough to boot up a Le Mans sim for my visit, and one of their senior engineers took the car out for several laps, something that had not even crossed my mind that teams can do. And in speaking to the Jota Team about their involvement, they explained to me that the virtual event was actually very good practice for the real world Le Mans, scheduled for September 2020. The experience, the data points, the performance of other teams that Jota could track on screen, all provided very valuable information that, interpreted correctly, could offer a competitive advantage. And they could also test different scenarios that inevitably occur at huge events such as Le Mans: low fuel; accident at the far side of the track; mixed weather conditions; even a view of the pace of each driver that made up the three-driver team, and how best to take advantage of that pace during different times in the race. All rehearsed, all data stored away for the physical September race. Now let’s get back to Mr. Verstappen. Who knows the Blanchimont corner at Spa? Let’s face it. Blanchimont is barely a corner. Hamilton described it as “too fast to keep DRS open.” That’s fast. A left-hander towards the end of the lap, Blanchimont is not for the feint-hearted, and yet Max pulled off what is considered one of the greatest overtaking moves in F1 history when he stood his ground, in his Toro Rosso, alongside Felipe Nasr’s Sauber. The crowds rose to their feet. The commentators yelled into their microphones. TV watchers leapt out of their sofas. And what few, if any, realised, is that this was not the first time Max had made such an overtake around Blanchimont. As part of his work with sim racing’s Team Redline, Max had made almost exactly the same move just one week earlier during an iRacing event, this time against sim racing expert Atze Kerhof. This was essential for Max’s psyche. He knew it could be done. And with Max having spent so many of his formative years in a sim rig, he has a huge amount of faith and experience in translating the sim experience to real world interaction. There is no doubt that Max’s knowledge that the overtake at Blanchimont could be achieved in a sim environment translated to his subconscious belief that it could be done in the real world. And the results proved he was correct. There can be no doubt that sim racing and real world racing are no longer “us and them.” They co-exist. There is a symbiotic relationship between them. The two worlds are becoming one. The race, now, is for those drivers and teams to best embrace this symbiosis. The closer they can get to replicating real world racing in an office building, especially with limitations on real-world testing, the greater their competitive advantage will be. I have no doubt that investments in graphics, artificial intelligence and machine learning along with haptics and haptic feedback, are all on the shopping lists, or in the secret labs of top flight racing teams. Sim? Real world? Who cares?

SUZUKA WIN PUTS SIMONCIC ON BRINK OF FORMULA SIM WORLD TITLE

The Formula SimRacing drivers’ championship title is edging closer to the double world champion, Burst Esport's Jernej Simoncic after the 10th round around Suzuka. To find out how it went, go to The-Race.com and check out their race review. https://the-race.com/gaming/simoncic-on-brink-of-formula-sim-world-title-after-suzuka-win/

Huis claims comfortable victory in inaugural Formula Pro Series race

The first round of the brand new Formula Pro Series on rFactor 2 provided tons of action around Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Take a look over at Traxion.gg to read more and make sure to watch future rounds her on GSRH.gg. Read more here: https://traxion.gg/huis-claims-comfortable-victory-in-inaugural-formula-pro-series-race/

Introducing the Formula Series 2021

Drivers and teams, get ready for the Formula Pro and Formula Challenge series! Just like the GT Series, this will become a recurring rFactor 2 series. The best teams will compete for the title in Formula Pro, with over $25,000 in prize money! Formula Challenge is the place to hone your skills, rise to the top and claim a seat in Formula Pro Season 2! Read more about the competions here: https://www.studio-397.com/rfactor2-formula-series-2021/

Released | Sebring International Raceway Graphical Overhaul and PBR Update

Jump in and read the latest update from Studio 397 here: https://www.studio-397.com/category/news/

rFactor 2 Competition System beta has been released!

The sim racing community got an early Christmas present from Studio 397 who is the developer of rFactor 2 when the long awaited competition system got released in a public beta version. In the summer of 2020, the managing director of Studio 397 Marcel Offermans sat down with us to talk about the journey rFactor 2 has been on since they took over from Image Space Incorporated in 2016, and one of the topics he spoke about was the competition system and the new user interface. The UI has been in beta for quite a while, but with the release of the competition system, it has become the default UI that we will see from now on. So what is the competition system? It’s rFactor 2’s answer to a matchmaking system where you anytime a day can race against fellow sim racers from around the world. At the moment, there’s two series’ to participate in with the Tatuus Winter Series and the GTE Winter Series. Well over 1500 have so far been registered as participants in the two series’ combined. The Competition system is still in beta, so stuff like Rating and live stewarding will be added in the near coming future. Here’s Marcel Offermans vie on the first couple of weeks of the competition system: “So far we have been very happy. In this test phase we are literally looking at achieving certain test goals, like making sure all parts of the infrastructure work together nicely, before we end up adding more features and competitions to the system. We're continuously updating the system and getting good community feedback on what people want.” To stay up to date with the development of rFactor 2 and their competition system, go to Studio 397’s website and visit our forum to tell what you think of the competition system. https://www.gsrh.gg/forums/16/posts/29

Dramatic first Oval race of The Race IndyPRO Championship

After the great success of The All-Star Esports Battle from THE RACE, they have teamed up with the premier open wheel racing organizer on rFactor 2 Formula SimRacing for the IndyPRO Championship. Last night, the penultimate round of the series took place and it was a very different show compared to the first four rounds because this was an oval race. Apple Valley Speedway provided asphalt for 120 laps of Indycar oval racing with the elite on rFactor 2. Janos Brackzok took pole position just ahead of Jori Toman, with the 2020 FSR world championship runner-up Petar Brljak and then the world champion and IndyPRO Championship leader Jernej Simoncic in third and fourth place. It was a very clean start to the race, but on lap 6, a huge crash including Vojta Polesny from Varga SimRacing brought out the first full course caution. Williams Esports Martin Stefanko retired from the race shortly after, which pretty much ended his hopes to fight for the title. At the end of lap 12, they went back to green flag, but during the caution, people like Alex Siebel and Philip Kraus took an early pitstop. For Kraus, that decision could be crucial for later in the race. Things went pretty smooth until lap 79 where Jan Woznika pitted from the lead, but on pit exit, he had a big amount of wheel spin and lost the rear of the car which sent him right into the lane of Alen Terzic who had no chance of avoiding an accident and the race ended for both of them. Both Burst Esport drivers of Jernej Simoncic and Michi Hoyer almost got taken out as well, but they managed to go around each side of Woznika and Terzic. Race control waved the green flag on lap 99 to end the second caution period with Michi Hoyer leading ahead of his teammate and championship leader Jernej Simoncic. The slovenian double FSR world champion quickly took the lead with Hoyer dropping down to fifth. Kasper Stolze of Jean Alesi Esports Academy tapped the back of Danny Van der Niet to bring out a third caution period which also was the last one. Going back to green, it was once again a Burst Esport car in the lead, this time it was Simoncic with Peta Brljak right behind him. Hoyer came like a rocket up to second place and shortly after, Phil Kraus and Alex Siebel joined the action. Kraus managed to overtake Simoncic and had his focus on the race leader Brljak, who he quickly overtook and with the immense pace at the very end, he crossed the finish line to take the victory on home soil ahead of Petar Brljak and Jernej Simoncic. With this, Simoncic extended his championship lead to 30 points to second place of Alex Siebel. All to race for at the series finale on the 8th of November at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which you can watch right here on GSRH.gg

Excluisve Interview: Marco Massarutto from Kunos Simulazioni - Part two

Welcome to part two of our conversation with Marco Massarutto from Kunos Simulazioni. Last time we covered topics such as how Marco started working with Stefano Casillo and the thought process behind the success of Assetto Corsa. In part two, we are talking about their latest project, Assetto Corsa Competizione, the world of esport and the future of the Assetto Corsa brand. Enjoy! When developing cars, do you receive data from manufacturers and teams and if so, which sort of data do you receive and how does it affect the development of your content? Each car manufacturer has a different approach. Sometimes you negotiate the license through an external agency or even directly with the licensing team of the manufacturer, but you can't necessarily expect that the licensing manager will tell the engineers to cooperate with you to provide you with the data you need, or that the person you negotiate with has all the data and information you need. Not to mention the motorsport team of a manufacturer, that usually behaves as a separate entity. So getting the license to reproduce a car is one thing, getting all the data you need is a different matter, and sometimes the two things are not connected, but it has improved over the last 10 years or so. I can say that through the years we gained a very good reputation so the level of cooperation we can expect from a manufacturer is quite high. We have a list of parameters, except for the CAD files, that we ask them to compile, but through the years we also built a very powerful network with drivers, engineers, workshops, owners, who help us to get access to the cars and data we are interested in when we don’t drive them personally. People were excited when you announced Assetto Corsa Competizione. How did the deal to become the official GT World Challenge videogame come to fruition? When Stefano and I started to think about what's the next AC. Our aim was to explore how deep we could go in terms of physics, features, gameplay and if we could focus on a single racing series, and the GT World Challenge seemed to be perfect. Beautiful high-performance racing cars, the best brands, the best tracks, one tyre compound. So I got in touch with SRO and when we met each other, they were looking for an official product and seeing that the creators of Assetto Corsa were interested in producing it, everybody was excited by this opportunity. The last couple of years, sim racing has increased in popularity within the world of esport. Have you felt a difference over the years and how do you see the future of the business? Unfortunately, Covid-19 forced real motorsport to stay at home, and we saw a very different approach about the way the automotive and motorsport industry looked at sim racing. Even if things had started to change 2-3 years earlier, this pandemic has been a huge accelerator that allowed a lot of people to go far more in-depth with sim racing than ever before. Having Valentino Rossi, Charles Leclerc, Francesco Bagnaia and many others racing with us while Sky Sport F1 streamed the race on TV says a lot about the potential. car manufacturers and racing teams seem to understand what sim racing is about far more, and they are already working to organize esport activities for the years to come. Is there something that has surprised you in a positive and/or negative way during the 15 years Kunos has exited? Well, when we released netKar PRO in 2006 I didn’t imagine that our debut would be so tough, and for many years we had to face a lot of professional and personal challenges. On the other side, if you ten years ago you told me that more than 3 million users would have played our simulation, I wouldn’t believe that. One thing that makes me so proud is seeing the dedication a lot of users have for AC and AC Competizione, and they continue to ask for more content and more features because they are still excited about our simulation. Also, if I think how the approach and relationships with the automotive industry have changed in the last 10 years, it’s something that makes me so proud about the good reputation we gained thanks to our dedication and hard work, and the opportunities that it brought. How does the future look like for Kunos Simulazioni and the Assetto Corsa brand? Will we see an Assetto Corsa 2 or could we see a title with other motorsport organizations like ACO? It’s a bit early to talk about it, but we miss road cars so much, and our users love them so badly, so it’s definitely something we want to consider in the future. The only thing I can guarantee you is that realism and car handling will continue to be part of our DNA forever. You can almost feel the passion for sim racing, motorsport and cars in general from what Marco said. It was a pleasure to interview him and who knows, maybe we soon will see some big events with the car manufacturers involved as Marco mentioned. This is the end of our interview with Marco Massarutto. We hope you have enjoyed it and let us know what you found most interesting of what he said. From Global SimRacing Hub, thank you to Marco Massarutto and Kunos Simulazioni for taking time for this interview. If you want to find streams and race broadcasts with Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione, don’t look further. It’s all here on GSRH.gg

Excluisve Interview: Marco Massarutto from Kunos Simulazioni - Part one

Hello and welcome to another article series here on the Global SimRacing Hub! We have another interview ready for you with one of the main persons behind the big sim racing titles. This time we have spoken to Marco Massarutto from Kunos Simulazioni, who is the developer of Assetto Corsa and Assetto Corsa Competizione. Enjoy! Hi Marco, thanks for taking the time to speak to us. Let’s go back to 2005. What made you and Stefano Casillo take the step to found Kunos Simulazioni? Two years before, I was managing Drivingitalia.net which at the time was one of the most important and popular European sim racing websites, and we also collected important partnerships with F1 Racing and other motorsport magazines. I was keen to let the automotive and motorsport industry understand that sim racing was something different and more than “video gaming”, and it wasn’t easy at all. So when Dunlop contacted me to host a sim racing event in Misano, I asked Stefano for permission to use his netKar game, because despite its “roughness”, I believed it was the ideal showcase to open that door. Stefano agreed, so I produced a customized version of the software for that event, involving other people, working on logistics, packaging, management, and so on. When Stefano decided to bring netKar PRO to the next level, he thought I was the man he was looking for. We worked together for more than 15 years, and it has been just great. Everyone in sim racing has even heard of or played Assetto Corsa, which today still is very popular within the community. When did the idea of making Assetto Corsa come to your mind and how long was the development before release in 2014? Assetto Corsa was our third product after netKar PRO and Ferrari Virtual Academy, which barely provided the starting budget to work on something bigger. Those products were aimed for the typical niche of hardcore sim racers. The idea behind AC was to produce a hardcore PC simulation that in terms of car choices and tracks woould look familiar to the Gran Turismo fans, but going far deeper in terms of car handling, physics, behaviour and car setups, not mentioning the modding features. We aimed to include not only those racing cars and content you typically find in any hardcore PC simulation but also road cars that lots of car enthusiasts can drive every day. The goal was to feed a wider audience without compromising realism and I think we nailed it. One of the reasons behind the continuing success of Assetto Corsa was the accessibility to create and install mods. Was that the plan from the very start and how important do you think mods are in sim racing titles as a whole? I agree. I’ve also been surprised to see the level of complexity and dedication lots of talented users have shown, to the point throughout the years, where we hired some of them. About the strategy, we are convinced that this is a very flexible platform for our team. First of all, when the AC project started we were 6 people in the company, and in 2015 we were just 14, so we needed to take any possible advantage in terms of structure flexibility, in order to speed up the production flow. Also, AC was available for some dedicated B2B activities, with Ferrari, Dallara and other companies way before we released the public version, and having a moddable platform was absolutely needed to avoid any bottleneck with our partners. Surprisingly, more than 60% of overall AC users are console players that can’t take advantage of the modding on PS4 and Xbox One. That means a lot of people also appreciate the original content we provided for AC. This concludes part one of the interview with Marco. Him and Stefano’s approach and vision of how Assetto should look like and the journey since Kunos Simulazioni have been through was truly fascinating! In part two, we are gonna talk and the current and the future of Assetto Corsa. Stay tuned!

iRacing's new Dallara P217 LMP2 Onboard laps

The season 4 build for iRacing was recently released and that meant sim racer could get their hands on the long awaited Dallara P217 LMP2 car, that replaces the HPD ARX 01c. Shortly before the release, iRacing posted a video of onboard laps from Imola, Daytona and Lime Rock Park in their brand new prototype addition. Check it out in the link down below. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH8KAoAIFjQ More information about the car can be found right here: www.iracing.com/cars/dallara-p217-lmp2/

Close battles and controversy in round 8 of the Porsche Tag Heuer Esports Supercup

The Porsche Tag Heuer Esports Supercup went to the green hell, Nürburgring Nordschleife for the series. Sebastian Job from Red Bull Esport has been the man to beat so far and around the bumpy 21 kilometres, he had the opportunity to extend his championship lead. His teammate Patrik Holzmann started from pole position in the sprint race and managed to defend his position going into turn one. Kevin Ellis Jr. was right behind him and putting on the pressure on a track which is very unforgiving. At the end of lap one, Maximillian Benecke and Joshua Rogers went side by side on the long back straight, but Benecke lost control of his car going into the final couple of corners, went over the grass and collided with Rogers and ended the race for both of them. In the last round at Spa Francorchamps, the two of them also collided which is adding a bit to the rivalry between the two. Not much happened after that, and Patrik Holzmann held on to win the sprint race ahead of Kevin Ellis Jr. and Mitchell DeJong. Feature race Starting grid for the feature race was as the sprint race finished so Patrik Holzmann lined up in pole position once again with Kevin Ellis Jr. and Mitchell DeJong, with championship leader Sebastian Job in 4th. Ellis Jr. made a great start to take the lead and Job went up to third place, just behind his German teammate. On lap two of four, Holzmann and Job overtook Ellis Jr. on the back straight to make it a Red Bull Esport 1-2, with Mack Bakkum slowly but steadily catching up to the front trio. On the curvy straight before the first carousel, Sebastian Job took some bravery pills as Martin Haven in the commentary box said and overtook Patrik Holzmann around the outside to take the race lead with one and a half lap to go. That move proved to be the one that secured Sebastian Job his sixth race win of the Porsche Tag Heuer Esports Supercup 2020 and extended his championship lead to 45 points ahead of Joshua Rogers who struggled to recover after the collision with Benecke in the sprint race. Next round of the Porsche Tag Heuer Esports Supercup takes place on the 26th of September at Le Mans and make sure to add that race to your calendar here on GSRH.gg, so you don’t miss a surely intense round at Circuit de la Sarthe.

How to get started with sim racing - Part 3: Simulators

Welcome to the third and final part of our how to get started guide to sim racing. So far we have covered arcade and sim-cade with suiting equipment. This one is gonna be simulators and more high-end equipment. Let’s get to it! If you want to have the most realistic virtual racing experience, then there’s two titles that clearly stand out from the rest. iRacing and rFactor 2. For you who want to pursue a career in esport, this is where you probably will end up at some point. Both games are only available on PC, but doesn’t need expensive high-end PC’s to run at decent performance. Neither of them is the shiny graphic experience like the games we covered on part one, but you don’t race on iRacing and rFactor 2 for the graphics. You play them for the physics and realism in terms of car behaviour. What's iRacing? iRacing is subscription based where you buy a 1, 3, 12 or 24 months at a time. As a base you start out with a limited number of cars and tracks, the rest have to be purchased as DLC. The cars cost $12 and the tracks $15 each. However, there is a quantity discount if you buy several items at once, and if you buy everything at the same time, you get a 30 percent discount. It can be an expensive journey, but every car and track is laser scanned, which ensures high quality content. iRacing offers a wide range of series in all types of racing. All from the traditional road and oval racing to rallycross and dirt ovals. There’s a licensing system that determines which series you have access to run, so you have to work your way up in each discipline of racing. Everyone starts in Rookie class. The way to upgrade your license is to race clean and fair in a certain number of races of a series in your current license level. If you to that, you will receive points for your safety rating which promotes yo directly to the next license class when it reaches 4.0 or above. You can also move up by having a safety rating of 3.0 or above when the season ends. A season runs over 12 weeks, with the track changing every week in each series. TO find more information regarding license classes and much more, visit the links to iRacing’s YouTube channel at the end of this article, where you can find several how-to videos. What's rFactor 2? A couple of months ago, we interviewed the managing director of Studio 397, Marcel Offermans, that develops rFactor 2. There you got a great insight into the progress the simulator have had in recent years and what’s still to come. rFactor 2 can be purchased through Steam for €30. As with iRacing, you start out with a limited number of cars and lanes, but in return, there are plenty of mods you can download through the steam workshop for free. First and foremost, look for cars and tracks made by Image Space Incorporation or Studio 397. These are made by the developers of rFactor 2, which guarantees you high quality content while it being free. It is also possible to buy cars and tracks, which will probably become the norm for rFactor 2 in the future. There are car packs with prototypes and GT cars, as well as laser scanned track such as Le Mans, Nürnburgring(both GP and the Nordschleife) and Sebring. rFactor 2 is currently limited to organized league racing when it comes to multiplayer. As Marcel Offermans mentioned in the interview with us, a matchmaking system is coming to rFactor 2 with the new UI that seems to be a game changer. But until then, there’s plenty of great leagues to participate in. If you’re a fan of long distance racing, then the Virtual Endurance Championship, also called VEC is a logic choice. VEC is basically a virtual edition of the popular WEC series from real-life motorsports. The organizers of VEC collaborate with the developers of rFactor 2, Studio 397 and are therefore ensured that the series is well-run and professional. In addition, rFactor 2 is also the game that was used for the 24 hours of Le Mans virtual in June this year, that was a huge success both on and off track. For open-wheel racing, Formula SimRacing and GPVWC is the two top leagues on rFactor 2. Both have a ladder system that gives you the ability to go through a learning curve before taking on the elite of sim racing. Equipment In terms of equipment, the belt-driven wheels mentioned in part two is used by many top drivers in these games. But if you wanna take a step up, a direct drive wheel from SimuCube or Fanatec with a set of pedals from Heusinkveld being the way to go. A direct drive wheel is basically a servo motor, which gives you a huge amount of detail about the behaviour of your car. These bit of kit are quite expensive, but it also gives you a whole new experience and gets you closer to the feeling of a real race car. For rigs, an aluminium cockpit is necessary to cope with the forces of the direct drive wheel and pedals with loadcell brake from Heusinkveld. Like mentioned in part two, SimPlexity is a great choice with their multiple options of rigs and customization. That concludes the end of part three. I hope this has made you wiser on which game and platform to choose to get started on sim racing. Put a comment below this article if you have any questions, create a thread in our forum section or message us on the GSRH Facebook page. Link to every game, league and equipment mentioned can be found at the bottom of this article. iRacing https://www.iracing.com/ iRacing How-to videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46g28xAynTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCTVvt4rh_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stgLhQsyt6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2uu_DqonAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AYdSp7VPYo rFactor 2 https://www.studio-397.com/ Buy rFactor 2 on steam https://store.steampowered.com/app/365960/rFactor_2/ Virtual Endurance Championship https://simracing.club/ Formula SimRacing https://www.formula-simracing.net/index.php/fsr GPVWC https://www.gpvwc-simracing.com/ Equipment https://fanatec.com/ https://www.simucu.be/ https://heusinkveld.com/ https://sim-plexity.eu/