CHRIS HARRIS

Is virtual racing a sport? Or is it just filling the gap until drivers can get back on the track? Discuss

I managed to upset a small faction of the online racing community a few days ago. The night before there had been a virtual Indycar race during which an Indy 500 winner from the real world deliberately took out F1’s hot-young-thing Lando Norris. The race was ruined and by the time I woke up and did the usual morning lockdown social media trawl, the internet was going loopy.

My suggestion that people appeared to be losing their minds over a computer game calmed the flames like a litre of super unleaded. Subsequently, lots of people younger than me proved that spelling standards have dropped by calling me a winker.

I’ve sat on the fence with this iRacing thing for a while – I think partly because I didn’t really see where it was going and partly waiting for some kind of epiphany that would instantly turn me into a believer. But it isn’t happening.

Not because I don’t acknowledge the skill of the competitors (are they drivers?) – they’re clearly very, very skilled. The simulations ping from the screen so cleanly they just look real and there are now sponsors supporting many of the different series. I’m not such a boomer that I don’t acknowledge the fact this is the new order. This, potentially, is the future of racing.

Well, if it is, we racing fans are in a spot of bother. Because the simulation software is deficient in one critical area – risk. Driving a racing car involves managing many things – temperatures, emotions – but it is fundamentally defined by the

“DRIVING A RACING CAR IS DEFINED BY THE BALANCE OF RISK AND REWARD”

balance of risk and reward. The greatest drivers are the ones who can push one further without being punished by the other.

There is no risk in a simulated world. During this lockdown period, I’ve watched a few races and the absence of that one thing contaminates iRacing’s credentials as a sport. I suppose if you define a sport as an organised event populated by paid entrants and watched by punters, then it is a sport. But if the virtual interpretation of a real sport is deficient in the thing that defines the real version, isn’t that a bit of a problem?

Yes, modern motorsport is infinitely safer than it used to be, but even in a tank-like GT3 car, on a track like Spa where the gradients have been softened and the run-off areas extended, you swallow hard every time you roller coaster into Eau Rouge. Because you know that if you get it wrong it will be expensive, or it will hurt – most probably both.

There are so many positive counter-arguments to support iRacing, and I hear them all. Motorsport is inherently elitist and, to a certain degree, this brings down those barriers. It’s also a little kinder on the environment than flying thousands of tonnes of cargo around the world and burning fuel.

Several people castigated me for being negative and cited all the big name racers – old and young – lining up on these grids. But the uncomfortable truth is that they are just doing it for fun – to kill the time and keep themselves visible until they can climb back into a real racing car once again.

The uncomfortable realisation for me is that perhaps motor racing isn’t supposed to be transported into a virtual world. Perhaps it doesn’t belong there and something new should take its place? I’m now thinking back to the first time I played Wipeout as a student and that doesn’t seem such a terrible con.