5 Differences Between Driving The Nurburgring In Video Games Vs. Real Life

1. You won't get anywhere near your game times at first

When you first get out on track, don’t try to drive like you do in the virtual world. There’s so much to take in that you don’t want to be banging into kerbs and careening over blind hills at full pelt unless you know your car and the track very well. If you get it wrong in the game, you can just restart, but hit the barriers in the real world and you’ve got a hefty bill coming your way.

Last time I went out in the CT86 with Ring Garage, I was a solid two minutes slower than I am in Forza. I was much slower, but it was way more fun in the real car, so I didn’t really care about my time. Just get out there and enjoy it - leave your pride at the ticket barrier.

2. You're going slower, so it's easier to find your lines

When I went out on the track, I tried to forget about doing a good lap time, and instead focused on nailing my technique. (The only reason I know my time is because Boosted Boris was on stopwatch duty, unbeknownst to me!) Unless you’re a ‘Ring pro, you’re not at the limit of grip, so it’s really good fun just placing the car correctly and carving the optimum line through a corner.

Once you start to learn the track and your lines, you can move on to nailing apices at speeds you wouldn’t believe possible, even in the game world - trust me, one lap with the Ring Banana showed just how crazy fast a good driver can go, even in a crap car!

3. Watching out for traffic is stressful

When gaming, you can scrape and bump and generally act like a bit of a douchebag while charging through the pack. When you’re out on track IRL, there can be a hell of a lot of traffic - both faster and slower - that can get in your way, and these are people’s actual cars, so you can’t make any contact (obviously). Making sure you don’t crash into someone you’re overtaking, and that you don’t pull out on a faster car, requires a tonne of concentration.

In my second lap, I caught up to a fellow GT86 and was much faster through corners, but either through arrogance or ignorance he didn’t let me pass. That then killed my momentum for straights meaning I couldn’t overtake as we were in identically powered cars. I ended up dropping back and ruining my flow just so I didn’t end up in his rear bumper. When I caught him again, frustration took over, and I made a potentially silly dive up the inside into a chicane. Fortunately he saw me, but it just shows how unlike in the gaming world, watching what’s happening behind you is the most important thing for newbies to remember.

The first time I went out on the Nordschleife I was painfully slow. This was partly due to the fact that trying to remember to change gear with my right hand while also taking everything else in was harder than I’d expected.

The main reason was my own trepidation, as I’m used to the constantly changing cambers and elevations making grip seem non-existent at times in the game world - Forza Motorsport 6 in particular seems to over-simulate weight transfer. On my actual lap, I was surprised at just how much grip there was, even when I occasionally messed up and went in too quick. You really have to be giving it some welly to lose it.

Simply put, without the g forces that act on you in real life, it can actually be harder to keep the car on track in gaming. Feeling the movement of the car is a real asset.

5. The elevation changes are way bigger in real life

In the game world you see the ups and downs of the tracks, and you can see how they affect the attitude of the car. What you can’t prepare for is the way in which they affect you.

Heading into ‘YouTube corner’, a fast left-hander on a steep downhill makes you feel like the world is falling away from you. At times you hit compressions that squeeze you into the seat cushions, and hit yumps that can give you air and leave your stomach in the back seat. It’s a wild ride, and the one thing you really can’t prepare for without jumping on a rollercoaster.