I just like driving. In simracing I get to drive all those cars I'll never get to drive in real life. On all those tracks I never get to visit. Let alone drive or race. Pushing the car to its limit, going sometimes over, nailing a corner, missing an apex and trying to salvage it without losing tons of time, getting a perfect corner exit, mastering a car to some degree after initially struggling with it, putting effort into hitting those apexes, sometimes even doing some dirty hotlapping. It is the dynamics of it all. In a car that is fun to drive it still requires constant attention but also gives constant rewards. There are mini pauses on straights and mini stress moments in some trickier corners. There is a very high skill ceiling and while trying to improve is not always fun in that exact moment it is always satisfying in the end.
It is also challenging. I've never considered hardcore simulators hard to drive. To me they always felt intuitive. Smooth inputs and the cars rarely snap out unpredictably. Of course there are sims that do so but I find those less enjoyable. I like a challenge but if the difference between a spin and save is as much of a dice roll than skill then I'd rather play something else. Of course there is a frustration aspect to it. Spinning out or getting wrecked, turn 1 and those other things do sometimes make it less fun but those are just momentary.
Racing online makes it even better. You have the competition aspect to it even if it is just a relatively meaningless random public server. I'd say even a bad sim is fun to play with other people. Bad cars and bad tracks as well. You have to drive well and in addition to that you have the defending and attacking while also trying to improve even when the race is going. There are accident avoidance skills, situational awareness and being able to predict cars and opportunities even when you can't see them. Read the body language of other drivers and give them more or less space or just wait until they take themselves out.
Sometimes you don't even need a door to door battle through the race to be exciting. Sometimes all it takes is to follow a faster car trying to just hold on. Even if it is just slipstream it does make you feel good. Other times you are in front holding up faster guys. Being able to do it cleanly is just incredibly fun. When I started sim racing I did not much like being in front as I did not have any of those defensive skills. And not the overtaking skills either. But nowadays I really cherish that challenge. There are so many little tricks and maneuvers that you can do that also present you the choise between slowing down to defend or go faster but leave yourself open. When it is 3 or 4 cars battling instead of 2 is just even more fun. It truly is like 3d chess at times and being outsmarted is sometimes just as fun as being the smarter. To make an another analogy to me sim driving is like playing football when you have the ball all through the match.
