F1 Considering Sim Racing to Test New Ideas

[Paul Jeffrey]

New Formula One head honcho Ross Brawn has indicated that the sport could look to sim racing in its quest to find solutions to improving the F1 "show".

Speaking during the outstanding Formula One demonstration event on the streets of London today, Brawn opened up to the "massive potential" of eSports and sim racing to trail new ideas and regulations, before introducing them into the real life racing series.

"Where we are looking at improving the racing in the future, there is a huge community of eRacers out there through whom we could potentially put different environments and different changes to the way we race.

"We can get them to tell us whether the racing has improved or not.​

Brawn acknowledges that the consumer sim racing experience has improved by such a rate in recent years, a move towards simulating ideas and design improvements now has a very real merit to the decision making process prior to introducing new concepts to the world of Formula One racing.

"It is not that far removed from the simulators the real teams use. A lot of the F1 teams use software generated from the games industry to give a more realistic environment for their driver simulators. There is scope in that area as well, which we are exploring."​

Brawn feels that with the advanced state of modern racing simulations, and the level at which many of the sim racing community currently compete at, gaining experience and learning lessons in a virtual environment could have very real benefits for the future direction of the sport -

"In the eRacing community, if we change the aero property of the cars and that is fed into their community, does that create a better race or not from their experience?​

"At the moment we are trying to understand what makes a good race: what is it that makes a great race," he said. "It is not just overtaking. You can have a great race without overtaking.​

At the moment however, Brawn is keen to gather a sound understanding of what exactly the fans expect to experience when watching Formula One racing, something that appears to have been constantly overlooked by the previous circus masters of the sport.

"We are mining all the information that exists in F1 to start to build a vision of what makes great racing, and what makes great on track action, and which tracks consistently produce great races."
​

Could our virtual racing activities eventually feed into the future direction of the sport, and could a move towards investigating the advantages of sim racing in respect of the real world series help bring Formula One back to the pinnacle of motorsport racing? Only time will tell....

To involve yourself with the community and discuss Formula One in more detail, head over to our Formula One sub forum and leave a post right away! Motorsport is awesome people!

Do you think using sim racing can help produce better racing? Do you think the new direction Brawn appears to be taking behind the scenes will be positive for the sport? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[DaVeX↯]

So...he wants to implement...
- 15 min practice, 15 min qualy, 45 min race
- public server madness on race start
- restart race X times until server admin and parents are on first 10 positions
- option to kick drivers during race just for fun
- driving assist on or off based on admin sadism
- option to swear each others while driving (racial bad jokes, moms jokes, etc)
- option to park on the most dangerous areas of the track just for fun or waiting an opponent to punish
- etc, etc
What a great era for F1 will be, lol

Btw, if they want to bring back the old fun they just need to give less restrictive rules on car development and focus on battles between drivers inside and outside the track...

 

[Ricardo Rey]

"In the eRacing community, if we change the aero property of the cars and that is fed into their community, does that create a better race or not from their experience?

Is he saying that changes in real-life F1 cars would somehow be translated into our sim cars? If I understood properly that would be awesome. I can't bother to think how this would all be accomplished.

 

[Kasti]

Yes, wee need much less restrictive rules. Just remember how innovative guys like Colin Chapman once had been. Wing cars, Six wheeled Tyrell or the vacuum Brabham... every season a new idea.

And engines without batteries, but with more sound and cylinders. Give us back the 3.5 litre Formula or the freedom of the sixtees: H16, V12, V8...

 

[TheReaper GT]

Is he saying that changes in real-life F1 cars would somehow be translated into our sim cars? If I understood properly that would be awesome. I can't bother to think how this would all be accomplished.

What I understand from that sentence is: "We are gonna look real close to what those nerds are doing, than identify our IP and charge their souls for it"

 

[DaVeX↯]

"It is not just overtaking. You can have a great race without overtaking.

Yeah sure...

"In the eRacing community, if we change the aero property of the cars and that is fed into their community, does that create a better race or not from their experience?

...and sureeeeee again...

I can already see it Codemaster's Real F1 Beta Championship....

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

So...he wants to implement...
- 15 min practice, 15 min qualy, 45 min race
- public server madness on race start
- restart race X times until server admin and parents are on first 10 positions
- option to kick drivers during race just for fun
- driving assist on or off based on admin sadism
- option to swear each others while driving (racial bad jokes, moms jokes, etc)
- option to park on the most dangerous areas of the track just for fun or waiting an opponent to punish
- etc, etc
What a great era for F1 will be, lol

Don't worry, we will gift him a Premium RD membership, all will be recovered

 

[paracletus]

You could have a game of Assetto Corsa against LH, SV & FA
Maybe even Lauda will have a go

 

[tlsmikey]

Could be worse. Could have said, we want to use GranTurismo to test car sounds.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Well... a very small number or none of the F1 games or cars (open wheel overall) everywhere simulates the loss of downforce when close to other cars and they usually generates a lot more draft than real life, this creates close racing online.
I think the only car I saw that effect was the CART Factor/Extreme mod

 

[Dan ONeill]

"In the eRacing community, if we change the aero property of the cars and that is fed into their community, does that create a better race or not from their experience?

This is the most interesting sentence that I read there...
Reminds me of the F3 in AMS

 

[Jack Vos]

New Formula One head honcho Ross Brawn has indicated that the sport could look to sim racing

Ha! who is the Nerd now!

Yall know how some people look at you when speaking of our Sim Racing hobby

 

[Ricardo Rey]

I believe Brawn said top racing sim drivers. That leaves me out. Whew! I can leave no damage checked.

 

[wowbagger]

Yes, wee need much less restrictive rules. Just remember how innovative guys like Colin Chapman once had been. Wing cars, Six wheeled Tyrell or the vacuum Brabham... every season a new idea...

That sounds great in principle. The problem is that Chapman had five guys banging out ideas in a shed.

These days, the big teams will happily chuck hundreds of people and millions and millions... and millions of $/£/€ at this, and every season will become a one trick wonder like 2009. It will be even less competitive than what we have now.

We can have a series which highlights driver talent, or one which highlights technological talent (let's save time and call that the Newey Championship Option) ... but the two are not particularly compatible. And the Newey option will not be entertaining to watch after the first race each season.

 

[Boby Kim]

Finally!!! I was waiting for dx12 graphics and the guy from my cable company told me it was my television...

 

[Rob]

This kind of stuff is no shock to IndyCar fans. But I'm glad we finally have a money-hungry corporation (there, I said it, lol) in charge instead of an Oligarchy. The latter tends to get rich, then lazy. You can still walk right up to IndyCar drivers in the paddock pretty much all weekend. I expect that may be coming to (get ready Lewis, lol). Also, many many more "gen admission" tickets...dirt cheap...no seats...just walk. That's the essence of road racing.

 

[AnklaX]

It may all sound interesting but I wonder how practical this idea is.
Say FIA wants to test out how a new rule change works. So they have to implement it in a game. A game takes multiple years to make and not every developer is good at programming the race rules. In the recent years we've seen the introduction of the virtual safety car and digital flags. How quickly can these be implemented in a simulation? If it were a matter of months, it would've been fine but I don't think that's going to happen. Assetto Corsa is the worst in development of racing rules for example. So how will these be given to the public to test out? The F1 game? If so how can it be achieved. Race rules is one thing but if they want to test out future concept F1 cars, that simulation (if you can call it that) is not adequet IMO. Would it not be easier and faster to try these out in real world?

 

[TheReaper GT]

It may all sound interesting but I wonder how practical this idea is.
Say FIA wants to test out how a new rule change works. So they have to implement it in a game. A game takes multiple years to make and not every developer is good at programming the race rules. In the recent years we've seen the introduction of the virtual safety car and digital flags. How quickly can these be implemented in a simulation? If it were a matter of months, it would've been fine but I don't think that's going to happen. Assetto Corsa is the worst in development of racing rules for example. So how will these be given to the public to test out? The F1 game? If so how can it be achieved. Race rules is one thing but if they want to test out future concept F1 cars, that simulation (if you can call it that) is not adequet IMO. Would it not be easier and faster to try these out in real world?

They will not use a commercial version of a game. They will use RF Pro, AC Pro or a new ip specially designed for their needs, including the needed modularity. The difference here is that a game costs a lot and profits at a slow rate, which slows or even prohibit certain feature development. While a bespoke platform, on commission, is a lucrative endeavor from the get go.
They obviously already use simulation for a lot of stuff. What I think is coming is a way to include the public in the test fase.

 

[AnklaX]

Yes, wee need much less restrictive rules. Just remember how innovative guys like Colin Chapman once had been. Wing cars, Six wheeled Tyrell or the vacuum Brabham... every season a new idea.

And engines without batteries, but with more sound and cylinders. Give us back the 3.5 litre Formula or the freedom of the sixtees: H16, V12, V8...

To improve F1 in everyway, the rules should be such that requires clever engineering than whatever is going on now. Why don't the FIA tell the teams to make a car with the following rules:

- Car must be driven by a human driver.
- Car must follow certain safety related construction restrictions.
- Must weigh less than 500 kg.
- Maximum length, height, width defined
- Two specification. One regular, one high downforce.

That's all basically. That way, constructors are limited by weight. Ferrari may be able to make a car with hybrid system, turbo, supercharger, turbocharger, 9 gears, 12 cylinders. But can they fit it all in 500 kgs? Highly doubtful. So they'll have to pick and choose the configuration that they think will work best. While a poorer team, i.e. sauber may go for an entirely different construction with 4 cylinder and 2 trubos while another team goes for a straight 6. Who know? This sort of rule will bring diversity and cars that have different strengths at different circuits. I think that will really improve F1.

What I wonder why they've never considered such and F1. Are they stupid or do they lack the balls to make such a change?

F1 viewers also has to accept that F1 will never and should never be Mario Kart. Some races are always going to be less eventful while others be strategy heavy while others have on track drama. This is how F1 has always been. It was never a problem. So why is it now. I don't think it's all F1's fault but that many viewers have the wrong idea of what racing is.

 

[Rob]

Don't worry, we will gift him a Premium RD membership, all will be recovered

Why don't they gift loyal league racers a "Premium" membership.