First published November 2026

Does sim racing make you a better driver?

Yes, in specific and describable ways. Sim racing builds track knowledge, braking reference points, consistency and racecraft - the same skills drivers from F1 champions to IndyCar racers already train on sims for. The gains come when sim practice is deliberate - then real seat time finishes the job.

Do professional racing drivers use sim racing to get better?

Yes. The quickest evidence is the drivers describing their own preparation.

Max Verstappen called sim racing "not just for fun" in 2019 and "valuable practice and experience" built on setup work and data (RaceFans). In 2020 he named qualifying pressure, starts, overtaking and pit stops among his rehearsal work (news.verstappen.com). In 2025 he put the sim at "90 to 95 per cent" of the real thing (GP247).

Sage Karam, an IndyCar driver, called sim racing "kind of a training tool for my real racing" in 2019. He logged more than 3,000 laps of Brands Hatch in one winter week (IndyCar.com). In 2015 he ran 100 laps a session on iRacing for two weeks before the Skip Barber Shootout at Sebring, a track he had never driven in person. He won against the largest field the shootout had seen (52 drivers, IndyCar.com).

Ben Keating, a WEC driver, rated a simulator session "worth at least one extra practice session and maybe two" in 2023 (FIA WEC). Nick Tandy, a Le Mans winner with Porsche, rated iRacing's bumps and kerbs about 90 per cent correct in 2020 (Autosport).

What does the research actually measure?

The studies measure lap times and driving behaviour. They point the same way as the drivers.

In 2011 a study compared 13 drivers' fastest sim laps with their fastest real race laps. The correlation was .57 (de Groot and colleagues, Presence).

A 2017 study put seven racing drivers against ten non-racers. The racers were faster, held a better line and worked the steering more. Choice reaction time came out level at 431.6 and 439.5 milliseconds (van Leeuwen and colleagues, PLoS ONE).

A 2023 review of 17 studies found improvement in all but one. More realistic simulators tended to do better (Alonso and colleagues, Applied Sciences). The authors flag small samples.

The evidence stays correlational. The fair reading is that it points that way rather than proving it.

Who has crossed from a sim into a real race car?

A small number of sim racers have made the jump through structured competitions.

GT Academy, run by Nissan, PlayStation and Polyphony Digital from 2008, sent winners into real racing. Lucas Ordóñez won the first edition and reached the Le Mans LMP2 podium in 2011 (Gran Turismo, PlayStation Blog).

South Africa has a name on that list. Ashley Oldfield won the South African GT Academy in 2013, beating thousands of local hopefuls and the country's top eight sim racers at a Silverstone Race Camp. He took a class win at the Britcar 1000 km that year and raced the Dubai 24 Hours in January 2014 (Nissan Africa, htxt.africa).

Enzo Bonito, then 23, beat two champions in identical real cars at the Race of Champions in Mexico in January 2019. He saw off the ex-F1 and Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi first, by more than 0.6 seconds after trailing by over a second. The Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay followed (South China Morning Post, Top Gear).

Lucas Blakeley beat four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel by 0.08 seconds in a real rallycross heat at the Race of Champions in Sweden on 5 February 2022. He had about 20 minutes of prior real-car running (PlanetF1). Cem Bölükbaşı became the first F1 Esports graduate to reach Formula 2, racing for Charouz in 2022 (Formula 1). Porsche now runs a version of the same idea: the 2026 Esports Supercup winner can earn a Porsche-supported one-make season in 2027 (Porsche Newsroom).

Which skills move from the sim to the track?

The skills with a reference point in the sim travel best: the circuit, the braking markers, the repeatable lap and the read on traffic.

iRacing laser-scans each circuit and builds the physics from the point cloud. The platform claims millimetre accuracy (iRacing). A motoring journalist cut his lap times from about 2:20 to the low 2:11s on sim practice before a real race. The scanned reference points were still there in reality. He took class pole by 0.2 seconds at a circuit he had not driven in 15 years (The Drive, 2020).

Consistency is the second gain. Lando Norris said in 2019 that sim racing can make a driver very good at racecraft, accuracy and setup knowledge (RaceFans). He added that the sim's unchanging conditions make it much easier to be accurate and repeatable.

Racecraft is the third. Simon Pagenaud used iRacing in 2020 to work out how Scott Dixon defended at Laguna Seca, then replicated the move (Pagenaud's official site).

The clearest measured transfer to ordinary driving comes from older drivers. In 2009 a training study nearly doubled the probability that a driver looked for a threat during a turn. The gain was +37.9 percentage points in real field drives (Romoser and Fisher, Human Factors). Two years on, the trained group still took those secondary looks more than one and a half times as often (Human Factors, 2013).

The VR version of cricket carries the transfer question to the crease in a 2017 batting study at Queen’s University Belfast.

So where does sim practice stop helping?

Sim practice covers what it can measure. The parts that depend on the body and on consequence get finished in the car.

Verstappen has put the sim at 90 to 95 per cent of real racing. The missing part is the G-force of strapping in (GP247, 2025). Norris named speed sensation and the fear of a street circuit as the parts a sim leaves aside (Formula 1, 2026).

Reaction time is not the gain. A 2017 study of racing drivers and non-racers found no difference in choice reaction time (van Leeuwen and colleagues, PLoS ONE). A 2021 comparison of esports players with traditional sportsmen found no difference in simple or choice reaction time (Bickmann and colleagues, International Journal of eSports Research). What a sim does train is recognition of situations you have practised (Romoser and Fisher).

Road safety follows the same pattern. A 2024 review of 15 studies in young novice drivers found immediate gains in simulated skills such as lane keeping and speed control. Simulator training should supplement lessons and seat time rather than replace them (Krasniuk and colleagues, Journal of Safety Research).

For an events team the useful version is simpler than a training programme. VR entertainment for corporate events covers what a managed session looks like when the guests are there for a function rather than a lap record.

The professionals in this article arrive at a circuit knowing which corner they are working on. The real laps finish the job.

The quickest way to test the claim is a lap of your own. The sports day rig puts a seat, a wheel and a clock in front of guests who have never driven one.

Sources

Planning a sports day? Check your date - or call +27 83 733 5133 and ask Richard what will work in your space.