Alright when was that again.....?

[Kurupt CDN]

So drivers having negative feedback is hardly new, but how will that work here. Frankly I don't think every driver will be pleased with ACC. But with Fanatec sponsoring and now directly impacting their championship, will they be silenced? I don't like this at all.

The vast majority of drivers have in there contracts that they can't speak negatively about there team and car manufacturer.

When PC2 launched a GT3 mercedes driver tweeted Ian Bell saying the PC2 version handled nothing like the RL version and was terrible.
Ian reminded him of his contract with mercedes and negative imaging.....the tweet was deleted shortly after.

That being said....the majority of RL drivers taking place in this are already in ACC so I am sure they are getting a little kick back from the sales of the game, so I doubt you'll hear nothing but praise for the wheel and game from them.
$$$$$$$

 

[TrumpetReich]

I wonder what their contingency plan is for when things go wrong, because things WILL go wrong. Lag (even if it's all local), timing glitches, weird collisions, all sorts of bugs that come up. No game is perfect. We saw drivers raging and drama build in the indycar and nascar iracing events around those bugs, and those weren't even for points.

 

[erniedaoage]

Sounds like a horrible idea to get it mixed up, why don't they introduce another championship within the series, like in formula one with a drivers and constructors championship? Sounds a bit silly to score points for real racing just to end up behind someone who is a better simracer. In my opinion it's much easier to get from simracing into real racing, while it's quite hard for real racers to adapt to sims. They are missing so much information in the simrig while the simracer gets a lot more information in the real car.

From a pure marketing point of view from fanatec, i would do a race where the drivers do a couple of laps around the real circuit, go back to the pits, get out of the car(with their fanatec steeringwheel) and run into the simrig to do a couple more laps. Get back into the car and later back into the simrig.
You could expand it to run both together as a team event. So one guy is always in the simrig and another one driving.

 

[Noctam]

The world is changing at the moment extremly rapidly and sadly I'm not sure if we will have Real life racing in 10 years the same way we can enjoying it now. I hope I'm wrong about this point, but time will tell.

Yes that's my thoughts too...

 

[FinFan]

Always the same stupid comparison with fifa or NHL.

Simracing and real racing have the same inputs, same cockpit dimensions, pretty accurate physics and the only difference is the lack of g-forces and nuances in the physics.

Well, everyone has a right for his own opinion, wouldn't you say ?

I don't think it's stupid. If it is so close and comparable why not get rid of real life racing for good? Saves billions of $$$ and is better for the climate and environment. Development for street cars is already taking place more in the virtual world. And if it's only nuances in the physics the feedback argument gets weaker. And teams do most of their preparation for tracks on simulators anyway. So, from a certain point of view it would make sense.

And before you ask, I am no FFF fan and I watch motorsport since 1982. It's a theoretical question. I for one would love to see internal combustion engines racing for as long as possible.

Oh, and another thing: in real life racing you do have a team working also. There are no mechanics doing your virtual pit stop and your failure rate is determined by software. That's a huge factor I think.

 

[guidofoc]

Sounds like a horrible idea to get it mixed up, why don't they introduce another championship within the series, like in formula one with a drivers and constructors championship? Sounds a bit silly to score points for real racing just to end up behind someone who is a better simracer. In my opinion it's much easier to get from simracing into real racing, while it's quite hard for real racers to adapt to sims. They are missing so much information in the simrig while the simracer gets a lot more information in the real car..

I agree things could get a bit hairy if two teams are close in the standings and an esports race makes the difference. I hope the number of points assigned by an esports race is low so it is relevant but not decisive.

On the bright side, this may also become a good thing for sim racers because a GT team may become interested in hiring someone with a sim racing background to train its drivers and that could also be a chance for these people to have a go at real racing. And let's not forget that a sim racer (James Baldwin) won on his first appearance in the British GT championship last year.

Let's see. A good thing is that because of COVID-19 most of the GT3 drivers by now have a sim rig at home and have played ACC for many hours, so we won't see them just goofing around.

 

[TOONS12]

I'm surprised that so much of the pushback is from the sim racing community.

Many of us have advocated for the legitimacy and realism of sim racing, and when sim racers get seats in real racing we celebrate. But this has really angered some people in the community.

Personally I think this is the biggest validation our niche hobby could get. I'm happy. You could make the argument that it fringes on de-legitimizing real racing, but as a sim racer I think it's pretty cool.

Because its the same people who still think racing drive like on ice and the people who drive them in real life are some demi gods and no other could ever hope to get the car out of the pits let alone round a corner...

Nothing to do with the aero, tyres traction control and that in GT3 racing its the size of the wallet that decides if you race or not, not any particular talent....

 

[Paul Glover]

Not sure how I feel about this, on one hand it's like sim racers which took part in the competitions in 2019 at the circuits have been pushed to one side? Unless they are planning on doing both.

As many have already said, you cannot re-create 100% realism with a sim. But I am not putting on to the **** pile quite yet, we are making many an assumptions in the comments. We need to see it in practice to know if this works for the viewers, drivers and teams.

Could this be a good thing for sim racing? It's had an uptake due to Covid, getting Fanatec's name out there more and more may bring more people to the hobby and potentially more games? Who knows, this could be a good thing.

I'm hopeful SRO have not forgotten about us, I for one was involved in the broadcast of the SRO AM series last year and it was awesome. Not only do I feel we did a great job with the broadcast and prizes on offer, but the driving itself was entertaining and I want more of that!!

Also, if this means Kunos does some work on the broadcast API and tools then I am all for it! There has definitely been a lack of progress on that front for me, which when you think about what sim racing has achieved over the last few months surprises me a little.

 

[guidofoc]

..
Also, if this means Kunos does some work on the broadcast API and tools then I am all for it! There has definitely been a lack of progress on that front for me, which when you think about what sim racing has achieved over the last few months surprises me a little.

Agree, although I often watch ACC league races and the quality of the broadcasting is really good, with great commentary, multiple cameras, good on-board camera angles, live replays, race stewards, live timing, post-race interviews etc. For example I like what the guys at The Sim Grid are doing. I think Kunos can improve but the broadcasters must make the effort, too.

Here a screenshot: they have race stewards and live race control messages, live weather and track condition, they have a guy working with cameras which show the best angles on multiple windows, live replays etc. I think they are doing a great job.

 

[RasmusP]

Well, everyone has a right for his own opinion, wouldn't you say ?

I don't think it's stupid. If it is so close and comparable why not get rid of real life racing for good? Saves billions of $$$ and is better for the climate and environment. Development for street cars is already taking place more in the virtual world. And if it's only nuances in the physics the feedback argument gets weaker. And teams do most of their preparation for tracks on simulators anyway. So, from a certain point of view it would make sense.

And before you ask, I am no FFF fan and I watch motorsport since 1982. It's a theoretical question. I for one would love to see internal combustion engines racing for as long as possible.

Oh, and another thing: in real life racing you do have a team working also. There are no mechanics doing your virtual pit stop and your failure rate is determined by software. That's a huge factor I think.

To be honest I absolutely agree. I don't think real life racing is a huge factor for the climate change.
Sure, it has an influence on more environment friendly technology and might influence the population to buy more eco friendly cars.

But overall I think factories and ships are way worse.
There once was a statistic that a visit of the queen Mary 2 in Hamburg is worse for our air here than all diesel cars in one year.
So let's keep combustion engine racing, awesome, feelable sound and g-forces + hard work for the drivers and the nice teamwork of the teams.

Also my argument was only meant to be about the required skills to be a good driver.
Not that it is similar in any other way!

Just because the "only difference for the drivers are the g-forces", it doesn't mean that the g-forces aren't such an important part that it changes the whole experience.

What I mean is: a real life racer who is fast in real racing should be also fast in simracing.
However he not might have have enough fun or enjoy the driving at all.

Also I think spectating a race with the old f1 engines was a completely different experience than it is today.
And definitely not comparable to any simracing event!

So to end my post: I never said that everything would be comparable or that simracing should replace real racing.
But simracing with a full cockpit is a lot closer, in terms of the required skills, to the real thing than controlling 11 players at once with 2 thumbsticks is to football...

 

[mantasisg]

Thats some amazing marketing by Fanatec. SRO will also benefit by exposure to simracers who are too immersed in simulation and often forgets to keep things in check with reality IMO. Honestly simacing communities are really getting detached from reality, and I hope such project will come positive in many ways.

There is weird side to it, but for simulation it can not come to be negative thing.

One thing that I am worried about is that drivers will probably sign agreements not to criticise simulation, nor to share any observations with slightest shade of criticism. This will of course greatly diminish the potential benefit of such deal... however drivers are not necessarily physics experts, and might not be interested in getting "scientific" too often anyway. They should be able to match driving experience once they will get properly used to all differences such as not actually being in a car and using hardware controllers.

I suspect that at the end this project might end up as drivers mainly endorsing how Fanatec brought realism for them, and not necessarily talk much in detail about actual simulation, which IMO should be in the main spotlight.

I hope the racing in simulation and IRL will be as seamless as possible.

 

[MarcG]

I've always been a half glass full kinda guy (except when it comes to Brighton playing like donkeys in the Premier League...) so I've approached this news with a sense of excitement and wonder.

As others have said, for decades now we've wanted sim racing to be as close as possible to reality, we've seen physics, tires & graphics improve alongside fantastic peripherals to take us closer to that reality. Then VR came along and changed the entire "gameplay" for the better, we're now "in" the cars as we strive for that reality.

This news essentially takes us to that crossover point where the Real World Racing folk have accepted Sim Racing has "reached that possibility", they would not of accepted that 10 years ago, they have now.

I think we need to embrace this collaboration, watch with interest and give it a chance to play out. It may well turn out to be a flop, it may well need more years for Sim Racing to "get there" or it may just work straight away.
What we are witnessing could be a huge change in the landscape for our hobby, where the crossover becomes even more of a reality. Give it time, watch with interest and let's see where this takes us.

 

[Richard Wilks]

Generationally, drivers have always gotten faster, across pretty much every discipline in motorsport, but particularly F1.

Jackie Stewart or Senna in their prime would not have had a cat in hell’s chance against the mob today. Not because they were bad drivers, but because they raced in a different era where drivers were as intensely/well trained as they are now, and in F1, more for the old old drivers but the level of physical strength and training required to drive a current car for race distance is greater too.

I’m not diminishing from the achievements or greatness of the greats in racing history, it’s just simple fact. They were absolutely stand out drivers in their generation, but that does not equal outright speed.

if you say this you clearly dont know the history of this sport.

In the 50s drivers had to deal with 3+ hours or racing, usually with the heat of the engine in their faces, and it was all muscle based.

In the ground effects era cars had massive downforce, and no power steering, and drivers would regularly say they didnt have even the strength to hold the wheel on the corners, and some of them were way bigger than drivers today.

In the old days taking care of the car was a skill that disappeared today.

Different? Yes. But not "better".This is not athletics, i dare to say a Hamilton would have a lot to learn to even be competitive in a 1960s F1.

 

[Noctam]

[...]Also I think spectating a race with the old f1 engines was a completely different experience than it is today.
And definitely not comparable to any simracing event![...]

I personally find simracing more interesting to watch... Modern IRL races can be very boring (especially in F1) and some of the most fun cars (both in GT and single seaters) and tracks to watch are nowadays only driven (fast) in sims or in (mostly slow) historic races.
Moreover, the cost of racing is so high that it's limiting the entry of potential great drivers to drive against/watch and I believe that it's one of the biggest problem of this sport.

Then, it's true that our hobby exists only to recreate the real cars so we need IRL racing to keep ongoing but I believe there is a lot to love about simracing that doesn't exist (anymore) in IRL racing.

 

[BP]

So many people jumping to doomsday scenarios because of one event (I think last year brought out the tin foil hat in too many of us ).

Seriously though, I think we (the sim racing community) need to have a serious conversation about what we really want for future development of the industry, because we're really sending some serious mixed messages...and I don't know if it's residual feelings about Fanatec, 505 Games/Kunos, the SRO or something else (I'm not a big Fanatec fan myself right now)...but I would be scratching my head if I were a sim racing developer after reading the community's reaction to this. Do we really want realism?

I mean, we push for realism in sims to develop for decades and now here we are: literally 30 years exactly from the release of Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix and things are exponentially more realistic than ever before...now we're at the point where real racing organizations, for whatever reasons, have taken interest to merge both worlds since we're now close enough for such an endeavor to be feasible, and we're essentially saying "No thanks, we don't want it THAT realistic...you do your own thing and leave us be in our basements please."...What?!

If a bedroom sim racer can adapt to a real car given enough practice (as we're seen a few times in the last 10 years), why is it hard to conceive a professional real life driver could do the opposite? Also...I'm pretty sure failures happen IRL racing as well, some due to driver error, some by team errors and others completely beyond the team or driver's control. I'm sure each team will check to make sure their driver's equipment works before the event starts...beyond that, it's on Kunos and Fanatec to execute a flawless race. Now I've done at least 400 online races in 2020 (iRacing and simracing.gp logs confirm this) with little to no hardware, software or connection failure...and in those races most of the field (at least 15 other persons on average) survive to the end, who are also online...so do the math: why would one on-site event with considerably less drivers be prone to disaster? Murphy's law notwithstanding, statistically the odds are seriously low of that happening.

I don't see this as the death of simracing for simracers...or the end of offline racing (iRacing, the ONLY multiplayer only sim now has offline racing...hint hint)...or the death or real racing...or the start of EV only racing (what?)...why would one thing mean the other? Why are we such a pessimistic bunch? For all the things that sim racing gets wrong, stop and think about the many things they actually get right. Stop and reflect on where Sim Racing was 30 years ago and then come back to this topic (Imagine trying this on GP1 back in 1991!). A small amount of optimism would do wonders, but I understand you can't please everyone.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Man this is the most idiotic decision ever...
Simracing didn't even evolve as it should in the past 10 years, even if it did this sort of thing should never happen. Beyond stupid...

 

[RasmusP]

I personally find simracing more interesting to watch... Modern IRL races can be very boring (especially in F1) and some of the most fun cars (both in GT and single seaters) and tracks to watch are nowadays only driven (fast) in sims or in (mostly slow) historic races.
Moreover, the cost of racing is so high that it's limiting the entry of potential great drivers to drive against/watch and I believe that it's one of the biggest problem of this sport.

Then, it's true that our hobby exists only to recreate the real cars so we need IRL racing to keep ongoing but I believe there is a lot to love about simracing that doesn't exist (anymore) in IRL racing.

I agree with your point!
My sentence wasn't really about watching it on your TV/monitor but about going there, the smells, feeling the engines in your chest, seeing the speed of the cars how it really is, visiting the pits, maybe touching a car.

For me F1 is about the interviews, "being a fan" of some drivers. But when I'm watching some other series, I barely know any of the drivers and then it wouldn't really matter to me if I'm watching a simrace on my TV or a real race.

But I think the broadcasting needs to get more professional. I'm yet to hear simracing commentary without bad microphone levels that are either way too quiet, uneven or distorted due to clipping.
Then most streams are stuttering and giving me headache...
Also there are barely any "replays" or multiple camera angles.

Especially the last ACC SRO championship had this problem: "Oh the front runner just dropped to P5 and 2nd has dropped to P10- yeah sadly we can't go back and watch it. Maybe they collided, maybe not, who knows"

 

[flykas]

Hmm, don't know how to feel about this because I don't really follow this discipline of racing, but if such thing was done in WRC and by using the wrc games or dirt rally games, I'd say it would be pretty silly, but with ACC is a whole another deal, of-course it is not the same, but definitely comparable. Though this hybrid is still sounds strange though we'll see.

Another thing that I was thinking recently is that with the motorsport going electric and green, maybe in the future the only way to experience old-school gas powered car race will be in a sim, so lets hope the sims will improve a lot.

 

[Cote Dazur]

That a real life racing organisation deem one of the commercial software and commercial hardware, available and used by all of us, good enough, close enough to reality, to be a part of their racing competition is very good news for any SIM enthusiast, full stop.
Getting feedback from actual, real drivers, competing against each other, using that same commercial software and commercial hardware as us, is even better news. Not as validating, we don”t need that and (should) all realize the wide gap between actually driving those beast of cars risking health and life and what SIM driving is at present stage.
So not for validating, but as a tool that will help software and hardware developers with a live laboratories of real competitors guide us to bring the sim experience closer to reality.
Congratulation to all involved, looking forward to a bright future for our hobby. Looks like pretending to be a real racer, when real racer do the same as us, is suddenly getting a lot easier.

 

[Ghoults]

To be honest I absolutely agree. I don't think real life racing is a huge factor for the climate change.
Sure, it has an influence on more environment friendly technology and might influence the population to buy more eco friendly cars.

Just like all things nowadays it is not about what it does but how it looks. Motorsports is seen by some as something that pollutes and has no any other reason to exist except fun. And they have a point. We don't need motorsport for anything. It is pure entertainment.

But the real kicker is that handful of cars driving around a circuit is not a big polluter. Even in f1 the biggest polluters are the trucks and airplanes and boats that are used to move the show around the world. And even bigger cost is probably the environmental cost of moving the spectators around. But the impressions of people about f1 is that the race cars themselves are doing the pollution. They think that must be a big polluter because it looks so. Yet these same people happily go to big open air concerts or sporting events totally ignorant of the fact that there are likely tens of truck sized diesel generators providing the electricity. Going full blast all throughout the event. But because it does not look like pollution they don't think it is.

So while we agree that in reality racing is not a huge factor when it comes to climate change the sad truth I think is that it doesn't matter. Motorsports looks like it is a big polluter and that is worse than actually being one. And that is dangerous for the long term survival of motorsports.

So the real polluters in f1 for example are left untouched because making the engines more efficient gives the engine manufacturers a possibility to virtue signal how much they car about the environment. While at the same time selling the green image of f1. While at the same time maximizing every kilogram of cargo they can haul around the earth. Yet all this makes f1 look more green and that is all that matters. At the same time f1 could go back to v12s and by simply spending less (money and environment) on engine development and their overall impact to nature would be less. Fewer exotic materials, less material, smaller overheads, smaller production. But it would not look green at the first glance.

It is this virtue signalling that is the real danger of motorsports. People mistakenly believe racing is a big polluter because of the cars going around the circuit look so. As such big car companies have already started scaling down their participation at top level and some have moved into pure virtue signalling motorsports like formula e. I think the bigger series are going to see cuts as big car makers move towards more virtue signal friendly pr areas. One of these is definitely simracing and e-sports and while I see that as a positive I also feel the reasons they are doing this are the same reasons why motorsports at the top level is facing a serious risk.