A visit to F1 Arcade Boston is just one of the features in this week’s Sim Racing Roundup. If you can’t make it to Boston don’t worry, F1 Arcade is coming to Washington and Vegas next. I also have news on how Ferrari uses an AI driver in the sim, what it’s like to race against Max Verstappen on iRacing and looking at why you spin after touching the grass. All this and more in this week’s Sim Racing Roundup on Motorsport Prospects. It’s sim racing news for racers not gamers.
From Sim Racing to the Real Thing
Racer has a fascinating article on how Ferrari’s upgrade package at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is tailored toward delivering a more consistent and predictable car that it believes will lead to more performance coming from the setup and its drivers. The key thing is that a lot of the development is done on a sim by an AI driver.
“Making the car more drivable is always going to give you performance because the AI driver that works 24 hours a day back at the factory, it can drive the car faster than the real drivers can drive it because it’s much less sensitive to perceptions,” Ferrari’s senior performance engineer Jock Clear said. “It doesn’t get frightened, it doesn’t think, ‘Oh, can I really brake this late?’ So we’re always looking to close that gap, and closing that gap is just closing the balance window and giving the car a very consistent balance high speed and low speed so they know what they’re going to get.”

Houston-Based Company RAFA Racing Club has partnered with IMSA to support its future stars and bring together car enthusiast community, and a big part of this revolves around sim racing. With an eye toward the growing virtual racing world and its role in driver development, RAFA will partner with IMSA on a sim racing series on the iRacing platform, appealing to both aspiring drivers and fans who enjoy sim racing. Details on the series are forthcoming.
“IMSA is dedicated to working at the grassroots level of our sport to develop the next generation of competitors across our series,” said IMSA Vice President, Partnership Marketing and Business Development, Brandon Huddleston. “This partnership with RAFA Racing Club adds another layer of support in both the real and virtual racing arenas. We welcome RAFA to the stable of IMSA Promotional Partners and appreciate their dedication to the future of sports car racing.”
Max Verstappen pulled off an interesting double by racing in two events last weekend. We all know by now that he won the F1 Grand Prix at Imola but he also won the sim racing edition of the iRacing’s Nurburgring enduro with his Team Redline sim squad.
“He is basically a racing machine, so it is quite often he is testing different set-ups in the evening and this kind of thing, so it is not unusual for him to be doing that,” said Christian Horner, after Verstappen beat McLaren’s Lando Norris to the Imola win.
“It’s a 24-hour race and I think there are four of us on the car. But of course, I don’t have a lot of time, Saturday night and Sunday morning,” Verstappen stated. But how much sleep was he able to get? “Seven hours,” he smiled. “I would prefer to sleep more, but on a race weekend, seven hours is absolutely fine.”
As for those concerned that he should be focused on his F1 duties and less on his sim racing? “It’s in my free time and I think I’m professional enough to see for myself what’s OK and what’s not OK.”
Competitive Sim Racing News

Check out the video above by Kiwiladlad. “During Team Redline’s Twitch Stream 28/04/2024. I am #11, good battle with Max until the inevitable happens.”
Sim Racing Tips & Techniques


General Sim Racing News

- Taking F1 Arcade for a spin (Sports Business Journal)
- F1 Arcade opening third U.S. location in Las Vegas (Sports Business Journal)
- iRacing, other online racing sims connecting brands, sponsors and fans (Sports Business Journal)
- RaceRoom To Add BMW M2 CS Racing, Two More BMWs (Overtake)