How the hidden side of being fast has been exposed

The lack of real track action so far this year hasn't stopped drivers from keeping their racing brains "fresh", as former Formula 1 racer Stoffel Vandoorne suggested last weekend.

Their exciting stampede to compete in Esports competitions has been great fun for them, and important for society with its #stayhome undercurrents, but it has also offered onlookers a fascinating opportunity to see first-hand the intricacies of how the top drivers achieve their speed.

Several months ago, many people would have been of the view that if you get a top-line grand prix ace and give him a few hours of practice on an F1 game, he could blow the regular sim racers out of the water.

But Max Verstappen's reluctance to get involved in F1's Virtual Grand Prix series because he hasn't had enough hours of practice, tells you everything you need to know about why that isn't the case. Just as in the real world, so-called 'natural talent' is nothing if you don't put some time and a great deal of effort into improving.

Williams F1 newcomer Nicholas Latifi is a great example of this point, having not done much sim racing before signing up to the Veloce/Motorsport Games #NottheGP series. His first outing in Australia was a pretty bruising affair as he learned the ropes, but already by the second race in Bahrain the Canadian ended up as the best non-professional sim racer.

Speaking about his experience last weekend, Latifi was clear that there was no silver bullet to reaching the kind of performance that the sim racing regulars are able to achieve.

"So far I've only really competed in the F1 game and fortunately you could make it quite easy or quite hard, depending on what assists you want to use," he said.

"I did spend quite a few hours practising just not to look silly, and it paid off, it was not too bad! But yeah, I'm having my first go on iRacing, I seemed to struggle a bit more on that.

"It's still a challenge to get up there. It requires a lot of practice. It requires learning the little tricks of the games to really get the last bit of lap time out of it" Stoffel Vandoorne

"I could see why a lot of the guys that do this professionally and a guy like Lando [Norris] who does this quite a lot as well is so quick at it, because it's obvious you apply a lot of the same skills like real-life driving in terms of how you want to get a fast lap time.

"But it's not 100% the same, and these little kind of intricacies and things you have to figure out with sim racing itself, it's definitely very difficult.

"I could spend all of the rest of the hours that I'm going to spend self-isolating in this break, and I still wouldn't get to the level of these guys. But if it's keeping me sharp and having fun in the progress, then I'm all up for it."

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Those thoughts are echoed by Formula E racer Vandoorne, also Mercedes F1's simulator driver, who has also embraced more sim racing while in lockdown in the United States.

"I used to do a lot of sim racing years ago, and I was actually pretty decent back then. It's kind of like a reset button almost," he says.

"It's been not that easy to get back up to speed. I think some games on different platforms we've been playing on, some of them have done better than other ones.

"I don't know exactly why, I don't know if it's physics, car models, the way the things work with the steering, how they interact with the brake pedal, but some games I'm getting on with better than other ones.

"It's still a challenge to get up there. It requires a lot of practice. It requires learning the little tricks of the games to really get the last bit of lap time out of it."

The more realistic sims have become, the more drivers have found that using the same skills that make them quick on the track are applicable to the digital world. It's no longer about a magical combination of hitting two buttons and the left trigger at the same time for a 200mph speed boost, as may have been the case with arcade games in the past.

Instead, being quick is about optimising racing lines, brake balance, throttle pressure, fuel burning, and slipstreams - no different than the real world.

Lando Norris, who took over Vandoorne's drive at McLaren last year, says: "There are little tips and tricks you've got to know for all of them. For F1 2019 more than anything, there's a lot of little... not secrets, but things you have to know about more than for other games.

"So for new people coming in, those things can easily be one or two-tenths per lap. That's quite a lot of lap time.

"I'm still a long way ahead in terms of hours spent on my simulator, especially compared to people like Stoff. So there's big differences, and I know a lot more of the little things that they don't.

"But once they start to learn these things, they start to get up to speed, then it becomes a lot more interesting, the competition becomes tough, the field gets closer, and you start to see the gaps closing down to half a tenth, quarter of a tenth, and you get sometimes five or 10 drivers within a couple of tenths."

His comments echoed a fascinating talk given by Lewis Hamilton last year on stage at the Gran Turismo World Finals in Monaco. Being prodded by some of GT's best drivers, he opened up on the factors that he felt made him a better driver. His revelations about the processes he adopts on race weekends sound very similar to those employed by the top-level gamers each time they play.

"I think real drivers adapt to iRacing or RFactor a bit better because they are more realistic. If you put them on the F1 game, it is more like a game" James Baldwin

"Over the years, I've really dug further and deeper into the technical side of it," said the now six times world champion.

"So, in terms of driving style, each year I have to adjust my driving style due to the tyre that we have.

"Sometimes you have an oversteering car and sometimes you have an understeering car. For example, this year [2019] has been a lot more understeer and we've been trying to work around the balance because the track is constantly migrating in F1.

"When you are actually on the lap you're looking at, braking points are very, very key. From the brake to the apex is where the majority of the time is made. But it's also separating out the lap and finding out where it's better sometimes to sacrifice the entry to get the exit.

"Of course you want to use the maximum width to the track, and keeping the minimum speed up is most often quite key in some places. But there are different driving styles you have to apply to different corners. So it's really trying to figure out what those are.

"It flows through practice and I'm usually pushing more, pushing less, lifting off a bit of the speed, moving the brake balance around quite a bit, and the engine braking.

"It's those kind of things, so braking, downshifting earlier, downshifting later. Then there are these different things to adjust the balance of the car. It's not always the easiest to plan for, because the car moves in different ways."

The professional sim racers are well aware that the real racers - once they learn to get up to speed like they do in the real world - are soon going to be breathing down their necks. Veloce's James Baldwin, part of the Le Mans Esports Series Super Final winning lineup last year, is clear there is no shock at the processes his real world rivals are going through to start putting the likes of him under more pressure.

"We shouldn't be surprised," he said. "These are the top drivers in the world. If they put in the hours in, they're going to be quick. I think everyone would have assumed that, and that is the case.

"I think real drivers adapt to iRacing or RFactor a bit better because they are more realistic. If you put them on the F1 game, it is more like a game so if you don't have the hours behind you, you don't know the tricks and tips, you're not going to be at the front."

It's that very evolution of speed (learning, pushing, comparing, applying and improving) which is proving to be the attraction for real racers right no as they bide their time until the day job starts properly again.

As Vandoorne says: "Especially in times like this where we can't really have any real-life competition on-track, it's still a good way to keep the mind fresh.

"When all of us put in the hours, it almost feels like we're at the real track to fight for the last couple of tenths to perfect your driving style.

"Sometimes it's very frustrating as well when you can't figure it out, but I guess it's the competition that is most exciting about it."