It's not just those hardcore simulations that translate well. Even standard console games like Forza and GT are good at predicting real world talent. Yeah, the first time these people get behind the wheel of a real race car, they will be sore af and probably puke all over the place. But a workout routine will build physical endurance and most people overcome the nausea eventually.
A dozen or so people have graduated from Sony's GT Academy (online racing competition) and gone on to racing professionally.
The basic finding was that just having played a lot of video games helped immensely because it means practice in careful hand-eye coordination. Also, real surgery is obviously different from virtual surgery, but there is strong skill transfer.[1]
full disclosure: I used to work for Surgical Science, primarily on the development of LapSim, their simulator for laparoscopic surgery.
[1]: https://surgicalscience.com/systems/lapsim/lapsim-validation...
The thing you have to remember is that it takes a demanding and specialized workout routine to get an experienced race car driver to the point where they can hold their head up through a turn in an F1 car. Some of the other demands put on a driver's body during a race are pretty crazy as well, particularly on a hot day.
That was 260 hp car that weighed 607 kg. Power to weight ratio is key here, and trust me, this is nothing like your usual full size car that also sports ~250 hp, but weighs 4 times as much. It might not be F1, but it is a real deal.
Means you can't continue I'd you're slowed down for a yellow flag or someone threw you off your line.
The physics works, it just doesn't add to the race other than spectacle.
The problem, of course, is that the testing for this is expensive, so it's all theoretical.
Heres the Netflix link: https://www.netflix.com/title/80204890
https://www.amazon.com/GRAND-PRIX-Driver-Season-1/dp/B078WFL...
The question is whether you can keep that level of focus and consistency for 2 hours of a real race under all that physical strain. And most people just can’t. That’s what’s impressive about real racers, doing all this stuff at 6 lateral G.
They really are like fighter pilots.
But if you don’t go full speed over a blind crest, you won’t be in even the top 10.
Takes a special kind of person.
In this instance the cars were less than a second apart. A HUD won’t help, human reaction times just aren’t fast enough. Doubt even automatic braking would stop in time.
A personal anecdote, my bouldering skills (no rope technical rock climbing) improved tremendously once I started top-roping (climbing much higher walls with a safety rope), as the rope gave me the confidence to try moves I never would have without the safety rope.
I used to race my modified turbo 500hp and I can tell you that game racing is nada to real life racing. Even knowing that taking a risk can cost you $$$ or your life is stressful enough.
With other cars on the track it’s many more variables to calculate and consider.
So let’s not kid ourselves. The delta is larger than one can anticipate without even factoring the physical stresses.
There are people out there who use simulators and very detailed data logging in their track cars to try and experiment with things like braking habits.
Saying it’s “nothing alike” honestly feels like gate keeping.
Obviously a video game played from your couch is not going to feel like hurtling thousands of pounds of metal around a track, but if you can’t drive in a sim, you’re probably not going to make it around the track.
And before you scoff at such a low bar, there are plenty of people who enter a realistic sim, try and go full throttle with 0 counter steering, and immediately lose control
Likewise, if you’re one of the best players in the world on a sim, you can probably hack it at commonly accessible levels of racing
After all, why is everyone in this thread acting like F1 is the only kind of racing? There’s stuff like SCCA Road Racing series that won’t require you to withstand 5gs of braking force...
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This is kind of like saying “nothing from a flight sim translates to flying” because the risk of dropping out of the sky to a horrible death isn’t there
But yes if you have a stock car and you take it on a race track you'll most likely be ok as long as you follow the rules.
Bone stock vs track prepped literally makes no difference (for the record my car is as track prepped as it really needs to be for the events I run and my goals on consumables, coilovers, roll bar, upgraded intercooler, fuel injectors for E85, ultralight brake kit)
I mean subie bros are out there running race clutches in street cars for no reason other than to say they do (even if they’ll never admit that).
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None of this has anything at all to do with the fact simulators let you practice _a lot_ of very important lessons.
Saying “nothing transfers” is 100% an ego play, because you’re really saying “oh yeah racing lines and all that textbook stuff is meaningless it’s all about if you can push it with the nerves of steel when you’ve got tens of thousands on the line in damages and possible injury”
... I mean there are people who unironically think that, but having those fundamentals that a sim can and will leapfrog you over someone starting from scratch.
Even just learning the track layout and markers is an incredible advantage that you can find in a realistic sim (and the friend I mentioned who treats racing much more like a science project than I have the time or funds to does this)
I mean, otherwise in what universe would someone be able to be compete in Spec Miata as their first door-to-door racing experience ever and not make a mess of literally everything:
https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/2018/02/21/john-allen-trans...
Given say 3 years to prepare I suspect many could make the jump, but it’s likely well below half.
The jump to F1 and even NASCAR is ridiculous...
Again, SCCA is a 50,000 member organization. NASA is another large racing org.
You should imagine that most NASCAR racers are not racing for the first time when they first enter a stock car, things like Spec Miata and even competitive go-karting are not any less “real” racing, to say otherwise is gatekeeping.
Physical abilities can be improved within a range, but once the competition gets good enough you need a baseline genetic competence to be competitive. As in you don’t need to be 6’10” to play in the NBA but you can’t be 3’2”. Further, being extremely tall reduces the difficulty in competing in the NBA.
On example not mentioned, is professional F1/Indycar/NASCAR drivers benefit from being able to rapidly change visual focus in ways that video game players looking at flat screens don’t need to. On it’s own not a big deal, but that’s just one difference among many.
Realistic racing sims will give you skills that transfer to racing. Period.
They will not give you _all_ the skills you need, they will not train your neck muscles to withstand 6gs, but they will let you understand the concept of a racing line, they will help you understand how shifting mid turn can unsettle a car even if they can’t replicate realistic shifting and a host of other useful lessons.
What this thread seems hellbent on doing is pointing out the sim won’t give you all the skills needed to race.
Well duh?
Especially if you set the bar at skills needed to race at a level .000001% of people who even race will ever be exposed to.
The average driver in any sort of competitive driving event (read: race) is probably doing something closer to a HPDE than an Indycar race...
Aka 30% of the population could do either, but only 10% could do both. (Percentages picked from thin air.)
Flying is extremely skilled focused, but you also need to pass an eye exam. The bar for airline pilots is low enough most people could do either, but with fighter pilots it’s less useful. With them people fail out of high g training before setting foot in a fighter, or have hay fever, or are to short or to tall, or etc etc.
Here’s a guy who went to Spec Miata as his first exposure to racing other cars from a sim:
https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/2018/02/21/john-allen-trans...
To put into perspective how insane that is, at High Performance Driving events (non competitive events where you get to drive around a track), you might expect someone to move to the advanced group where you’re still not allowed to pass in turns, and have to be pointed by after multiple years!
Some places would actually require you to take a year's worth of events just to get into a group where passing is allowed at all without an instructor in the car
This guy went straight into full on Spec Miata with purpose built cars and full on passing for his first event!
That would be like someone playing baseball for the first time in Minor League Baseball, it takes some extremely real and difficult to develop skill to do so even if it isn’t MLB...
My only question is what percentage could make the jump if given time and training. And if we’re already giving people time and training as a basic assumption then the skills they already had are irrelevant for that question.
The forces are just a lot for a normal person.
And they compare his speeds to pro speeds, what you’re missing is the average person would kill themselves entering corners at 100 mph.
Counterpoint:
In 2013, TopGear took a top rated iRacing competitor (Greger Huttu) and put him in a proper race car. Yes, he had to bow out due to the physical stress eventually. However, He did really well while he lasted. I think it's a stretch to say "they are nothing like the real thing".
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/gaming/geek-rebooted