Karting Simulators: What They Are Good For and What They Are Not

By Alessio Lorandi, 2013 CIK-FIA World Champion, KF-Junior. What is in here comes from my own time on simulators, at home and with the teams I raced for in cars. It is my personal opinion.

I love sim racing. And I would still stay away from a karting simulator.

Does sim racing help with karting? This is a big controversial topic nowadays. Lots of people think yes, other people say no. So here you hear my opinion on that, and it is only my opinion. I’ve been on simulators since I was a child, and I’ve spent whole days on the ones of the teams I raced for in cars. Let me tell you what I think a sim is good for if you race karts, and what it is not good for.

Are simulators worth it for karting?

It depends which simulator we are talking about.

I love sim racing in general. iRacing, Assetto Corsa Competizione for GT cars, the single seaters. I think it’s a very good tool, also for a kart driver.

But in terms of karting, I don’t like it at all right now. I believe karting sim racing is not there yet. I mean, as good as the karting simulators can be, they are never going to be anywhere close to the realism you get by driving a kart. So I would not even bother buying one. If you want to get into sim racing anyways, I would instead buy a proper sim gear and drive cars on it. That’s my personal experience.

One thing before we go on. I already compared the two as sports, with the costs and where they are going, in sim racing vs go karting. Here I only talk about the sim as training for somebody who races karts.

Why is a karting simulator not realistic enough?

Because, conversely to a car, a kart is so much more difficult to create a model around that is realistic enough.

And to be honest, the main difference for me is the grip.

On simulators, especially on karting simulators, the grip level is pretty much equal all the way through the corner. Whether you’re on the inside, on the outside, or you’re missing the apex by five meters, you still have the same grip. Which is not realistic. Because in reality, if you just miss the grip by half a meter, you’re cooked. You just lost the apex and there’s no grip there anymore.

It’s the same on the brakes. If you brake a little bit too much in the middle of the track and you’re not opening up the track, you’re not really braking on the grip. So you won’t be able to brake as late. On the simulator, that’s not really affecting you.

And on a real track the grip is never the same. Every time you go out you have to ask yourself, is the grip equal to the session before? No, it’s changed. There’s no such thing as the same grip from session to session. That is why racing drivers need to be grip hunters, and why you have to learn to read how the track evolves.

What bad habits can a karting sim give you?

I feel like if you try to go fast on a karting simulator, you’re gonna pick up bad habits. As simple as that.

Think about what I just said. The sim doesn’t punish you when you miss the apex by meters. It doesn’t punish you when you brake in the middle of the track, off the grip. So you get used to driving like that, and then you bring it to the track, where it doesn’t work.

The physics are so far away from the real track that you actually learn how to drive in a bad way. I believe it makes it worse for you to drive your real kart. So I definitely do not recommend driving on a karting sim.

If you feel you already picked up something wrong, I wrote about how to correct bad driving habits.

And if you want to know which habits you really have in the kart, send me your onboard. I go through your laps corner by corner in an onboard review.

Which simulator should a kart driver use instead?

If you’re a karting driver, I think you’re still better off driving a GT car or a formula car on the sim. When I talk about sim racing I mean for example iRacing or Assetto Corsa Competizione. Whatever car you want. A Formula 4, a Formula 3, a GT3.

Why a car, if you race karts?

Because they are vastly different in technique. And you are going to be aware that it’s a totally different thing. You don’t expect to be driving in the exact same way as in your kart. You realize, okay, this is not the same. So it’s going to be better for you, because you’re not copying something wrong into your kart driving.

What does sim racing actually train?

For me it’s good for your reaction times, for training your eyes, for your consistency and for your focus.

Sim racing is a very good ally when it comes to building your focus. You have to deal with shifting points, braking points, turning points, apexes, and you’re trying to build a consistency.

And the great thing is that on the simulator the conditions are always the same. There are no variables. So if you make mistakes, it’s just you. You can’t say the car was not good, or the temperature was different, or it was your teammate. You don’t have any excuses. It’s a clear reflection tool to know how focused you are in that moment.

How long? You could spend 30 minutes or one hour a day doing some racing. That’s gonna train your focus.

I talk more about this in how racing drivers train focus and concentration.

Can sim racing help you compete under pressure?

Yes. Especially if you get yourself into online races where there are some sort of stakes, because you have to perform under pressure. At the end of the day you’re kind of simulating the real race scenario.

I believe the competitive mindset is something you shape. You’re not born with it. And you shape it by putting yourself in a situation where you have to compete. That can be table tennis with your teammates, rental karts, or sim racing online, trying to win and trying to be the best there.

I was lucky, because all my life I competed against my brother Leo. He’s two years younger than me and we would never stop competing, whatever we did. Soccer, tennis, the F1 games on the PlayStation, racing each other on the simulator with the same car and the same setup. So when I went to the race I was not trying to be competitive. It was just my nature.

And think about the drivers like Max Verstappen, who do hours of sim racing every day. Besides loving it, it makes them extremely focused and it trains them to drive those specific tracks. That’s still preparation. And the more prepared you are, the more confident you are when you get in the kart.

How did I use the simulator when I raced cars?

As a child I had a simulator at home, and on the street circuits I was often crashing in the walls. Heck, I was using the walls as support to carry more speed in the corners.

Then I drove the much more professional simulators of teams, the Van Amersfoort Racing, Carlin and Trident ones. And I always had a reality check of how hard it is to be quick on those tracks without hitting the walls.

I remember preparing for my first ever Pau GP and Macau GP in Formula 3 for like 5 days in the simulator each. I was lapping as many laps as I could, say 150 per day, trying to get more precise, more consistent, working on my spatial awareness.

My engineer would tell me on the radio to get closer to the walls through all the 3 phases of the corners, while I thought I was already close enough. We reviewed the onboard videos after the session and he was right. There were still like 15cm of track available. So the session later I forced myself to close that gap.

Another one. In 2015, my first year in Formula 3, we were on the simulator preparing for the first race. My engineer showed me on the telemetry, at the two major hairpins of Hockenheim, that you need to hold the brakes up until the apex, otherwise you lose the front and the car doesn’t turn. And I was quite amazed, because I felt I was already doing that in karting.

So yes, in cars the sim is a real tool. But you have to know why. In formula cars you can’t do any testing on that specific track. You can only do the simulator. That is something many drivers miss from their time in karting, where you can go to the actual track and test.

What is a simulator good for, and not good for?

This is how I see it for a kart driver.

Can a simulator replace track time in a kart?

No.

If you can do more testing days, that’s helping you massively. And the races are even better, because they train you for the specific race moments. The starts, the formation lap, the head to head battles. You can’t really buy those things.

And there is another thing the sim doesn’t teach you. On the Formula One game or on iRacing, when you crash you just press reset and you go for another race. In reality it’s way more expensive, and sometimes it can even hurt. I say the same to the kids. They cannot drive as if they were on a video game on a PlayStation. This is reality, and their actions have consequences for themselves and for the other drivers.

So if you want to get better in a kart, the laps on the kart come first. I explain why in why track time is key in karting. You can also make that practice higher quality by getting a proper coach and by spending time on your data and your videos. I compared the options in karting coaching compared.

And if what you’re after is car control, for me there’s nothing quite as powerful as ice karting. That one is in the 3 best ways to develop car control.

What should you do instead to recover the missing laps?

Maybe you did five races this season and the others did thirty. You have two options. Either you cry about it, or you try to find a way to recover those missing laps.

How do you do that? Well, not by driving a karting simulator, please. What I suggest instead is visualization.

Get yourself a steering wheel, close your eyes, put some headphones on, and visualize yourself doing the perfect lap. Hundreds of times. Thousands of times. Our brain is so good that it will rarely feel the difference between what’s real and what’s visualized.

Now, who do you think is going to be more confident going into qualifying? The driver who has done 1000 laps inside his mind, or the one who just shows up to the track having done zero? With experience comes confidence, and with confidence comes less pressure.

I do it myself. When I’m heading to the pitlane on a test day, I move myself inside the seat and I simulate the lap for a minute. The feet, the hands, the gear changes, as if I were to do the perfect lap.

And if you don’t have the budget to be at the track every week, watch your race videos and do this work at home.

Next time you sit on the sim, pick a formula car or a GT car, do your 30 minutes, and be honest about your mistakes, because there are no excuses there. Then close your eyes and do the lap of your next track in your head.

Frequently asked questions

Does sim racing help with karting?

In my opinion it depends on the sim. Driving GT or formula cars on a simulator is good for your reaction times, your eyes, your consistency and your focus. Karting simulators I don’t recommend right now, because I believe the models are not ready yet to represent a realistic driving technique.

Are karting simulators realistic?

In my opinion, not yet. The grip level is pretty much equal all the way through the corner, even if you miss the apex by five meters. On a real track, if you miss the grip by half a meter, there’s no grip there anymore.

Which simulator should a kart driver use?

I would drive a GT car or a formula car, for example on iRacing or Assetto Corsa Competizione. The technique is vastly different from a kart, so you don’t expect to drive in the same way and you don’t copy it into your kart driving.

How long should a kart driver spend on the sim?

To train your focus, 30 minutes or one hour a day is what I suggest. The conditions are always the same, so if you make mistakes it’s just you.

Can a simulator replace track time in karting?

No. Testing days and races train you for starts, formation laps and head to head battles, and you can’t really buy those things. If you don’t have the budget for more track time, I suggest visualization and watching your race videos.