RaceDepartment Members Racing A Real Ginetta G40

I think most of us that have done any form of racing on a console or PC have wondered if we’d be any good at the real thing. Myself and @Mbeet2000 went to find out.

We’d booked ourselves on to an experience day via Ginetta’s track day company want2race. We’d have 3 x 20 minute sessions driving the Ginetta G40 around their Blyton Park test track accompanied by an instructor.

Ginetta G40 Cup​

Engine: 1800cc | Top Speed: 125mph | Weight 840KG | Power: 135BHP

Blyton Park​

Our day started out with the typical British thing of opening the curtains to find it’s raining, windy and cold...great. Luckily the forecast was for light rain in the morning which was due to stop before we got to Blyton and for once the forecast was right - when we arrived the rain had stopped and the track had dried out.

The only downside to the morning rain was the car was setup for the wet (so softer dampers, roll bars etc) and we would be running on the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres instead of slicks.

So how does real life compare to sims? My only real comparison to go on was driving the G40 in AMS2 but that was using slick tyres so in general I was just looking to see what sim racing experience I could apply.

Braking​

Needs to be done in a straight line, and I mean STRAIGHT, initially anyway. In most sims you can still brake hard if you aren’t completely square but in the little Ginetta any hint of steering lock would have the back end dancing around on you. I’m a heavy trail braker in sims but really needed to refine my technique IRL.
This could have been helped a bit with a dry setup and slicks I suppose but I think you would still need to make sure all the hard work was done in a straight line.

For the first 2 sessions I was using heal and toe in the braking zones that required a down shift. This was great for matching the revs, keeping the weight balance stable and carrying speed BUT Katie said I needed to brake harder and more consistently. When blipping the throttle with my heal I was releasing a bit of brake pressure which means the braking zones were longer than needed. I had learnt this technique years ago when playing GT Legends but trying to apply this to a brake pedal that required A LOT of force just wasn’t working. For my 3rd session I tried out the technique Matt had been using, he was braking hard with no heal or toe and just dropped down the gears when the revs felt right. This instantly gave me more confidence on the brakes and improved my times but it did feel a bit alien to me to not rev match on the downshift and I was always waiting for the back to snap. I think with more time in the car and getting a better feel for the brakes I’d be back to heal and toeing but keeping the pressure just right.

Accelerating​

Being rear wheel drive I was expecting to be able to get on the power quickly out of the corners but this would end in the front massively pushing wide. You needed to be very gradual with the throttle after the apex to balance speed vs understeer. I’m usually very smooth on throttle application in sims but this needed extra attention and refinement in real life. Slicks and a dry setup may have helped more here but I’ll never know. I tend to feather the throttle or keep a small application of it on to balance the car but in real life this resulted in the front pushing wide. Coasting turned out to be more effective but I feared the back would brake free and didn’t put enough trust in the car to just grip.

Steering​

By now you are probably starting to spot a bit of a theme, everything I know can be applied to the real world but it needs a lot of refinement – steering inputs are the same. I’m usually smooth with my steering inputs in a sim or karting so I don’t unsettle the car. This helped out massively in the G40 as it made the weight balance more consistent. If you were sawing away at the wheel you’d have a lot of trouble in turn in and accelerating out. The only time I needed to steer quickly was when I’d enter a corner with too much speed then feel the back step out which leads me on to the other part of steering. Having the instinct to save a slide isn’t something you do without practice and the only real practice I’ve had is on sims and some karting. When I entered the second to last turn too quickly the car stepped out just at the apex and could have easily gone round on me but everything seemed to happen in slow motion and my arms and legs just went in to autopilot as I wrestled to keep the car going the right way. You can see this on my fastest lap video below around 1:08

Weight Balance​

I know if you search anywhere for real life or sim racing tips that this comes up a lot and there is a good reason it does – it's crucial. All day long I had been struggling with the 2nd to last corner and it was because I could never get the weight to centre up before smashing the brakes after the fast chicane that leads up to the corner, you can see this on my fastest lap video at 1:06. The red dot that indicates where the weight is heading is left of centre. A small shift in weight balance makes a huge difference to what the car does. You need to make sure you have it nice and square for the braking zone, progressively load it up during turn in and progressively lose the load on exit. This is all stuff I do in sims week in week out but adapting to this in real life when you are hitting the brakes at 90mph is an eye opener!

Sensory overload​

One thing we found is how difficult it is to process the extra information you are getting compared to sim racing. Generally when racing with a wheel on the PC you are getting feedback from the wheel, what you are seeing on screen and the sounds you are hearing. In the real thing you are also being assaulted by g forces. These obviously help you feel what the car is doing more than on a sim but it's something else to get used to and learn to process.

Becoming a real life racer​

Could I become a real life racing driver and use my sim experience as a base? Absolutely, look at the success that Jimmy Broadbent and James Baldwin have had but there are 3 main factors that mean I will never be able to do it:

• Money – You need a serious amount of money or proper backing to be able to do this sort of thing. It’s probably doable in the lower categories but even then you’d be looking at bill after bill for repairs, rebuilding engines, tyres etc. Hats off to anyone that is doing it right now, your dedication is amazing!
• The Fear Factor – On a sim you can push to the limit knowing that if you go over it and end up in a barrier you just ESC back to the pits and try again – that isn’t a thing in real life. I found that there was always a niggling feeling in the back of my head that stopped me pushing harder through fear of having an accident and getting a bill for repairs. This would be eased if I won the lottery and money wasn’t a problem but there would still always be a hesitation there and that’s because of my next point:
• Dedication - I’m in my 30s now and have a family. Motorsport is dangerous, if it wasn’t it would be boring. However, being a family man means I can’t be out there risking a big accident or be away from my family for days as I travel up and down the country. If my kids were older and I had the money then it wouldn’t be as bad I suppose.

I have taken away from the experience a sense of relief, satisfaction and I've been humbled. For years I’ve always thought I’d missed my opportunity to be a racing driver and it bugged me but it turns out I don’t want to be one. Matt and I both agree that we massively enjoyed our day with Ginetta and it was great to see we have the core skills there to be quick but we get just as much enjoyment if not more from racing online or karting with friends that we don’t need to be out there dedicating our lives to being on track. It's also been an eye opener on just how hard it is to drive a car fast and I will never again be an armchair critic of anyone on track that seems a lot slower or at the back - reality is they are probably pushing it as hard as I ever could.

I enjoy being able to race with people from all over the world from my own home and push the car to the limit on the PC safe in the knowledge that if I have a bad race and a huge crash I won’t need to re-mortgage the house to get back out there!

My Fastest Lap​

(sorry about the audio quality, filmed using the onboard vbox system which was set to -45db audio level - useful!)

A comparison of mine and Matt's best laps​

Do you have any real life racing ambitions? Ever raced a real car on a racing circuit yourself? Let us know in the comments below.