Virtually living the life I dreamed of – What is league racing?

I’m parking the car to my grid slot. I do the final checks: brake bias is right and tyre temperatures should be fine. I can feel my heart pounding. No matter how many races I’ve done this is the nervous moment. I hold the clutch and apply some throttle. I’m only focusing on the red lights that come on one by one. I need a good start.

“You don’t think about anything else. You’re just waiting for lights to go off and do your thing”, Formula 1 driver Valtteri Bottas has described the moment before a race starts.

It is weird how I can relate to the feelings of real racing drivers when I haven’t done a single lap in an actual race car. Yet, the emotions are the same, the intensity is the same, the adrenaline is almost the same.

For many young children it is a dream to become a racing driver, and I wasn’t an exception. I wanted to be like my childhood hero Kimi Räikkönen. I didn’t quite become a Formula 1 World Champion though, but luckily I’ve been able to live the life I once dreamed of virtually, thanks to league racing.

At this point you may ask, what on earth is that?

League racing can be done in many different racing games, such as official F1 video games, iRacing or Assetto Corsa. However, my own experience from league racing is mainly from the official Formula 1 games, most recently F1 23.

A racing league is a championship organized by a community and usually there is a race once a week. The community provides the schedule, points, possible penalties, streams and whatever there might be. Leagues are places where people can have clean, fair and overall better racing than what they could have in a regular multiplayer lobby while having the competitiveness to it at the same time. Many leagues have several divisions or tiers so drivers with somewhat the same skill level race together. Here you can see how it might look.

I drop to 2^nd at the start, but it is alright. It’s my teammate who took the lead. Now we can work together.

League racing is a general term for any type of organized racing that takes place on sim racing style of games and that even the e-sports drivers do outside of e-sports events. Sim racing games focus on authenticity and realism while trying to get as close to real life as possible (Upshiftstore). For hardcore racers there are plenty of technical devices that help replicate the feeling of driving a real car, such as steering wheels and pedals. A good rule of thumb is that if you really want to achieve the top of the mountain in league and sim racing, you should consider getting yourself proper racing gear.

It is good to remember that there are different levels of realism in the games. For example, the F1 games I play are heading towards the same simulation that other racing games have but at the same time they must be accessible for casual players. Therefore, it is possible to be fast on the pad and that is why I haven’t upgraded to a wheel yet.

Of course, you can play other closer to realism sim racing games on a pad too. However, the experience won’t be as good as with F1. The closer a game gets to realism, the more it is designed for sim racing gear which means that the joysticks of a pad can only give you very limited feeling of the car compared to a steering wheel. This is good to keep in mind if you consider joining racing leagues in different games.

I make the overtake for first place. We continue to work together but I have slightly more pace and it is looking good. Not many laps to go now.

The preparation for a league race starts many days before the evening of the event. Currently I am racing on F1 23 in a league that takes place on Saturdays. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I usually do some laps in time trial mode where I try to learn the track as well as possible. On those days I do some setup work too which means that I try to make the car go fast but in a way that it feels nice to drive.

After that I usually test out the car in racing conditions. That way I can get a feeling of the tyre wear and fuel consumption. It is a good test for the setup as well because the handling of the car might change dramatically when there is more fuel in the tank. After this procedure I am ready for the event.

Some might wonder, why are people doing this? Mostly it is the love for motorsports. People are passionate about racing and want to experience it themselves. For me, it gives the adrenaline and emotions I can find nowhere else. It is so much fun to go wheel-to-wheel with real people instead of AI. Additionally, I can imagine being the F1 driver that I wanted to be as a kid. That is why I, and many others, enjoy league racing.

It has been a tough race, but I manage to hold on. I cross the finish line and finally can relax a bit. I’ve won the race! With so few races left, I can no longer win the championship. A second win of the season shows that I have the pace to compete.

Pictures 
Featured image via Valtteri Bottas on Facebook
Picture 2 fanatec.com
Picture 3 by the author

Sources: Upshiftstore UK

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