Formula Ford Festival to Become iRacing Special Event

iRacing Formula Ford Festival.jpg
At the end of every year, Formula Ford drivers from all across the globe compete on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit. Now, iRacing players can get a taste of the event from 17-18 November.

Image credit: iRacing.com

In a collaborative endeavour between iRacing, the British Racing and Sports Car Club and Motorsport UK Esports, the world-renowned Formula Ford Festival will become an open special event on the service.

Dubbed the BRSCC iRacing FF1600 Festival, players can compete across four designated timeslots from 17-18 November. There are four races held across all splits, with two heat races of ten laps. Another ten-lap race for the Last Chance Qualifier and a 20-lap Final follow the heats.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1715427645398114546

iRacing Formula Ford Festival Format​

Like other iRacing Special Events, the timeslots are 22:00 GMT on 17 November, and 7:00, 12:00 and 16:00 GMT on 18 November. It is open to all players who have a licence of Rookie 4.0 at a minimum. Drivers who sign up will be assigned heats in their splits, with 28 drivers per heat and the top 13 making the Final.

Every other driver goes through the Last Chance Qualifier. The top four advance, making it 30 drivers for the Final. Much like the real life event, a driver’s finishing position will most likely dictate their starting place for their next race. There will be the typical 8-minute 2-lap lone qualifying to decide the driver’s starting positions for their heats.


If you want to compete in the event, half of the content will already be available to you as standard. The Rays FF1600 is free to all iRacing players, whereas the track Brands Hatch will cost you $14.95. The event, like the real-life one, will be on the shorter 1.2-mile Indy circuit.

Motorsport UK Esports have also been operating the UK FF1600 Esports Cup alongside the British F4 Esports Championship. Open to anyone with a Motorsport UK Esports membership, signing up can give you a 12 month subscription to iRacing and the FIA F4 car for free, as well as access to their events providing you make the cut-off.


A Motorsport UK Esports membership will not be mandatory to compete in the iRacing BRSCC FF1600 Festival, though. Providing you have a Rookie 4.0 licence at minimum and the Brands Hatch track, you can sign up and compete in the event!

Will you be attempting the iRacing BRSCC FF1600 Festival special event? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
  • Like
Reactions: Kurupt CDN and Ruttman98
About author
RedLMR56
Luca Munro
Biggest sim racing esports fan in the world.

More in iRacing

Comments

Jonny Austin
Great idea from Iracing.The Formula Ford Festival is a historic once a year event.I was lucky enough to go every year during the 80s when nearly every aspiring F1 driver was in the field.
A shame Formula Ford was killed off as a ladder series when they decided to use the fuel injected Zetec engine and slicks.Great that FF1600 still survives in many countries as an amateur series
 
N
Interesting, in iRacing I saw low 48's at Brands Indy whereas sub 50 needs really amazing conditions and talent in real life, which is a huge difference. I've done loads of driving with this car, and Graham Carroll who once won the real event generally liked the AMS1 custom car I brought to the Sim Expo many years ago. It has since been improved:

So with this in mind, I tried the car in iRacing, as surely all my gripes about its handling won't be such an issue with a 'tossable' car like this.. The braking distances are WAY shorter despite my model matching reality quite closely, and I managed to spin multiple times, which is almost hard to do in the AMS model. I just don't think I will ever understand iRacing.
 
M
Niels_at_home said:
I just don't think I will ever understand iRacing.
Click to expand...
At the same time they are just trying to put on an event to get people out and have fun and a lot of people will take part and do some fun racing. Perhaps in a car that doesn't match fully its real world counterpart - like every car in every sim to some level.
 
Johnr777
Niels_at_home said:
Interesting, in iRacing I saw low 48's at Brands Indy whereas sub 50 needs really amazing conditions and talent in real life, which is a huge difference. I've done loads of driving with this car, and Graham Carroll who once won the real event generally liked the AMS1 custom car I brought to the Sim Expo many years ago. It has since been improved:

So with this in mind, I tried the car in iRacing, as surely all my gripes about its handling won't be such an issue with a 'tossable' car like this.. The braking distances are WAY shorter despite my model matching reality quite closely, and I managed to spin multiple times, which is almost hard to do in the AMS model. I just don't think I will ever understand iRacing.
Click to expand...
In your video comparison I see a very lively real life car, lots of opposite lock. Yours in AMS looks butter smooth.
 
I
Niels_at_home said:
I just don't think I will ever understand iRacing.
Click to expand...
Haha, I bet not even 1 pro FFord team will even consider iRacing for use in their sim.
They might put some prize fund to entice the regular drivers to take part, but all of them in reality will be preparing for their races using another sim w/ their engineers.

They have an absolutely amazing marketing team, that's the key to understanding iRacing!
 
M
ivanalesi said:
Haha, I bet not even 1 pro FFord team will even consider iRacing for use in their sim.
They might put some prize fund to entice the regular drivers to take part, but all of them in reality will be preparing for their races using another sim w/ their engineers.

They have an absolutely amazing marketing team, that's the key to understanding iRacing!
Click to expand...
What is the point of the post? No one is suggesting this community race is for people to train for the real thing. What teams uses any of these sims as they are sold to us as anything much more than for track familiarisation?
 
I
Most teams below F1/LMH use sims you can buy on Steam even for car development. Most GT, single-seater teams use the sims for driver training, setup prep & so on.
Hence, the point of my post. If I buy a FFord car to drive on the sim, I want it to be as close as possible - it's a sim, not arcade, right? If FFord teams don't like this car & don't use the sim - then it's a fictional car w/ the body of a FFord.
 
M
ivanalesi said:
Most teams below F1/LMH use sims you can buy on Steam even for car development. Most GT, single-seater teams use the sims for driver training, setup prep & so on.
Hence, the point of my post. If I buy a FFord car to drive on the sim, I want it to be as close as possible - it's a sim, not arcade, right? If FFord teams don't like this car & don't use the sim - then it's a fictional car w/ the body of a FFord.
Click to expand...
Somehow I don't think that will have any impact on any of the people using it over at iracing.

Almost every sim will have a side by side of a real car and their sim equivilent doing the same laptime and behaving the same. The last one I saw was Daniel Morad showing his lap in his merc gt4 and saying how impressively similar it was to the one in iracing which he has said a number of times gives him the closest feeling to his real car.

Maybe its not iracing then, maybe like most sims it really comes down to the quality of each car. You must be really restricted to what you can use with such high prerequisites.

BTW, have you got any information on all these teams and what they use and all the fford teams that 'don't like this car'. I expect not.
 
I
I actually do. All single-seater teams w/ sim dev program do use AC, but make lots of very particular changes especially in the tire model as tires change(compounds & brands). Car models are very good. They have separate setup dev program using non DIL sim, then they try to correlate both sims as much as possible and of course w/ real-world data.
The teams higher up in single-seaters w/ bigger budgets, they use RF2 models as it requires more engineering. In GTs, Idk why, but some of the top teams still use AC. I guess it's bcs they know the Kunos team.
You can also see this trend in the commercial sims that offer services to the drivers.
If you follow racing below F1 you'll know this. Many drivers post videos of sim training sessions in the team simulators. Commercially available race cars are all very precisely modeled, & AC/RF are trusted by pro teams.
Lately, there is a trend with top teams hiring software developers! They help in modeling both DIL & non DIL simulations.

The job of a racing simulator is to offer the most realistic representation of racing in data/physics/gfx. Looking at the choice of pro racing teams, you can see which titles do the best job.
 
M
I didn't ask if teams use sims, we all know they do, what they don't generally use is exactly the same things that we do. As you say, there are changes to what they use. Which team uses the default gt3 in AC? Which big teams are using rf2 and not rf pro?

What you are saying is no secret but what you also said is that you won't use it if its not the most realistic that a team would use. So I am curious what you actually use, what you actually drive. You must be fairly limited in what you can enjoy, I don't expect you have access to the modified cars the teams are using.

So you, like us, must be stuck with 'arcade'.

I won't even bother addressing statements like 'All single-seater teams w/ sim dev program do use AC' as it is obviously false and easy to find many examples.
 
Last edited:
I
Teams do use 1:1 GT models in ACC & RF, obviously the cars in AC are old. RFPro is for big manufacturer-supported teams, basically you need a +$1mln sim & lots of engineers.
And yes, all teams from F4-F2 use AC & some of the best-funded use RF as it requires more engineering. Just like I stated above.
I'll give a very public example: the Tatuus pack in RF2 was done by the head engineer at Mucke, Wito - a very highly respected engineer, who sadly passed away 10 months ago. He was making sim setups for drivers he was coaching, all those were on RF2 using his mod.
You can get his Tatuus mod & it's as spot on to the cars at the time of making as possible.
Now think about why he made this choice.

You can spin doctor it at 3427 degrees, but that won't change the basic facts - no professional racing team in single-seaters or GTs is using iRacing. If there ever was a vote of no confidence - that's it.
Sorry.
 
M
A very public example of telling me one guy made a mod and no one in specific except for 'everyone' 'most' all teams' etcis using it. OK.

Still that is not really what made me query you in the first place. Everyone knows teams use sims, that is not up for debate
ivanalesi said:
Hence, the point of my post. If I buy a FFord car to drive on the sim, I want it to be as close as possible - it's a sim, not arcade, right? If FFord teams don't like this car & don't use the sim - then it's a fictional car w/ the body of a FFord.
Click to expand...

So you only use cars that are in sims that are worthy of a real team using them. Which cars are those, that you use? I am genuinely curios.
 
Last edited:
Metla
Premium
metalnwood said:
So you only use cars that are in sims that are worthy of a real team using them. Which cars are those, that you use? I am genuinely curios.
Click to expand...
I'm generally curious as to why you seem compelled to defend the honour of iracing at every opportunity and at great length?

Did they give your mum a kidney or something? Seems almost like a compulsion
 
M
Metla said:
I'm generally curious as to why you seem compelled to defend the honour of iracing at every opportunity and at great length?

Did they give your mum a kidney or something? Seems almost like a compulsion
Click to expand...
I am not really, it is not the iracing aspect that i am interested in, the discussion is not really about iracing it seems.

I am curious if you will only use cars that real teams will use, whatever that sim is, what are those cars? I use all the sims but generally I don't care how exactly accurate the car is or it's likely I couldn't race online or take part in my league that cycles through different cars.

It seems that you would be pretty restricted in what you drive on the sim if that is your criteria.
 

Latest News

Article information

Author
Luca Munro
Article read time
2 min read
Views
2,632
Comments
19
Last update

Share this article

Do you prefer licensed hardware?

  • Yes for me it is vital

  • Yes, but only if it's a manufacturer I like

  • Yes, but only if the price is right

  • No, a generic wheel is fine

  • No, I would be ok with a replica

Results are only viewable after voting.
See comments…
Back
Top