How the hidden side of being fast has been exposed

Their exciting stampede to compete in Esports events has been great fun for them, and important for society with its #stayhome undercurrents, but it has also offered onlookers a fascinating opportunity to explore the intricacies of what being fast is all about. Several months ago, many people would have been of the view that if you get a top-line grand prix ace and give him a few hours of practice on an F1 game, he could blow the regular sim racers out of the water. But Max Verstappen's reluctance to get involved in F1's Virtual Grand Prix series, because he hasn't had enough hours of practice, tells you everything you need to know about why that isn't the case. Just like being quick in the real world, natural talent is nothing if you don't put some time and a great deal of effort into improving. Recent weeks have given a public display that speed in racing – whether it be online or real world – is as much about hard work as it is about the speed you are born with. A great example of the progress of speed has been Nicolas Latifi, who had not done much sim racing before signing up to the Veloce/Motorsport Games #NottheGP series. Nicholas Latifi, Williams Racing Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images His first outing in Australia was a pretty bruising affair as he learned the ropes, but already by the second race in Bahrain he was doing much better and ended up as the best non-Pro sim racer. Speaking about his experience last weekend, he was clear that there was no silver bullet to reaching the kind of performance that the sim racing regulars are able to achieve. "So far I've only really competed in the F1 game, which fortunately you could make it quite easy or quite hard, depending on what assists you want to use," said the Canadian. "I did spend quite a few hours practising just not to look silly, and it paid off, it was not too bad! But yeah, I'm having my first go on iRacing, I seemed to struggle a bit more on that. "I could see why a lot of the guys that do this professionally and a guy like Lando who does this quite a lot as well is so quick at it, because it's obvious you apply a lot of the same skills like real-life driving in terms of how you want to get a fast laptime. "But it's not 100 percent the same, and these little kind of intricacies and things you have to figure out with sim racing itself, yeah, it's definitely very, very difficult. "I think I could spend all of the rest of the hours that I'm going to spend self-isolating in this break, and I still wouldn't get to the level of these guys. But if it's keeping me sharp and having fun in the progress, then I'm all up for it." Those thoughts are echoed by Formula E racer Vandoorne, who has also embraced more sim racing while in lockdown in the United States. "I used to do a lot of sim racing years ago, and I was actually pretty decent back then. It's kind of like a reset button almost," he says. "It's been not that easy to get back up to speed. I think some games on different platforms we've been playing on, some of them have done better than other ones. #11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1: , Stoffel Vandoorne Photo by: Paul Foster "I don't know exactly why, I don't know if it's physics, car models, the way the things work with the steering, how they interact with the brake pedal, but some games I'm getting on with better than other ones. "It's still a challenge to get up there. It requires a lot of practice. It requires learning the little tricks of the games to really get the last bit of lap time out of it." The more realistic sims have become, the more drivers have found that using the same skills that make them quick on the track are applicable to the digital world. It's no longer about a magical combination of hitting two buttons and the left trigger at the same time for a 200mph speed boost, as may have been the case with arcade games in the past. Instead, being quick is racing lines, brake balance, throttle pressure, fuel burning, and slipstreams. Exactly the same things you need to think about in the real world too. Lando Norris says: "There are little tips and tricks you've got to know for all of them. For F1 2019 more than anything, there's a lot of little not secrets, but things you have to know about more than for other games. "So for new people coming in, those things can easily be one or two-tenths per lap. That's quite a lot of lap time. "I'm still a long way ahead in terms of hours spent on my simulator, especially compared to people like Stoff. So there's big differences, and I know a lot more of the little things that they don't. "But once they start to learn these things, they start to get up to speed, then it becomes a lot more interesting, the competition becomes tough, the field gets closer, and you start to see the gaps closing down to half a tenth, quarter of a tenth, and you get sometimes five or 10 drivers within a couple of tenths." Those comments about finding the final tenths are as true for real racing as they are for Esports. And they reminded me of a fascinating talk that Lewis Hamilton gave last year when he spoke on stage at the Gran Turismo World Finals in Monaco. Being prodded by some of GT's best drivers, he opened up on the factors that he felt made him a better driver. And his talk about the process he goes through on race weekends sounds so similar to what gamers run through each time they play. "Over the years, I've really dug further and deeper into the technical side of it," said the world champion. "So, in terms of driving style, each year I have to adjust my driving style due to the tyre that we have. GT World Finals Photo by: Gran Turismo via Getty Images "Sometimes you have an oversteering car and sometimes you have an understeering car. For example, this year [2019] has been a lot more understeer and we've been trying to work around the balance because the track is constantly migrating in F1. "When you are actually on the lap you're looking at, braking points are very, very key. From the brake to the apex is where the majority of the time is made. But it's also separating out the lap and finding out where it's better sometimes to sacrifice the entry to get the exit. "Of course you want to use the maximum width to the track, and keeping the minimum speed up is most often quite key in some places. But there are different driving styles you have to apply to different corners. So it's really trying to figure out what those are. "It flows through practice and I'm usually pushing more, pushing less, lifting off a bit of the speed, moving the brake balance around quite a bit, and the engine braking. "It's those kind of things, so braking, downshifting earlier, downshifting later. Then there are these different things to adjust the balance of the car. It's not always the easiest to plan for, because the car moves in different ways." The pro sim racers are well aware that the real racers – once they learn to get up to speed like they do in the real world – are soon going to be breathing down their necks. Veloce's James Baldwin, one of the quickest Esports drivers in the world, is clear there is no shock at the processes his real world rivals are going through to start putting the likes of him under more pressure. "We shouldn't be surprised," he said. "These are the top drivers in the world. If they put in the hours in, they're going to be quick. I think everyone would have assumed that, and that is the case. "I think real drivers adapt to iRacing or RFactor a bit better because they are more realistic. If you put them on the F1 game, it is more like a game, so if you don't have the hours behind you, you don't know the tricks and tips, you're not going to be at the front." It's that very evolution of speed (learning, pushing, comparing, applying and improving) which is proving to be the attraction for real racers right no as they bide their time until the day job starts properly again. As Vandoorne says: "Especially in times like this where we can't really have any real-life competition on-track, it's still a good way to keep the mind fresh. "When all of us put in the hours, it almost feels like we're at the real track to fight for the last couple of tenths to perfect your driving style. "Sometimes it's very frustrating as well when you can't figure it out, but I guess it's the competition that is most exciting about it." BMW Simulator Photo by: BMW AG

Series	Formula 1 , Esports
Author	Jonathan Noble

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How the hidden side of being fast has been exposed

The lack of real track action so far this year hasn't stop drivers from keeping their racing brains 'fresh', as former F1 star Stoffel Vandoorne suggested last weekend.

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