Sim racing practice is a very individual thing, so we asked the OverTake community how they approach it - here are the results.
Everyone is looking for different things in sim racing, be it a competitive experience or the immersion of driving your favorite car at your favorite track. As a result, it is no surprise that different sim racers practice very differently - if they even practice at all.
There are plenty of ways you can try to improve, and to add to that, there are quite a few tools to help with that as well, such as OverTake Turbo. What does the OverTake community prefer, though? We asked, and we received interesting answers.
Practice Preferences: Solo Rather Than In A Team
Our poll allowed for multiple answers, so a combination of approaches was also possible to select. The clear winner of the vote was solo practice, however: Whether guides or telemetry tools are involved, most of those who participated in the poll prefer to do their practice laps solo rather than in a group.
As is often the case, limited time is a factor in this, which @JMA80 stated as well:
"Don't want to qaste my limited playtime for practising (boring). I'm in just for the fun."
@Peter Conway also prefers to stay by themselves when practicing, but there is more to it:
"I give solo practice as an answer but that doesn't really tell the whole story, I practice in offline races and qualifying, and I get used to a car or track in solo test sessions, but even racing and practice against mates is allowing me to... improve is perhaps the wrong word for me, I 'reacclimatise' myself with sim driving, sometimes meeting my previous best times on rare occasions just shaving a few thousanths off, though that is most likely to happen when racing against mates,
I guess it's having a 'real' moving target, the bigest jump was when we were joined by a stranger in AC (forgot to make it private and he wandered in) he was faster than us by a good stretch, but he was there to join in and have a fun time occasionally backing off to allow for a chase, during a race I was nibbling at him for a good few laps and on crossing the line I found I had improved a best lap time from low 2.09 to a mid 2.07!So, yeah, off line, online, solo... any, but I don't go asking questions or watching vids, and the telemetry confounds me
."
@Jempy, on the other hand, does find some use in telemetry analysis:
"Once we know where are the different points for going faster, well done and programmed solo practice is one of the best solutions.
Of course setup guides and learning how to do it yourself can help but lost time for the 2 or 3 last % are made of different little details .... telemetry ( as Track Titan for example ) is a good way to find where and why you're losing time.
Just practicing afterwards can help to cure those details .... in order to finally apply it online.
"
BUT: missing free time is mostly THE problem for practicing.
Regarding data analysis, it is probably rare to go as far as our own Racing Club Staff member @Jimlaad43 did:
"I became a professional Data Engineer and started working with proper racing drivers and learning from them how to approach "a corner" and it certainly moved me forward on the grid."
Of course, there are also those who don't practice at all, be it because they deem practice to be boring, or because "the racing itself is my practice", as @gamma123152 stated.
Perhaps the least usual, but all the more interesting way to practice was stated by @mantasisg, who does two things at once:
"I would say modding, especially making cars physics, then testing them and trying to understand what is doing what and trying to align all that with reality helps one to become better driver. Meanwhile, for racecraft you just have to race and have proper good sport attitude."
The Different Layers Of Practice
Practice in sim racing is not very straight forward, as it has multiple elements to take into account. Some relate to the car, some relate to the track, and racecraft mixes everything together, so it's important not to focus on just one area if improving overall is your goal - although it can help with ironing out weaknesses in particular areas if you focus on them temporarily.
Understanding The Car
The first layer is understanding your car. How does it behave in different types of corners? How much downforce, if any, does it have? Is the engine in the front, middle or back? Is it front wheel driven or rear wheel driven? All of these basic things are a requirement to squeeze out more time on any given track.
Track Knowledge
That said, knowing the ins and outs of a track is just as important. First and foremost, this is about the layout itself - knowing which corners are coming up, where to position the car for them, where to brake, where to accelerate again, the lot. There are finer points to this, of course, like kerbs you can cut across, bumps you should avoid despite them being on the racing line, and even weather oddities that can happen at some of them.
Racecraft
Once you know how get good pace out of your car at a given track, the game changes once you are on the circuit with others. You cannot simply stick to the braking points or racing lines you always use when on your own - there might be a car there going for the same real estate as yourself. Therefore, it is important to practice your racecraft with other cars on the track as well.
It seems like in many an online lobby, this is a layer that is often forgotten. People can be lightning quick hotlappers and will top the time sheets in qualifying, but once they have to battle with other cars on track, their race quickly falls apart.
Personally, I would argue that having good racecraft is more important than the ultimate pace, because if you can keep your nose clean and consistently do laps in the race, you usually gain positions more or less automatically. Perhaps more so in online races than versus the AI, but the point is the same - a consistent, safe driver is better off than a much quicker, but ultimately more error-prone one.
OverTake Turbo & Academy
The fact that he amount of practice to improve might seem overwhelming to some is the reason why we implemented OverTake Turbo and the Academy. One is a coaching tool based on telemetry that can help you with your racing line, showing you exactly where there is time to be gained and making the jungle of telemetry data easier to navigate.
The other is a great way to head to the track with fellow sim racers with an instructor, giving you the opportunity to learn more about how a car's behavior changes when changing certain setup parameters, as well as to get live feedback to questions you may have. Online coachings did not rank very high in the poll - let us know in the comments below if that is simply due to the time committment, or maybe because of accessibility!
What are your opinions on practice in sim racing? Let us know in the comments below!
