Mercedes F1 Cars Are Coming to iRacing

Mercedes F1 iRacing.png
iRacing has announced that a pair of Mercedes Formula One cars are coming to the sim.

In a tweet that has caught the attention of many in the sim racing community, iRacing has announced a partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team to bring the Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 E Performance F1 car along with the 2022 Mercedes car to iRacing in the future.


Renouned Strategy Director James Vowles was quoted in the official press release as saying that iRacing and Mercedes F1 had been working on developing the 2021 car for iRacing since early this year.

This is potentially big news in the sim community on many fronts. iRacing fans who feel disappointed by the limited selection of Formula One cars will now have another option to drive. Also, Formula One is infamous for limiting licensing of F1 cars outside of the official F1 game, so this is potentially a vanguard for a new crop of licenses being issued outside of the F1 game. Plus, those who feel the official F1 game is, well, a game rather than a pure simulator will be able to enjoy the driving physics on offer from iRacing.

With the real-world 2021 F1 season being just past the midway point of the season, it’s not surprising that the details on the 2022 car being brought to iRacing are vaguer. The 2022 F1 regulations will be a significant jump compared to recent seasons.

No release date has been given for the cars, but the 2021 W12 could reasonably be expected to be released to the public before the end of the F1 season. This is an intriguing step forward for both iRacing and for Formula One’s presence in the sim world. No plans were announced for what iRacing will do with the car in sim, but a collaboration with such a huge presence in the racing world has the potential to be very popular.
Let us know your thoughts on this teaser in the comments below, and whether you plan to buy the car.
About author
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

Comments

I hope this would motivate people to drive in GP series in iracing, because now there are too few participants, races with 3-4 cars are not a rare occurence in the sim. F1 is vastly popular worldwide, in iracing it is not popular at all.
It's just as popular as every other demanding/exotic car.

You can't expect enough random people to join an F1 race every couple of hours. All the high tier series at iRacing only have a hand full of races with filled grids each week. You need to check the forums when those races are held.
 
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It's just as popular as every other demanding/exotic car.

You can't expect enough random people to join an F1 race every couple of hours. All the high tier series at iRacing only have a hand full of races with filled grids each week. You need to check the forums when those races are held.

That's what I would expect based on history. I'd think league use, but now that you can mix and match, you could have a race with a handful of friends and some AI's to fill out the field or just play against a field of AI's yourself.

However iRacing has picked up a lot more drivers in the last couple years. They went from 110,000 users January 2020 to 170,000 users by May of 2020. During Peak Covid they had over 600 people racing each hours for a while.

It's possible there is enough interest. I guess we will see, but I would assume Class B and Class A races mostly.
 
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That's what I would expect based on history. I'd think league use, but now that you can mix and match, you could have a race with a handful of friends and some AI's to fill out the field or just play against a field of AI's yourself.

However iRacing has picked up a lot more drivers in the last couple years. They went from 110,000 users January 2020 to 170,000 users by May of 2020. During Peak Covid they had over 600 people racing each hours for a while.

It's possible there is enough interest. I guess we will see, but I would assume Class B and Class A races mostly.
My personal opinion, which doesn't reflect each and all... is these cars are too fast! I'm a class A last time I raced three years ago. Somewhere 3000 iRating. It doesn't mean I'm fast though. More on the safe side I guess?

These are really quick beasts! It's like playing guitar hero on steroids, I mean the visual cues just keeps coming, or rather flying past me. It's like attacking me, the brake boards... I guess I'm old now.

There are much better racing on easy, controllable cars, I find.

There were 80k subscribers when I was there. But the popularity of the F1 game, the F1 series and the marketing claims that they scanned the mercs, oh wow. I can easily imagine exclusive new subs just for that content. May this satisfy the F1 series, I may even resub just to satisfy the curiosity. These are really good stuff imo.
 
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I got the Red Bull F1 car just out of curiosity a while back and remember feeling that it was just so freaking fast it was obscene.

I'd run a few laps in a car like the BMW M8 GTE and then the F1 car and my lap times were much faster, but I also realized that I wasn't close to pulling the full performance of that car.
 
If we could get modern F2, F3, and F4 cars that would be great. I'd much rather prefer a halo over the ridiculously thick and ugly antenna of the Dallara F3 for example. I fail to understand why the iRacing has the ugliest version of that car when it looks just fine in AC.
 
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Ah, sounds good! Some random sim racer from Finland or Germany, even Japan maybe will surely shatter all track records of Lewis, Valteri or even Max. Good stuff!
Max may be even faster in iRacing than he is on actual circuits.

In the F3 two year or so ago, he jumped in a really fast practice session - loaded with VRS Coanda drivers etc. - and was almost a second faster than the aliens within a few laps.

The car had just been released, and was thus new to everyone, but I've never seen anyone that untouchable so quickly. Even Lando had nothing for him, and prior to that session, I thought he was about as good it got.

Probably shouldn't conclude too much from a single session in a brand new car, but it was quite an eye opener.

(Mind, iRacing tyre model and physics were also much wonkier back then, and driving them quickly wasn't intuitive at all.)
 

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