However some devs seem to get it, and others don’t. When I load up a racing simulation and pretend to drive a car I wont ever be able to (save for my lotto ticket hitting) , I expect the car to drive like a car.
Tonight I loaded up AC after a 10 hour shift at work looking for something fun to do. I joined a GT3/GT2 Race at Nurburgring F1 that had 20 seconds remaining in qualifying. I picked the McLaren GT3, quickly I loaded up a setup, joined the grid and then we were off. After avoiding the usual carnage I worked my way through some cars to the top 3 and within 4 laps I was running times only half a second off the two leaders. I couldn’t catch the two leaders and ended up finishing 3rd. I had fun, the car felt natural and I never felt like I got the car out of shape for reasons other than my average skills.
James and I jumped on R3E over the weekend and into the McLaren GT3, hopped on a server running a practice/race at Zolder. Same thing, both of us ran laps and while James is always faster I stayed about a second off his pace.
In the two examples above we simulated what a real race car driver experiences on a Sunday morning. Wake up, go to drivers meeting, have a snack, suit up, jump in the car cold and race as hard as you can into turn 1 with no practice other than a sighting lap.
The point is that some devs get that no matter what their philosophy of physics is, the end result has to be a car that feels like the car being portrayed. You should be able to get in it and drive safely with out any practice. iRacing, PCARS and a few others don’t get this. You are constantly trying to figure out what in the world is going on and relearning everything you thought you knew.
If you are driving the sim car the way the game wants you to drive it and not the way a car is driven in reality, it’s wrong. Numbers and data amount to nothing if the end result isn’t portraying how a car feels and drives.
so … have you driven a real race car ON AN EDGE without training? ….. You assumptions are plain stupid.
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I had a chance to drive a F430 GT3 and a Spec Miata, both were actually really easy to drive because you know they were cars with 4 sticky tires and drove like cars just with more grip, speed and stiff suspension. They came with this feature that iRacing doesn’t have, when you push the tires over the limit its easy to feel when you are doing so and its easy to recover the grip, amazing.
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I’ve got 15+ years of track driving, instruction and club racing under my belt, so let me chime in at least a little bit here. I’ve driven a GT3 Cup car on track, I’ve driven sedans with real downforce and aero work, I’ve driven lower tier formula cars.
On an out lap, or going at 6-7 tenths, yes, most of these cars are quite “easy” to drive. Even when pushed hard, pretty much any modern race car with aero and slicks will actually stick, even with “cold” tires.
The iracing/pcars model of “the car is an undriveable handful for 6 laps when you start” is an absolute joke. The closest thing I can compare it to in real life would be a set of slick tires on a 35 degree Fahrenheit track in damp conditions. No GT or touring car on slicks jumps 75 degrees sideways and drifts at a quarter throttle application. If I went out on track in a car that handles like the average “iracing” model behaves, I’d nurse it back into the pits and go check for broken suspension components or yell at the guy who didn’t torque the wheels down.
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The fact that Milka Duno was once a licensed IndyCar driver speaks volumes about the simplicity of driving a race car around a track.
Doing it fast enough to win a race and bring the car home in one piece? That’s the challenge.
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Where did I say without training?
I said without practice. IE- race day. You get in the car and go with nothing more than a sighting lap.
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