Is it just me, or has iRacing been feeling more like bumper cars recently? I haven’t been playing iRacing for too long, so I’m curious about others’ perspectives, but recently it’s felt like the driving standard of those competing, even in higher splits, has dramatically dropped. I’m constantly competing with people using others as brakes for corners, taking out half the pack in like the first or second lap when acting like a hero makes zero sense. Granted I’m not the fastest out there but it feels like people’s common sense to back out of a manuaver or willingness to take a corner 3 wide without changing speed or breaking zones has dramatically increased as of late. Just wanted to see what others takes are. Maybe I’m just getting to sucked in as of late and letting little shit affect me, but it’s killed a lot of fun these past couple weeks. Maybe the lower splits just had more people focused on learning the craft vs people on higher splits thinking they are max verstappen, idk.
It is definitely possible to have clean races in most categories, but it depends on the class. I did a GR86 race the other day and was shunted off in lap1 by an overly aggressive fellow who bumpdrafts in corners. The next race was GT4 at Suzuka and I finished with no incs and good fights. Both were around 1700ir SoF and me in midfield positions. Driving standards haven’t changed much since I started using iR 4 years ago.
Now, with the changes to grass and damage repairs, maybe we’ll see less offtracks resulting in bowling strikes as people can actually slow down and steer a bit on the green stuff now. And repairs prioritize mechanical damage over aero.
The common factor is you. keep your heads up and nose out of trouble, learn to read the field and consider what fights are worth it and what areas of the track is prone to accidents. If something happens up ahead, brake and move predictably until you see a clear path through.
Yeah, I have been working on my car control a lot more for high downforce cars as I started with more gt style sims before going for the fia f4 now I have my d license. Upon reflection I think I just need to be more intuitive for the differences here as I tended to off track myself after reacting to other drivers mistakes, breaking before trying to swerve when a lift probably would have been better. Making sure to trail throttle a bit more to keep momentum up for passing, I still catch myself trying to trail break where a partial lift would have served me better.
Yeah, shit like that is what’s given me a bad taste for that series. I can drive clean and get around fine but it’s those inconsistent moments that have left a sour taste in my mouth. I’ve been getting into the scca spec racer and while participation is a bit lacking compared to the gr86 series, the driving standards seem to be miles apart and I’ve been having fun clean races so that’s a plus.
Haven’t gotten a chance yet to drive with the new changes but from the little I saw it looks like such a night and day difference, should be able to play a bit tonight to see how it all works out now.