Porsche has invested heavily in esports racing, and has developed a crew of high-level sim racers. These virtual drivers are often as talented at piloting a virtual car as Porsche’s factory team is at piloting the real thing in meatspace. They both have training regimens, strict diets, and the rigors of endurance racing. Obviously the simulator racer can’t experience the same g-forces as a driver in the real world, and they aren’t actually burning real gasoline or rubber, but the sentiment is the same. Here are the five ways Porsche sees these two disciplines as similar.
- Training Routines
Both the esports racer and the real world racer have to be physically and mentally fit. This includes hydration and a good diet for the race weekend. Keeping yourself awake during an endurance race is extremely important.
2. Track & Racecraft
While esports racers can’t walk the track, they can certainly take a few slow laps to look for braking points and experience changes in kerbing and asphalt. Both drivers prepare for a race by turning a lot of laps. It’s just practice, practice, practice. Both racers are looking for an advantage in lap time.
3. Race Strategy
The difference between endurance race strategy and sprint race strategy carry over to both forms of racing. For a longer race, starting the race more conservatively so you aren’t involved in an accident is quite important, as is metering your fuel and tire useage. If you can stretch your pit stops as long as possible, you may gain a serious advantage over the competition. In a sprint race, you’ll be looking for every possible tenth of a second you can gain, obviously.
4. Car Setup
Believe it or not, racing games have gotten good enough that racers can set up their cars with things like tire pressure, shock settings, and aerodynamic downforce balance.
5. Teams
In real world endurance racing a race weekend requires hundreds of mechanics and setup specialists, but in e-sports this can all be done by the driver. However, in esports a single team can field a half dozen cars at no additional cost or limitation of team functionality, so they need to work together when possible, but compete against each other when the chips are down. It’s all very similar.
Obviously there aren’t any tire failures or engine explosions in esports which might completely scupper your race weekend, but otherwise the experience required between the two different forms of racing is pretty similar. Are you running in simulated racing yet? Maybe this will change your mind.