iRacing review

While motorsport simulator iRacing has been around since 2008, at launch it wasn’t that tempting a prospect for even relatively hardcore European racers. A bias toward North American racing and circuits, plus the combination of a subscription fee and paid content, made it more of a professional driver tool than something gamers might dabble with. Compared to traditional sims, it was a very expensive way to pretend to be a racing driver.

Get into one of these and prepare to be terrified.

Then in October 2009, the service cut its subscription and DLC prices by around a third, and began a dripfeed of more Eurocentric content. Suddenly, iRacing is a more palatable prospect for people like me, who cut their teeth on GTR 2 rather than the go-kart track.

Don’t get the wrong idea, though: this is still the most serious recreation of motorsport you’ll find. One of the reasons this is a subscription service is that iRacing actually boasts its own sanctioning body, called FIRST, to ensure the community conducts itself professionally. Which explains why, as I lined up for my first proper race, having done my best to learn the lines around Lime Rock Park in a Pontiac Solstice, I was genuinely, armpit-soakingly terrified of causing an enormous accident and becoming some sort of community pariah.

Bah, that pesky pothole again.

Each driver has a licence with a safety rating. Any of a number of infractions results in your safety rating dropping like a stone, regardless of blame, eventually causing you to drop a licence level. So drivers are more careful and incidents less frequent. Normally heading into the first corner in a racing game, I’d have my foot to the floor, looking for tiny gaps to dart into to mug other racers of their position, but in iRacing, I was driving like I had an eggshell under the accelerator, tip-toeing my way around like an 80-year-old in a Micra. As an empowerment fantasy it failed – I felt nothing like Lewis Hamilton – but the sense of relief and accomplishment when I crossed the line, plumb last, having avoided punting any of the other competitors off the road was comparable to victory in other racers I’ve played.

It’s a clash of two flavours of nerd – gaming and motorsport – but if you’re used to online races that begin with a first corner pile-up as some kid with an allergy to the brake pedal comes spearing through the pack, iRacing is a refreshing change.