From Sim racer to Pro Racing Driver

Hi there!

I had a chat with Wolfgang Reip (European GT Academy winner 2012) about his journey from a Sim Racer to a Pro racing driver at Circuit Zolder in Belgium.

Hope you enjoy!

 

You were so ninja'd
From Sim Racer to Pro Racing Driver: Interview with Wolfgang Reip

Nice interview though...

 

This is quality content right here! Would love to see more like it

 

Indeed, nice interview! Wolfgang is one of the guys we should trust, since he was/is freaking fast in sims and also very fast with real race cars

 

Damn, that was actually really interesting interview. One of better sim racing related video I've seen in a good while. No girl points (I never give those )

Lots of interesting bits, what he said about iRacing vs. AC vs. AMS, motion rigs, VR... lots of things. Wish he went into detail more about what cars in AC he thinks are most realistic (doubt he has driven all of them IRL though), and which maybe less so and more into why. And of course it's just opinion of 1 since in sim there is things that don't get communicated, not even with motion like he said etc... But that kind of IRL experience gives some weight to ones words, compared to normal sim racer. Liked the part where he said iRacing is least realistic of the three lol... well, I guess time to rob a bank/sell kidney and get DD wheel

 

Well done. And Wolfgang is a relaxed guy who is used to being interviewed a lot I guess .

 

Hard to disagree with him, at least what he says about AMS. FFB there is great.
RF2 not so much, but I'm guessing I just don't have it set up properly. Seems I have to put in some work.

 

Someone should send him a copy of pCars2

 

I was at the same final (regional held on Zolder) in 2012 competing for Holland together with Hani (which made it to Silverstone)

Good to see he is still active..!

 

Don't want to watch the whole video. Does he talk about AC too?

 

Quote from the other thread:

 

I don't think that he has used AC very much

 

Thanks.

 

Why's that? I would echo all of his comments besides the "a lot of cars feel very similar" thing...

 

IDK, maybe I'm wrong. For example yesterday I had a hardest time in my life trying to tame down F40 with Street90s tires in Streetfight server. So AC is not like every car is a drift rocket. But maybe he just meant that drift cars in AC works well. Also "A lot of cars feels similar" part sounded really weird, perhaps because I don't drive modern cars very much. Also I think that it takes more than a few laps to start feeling a car, and getting to know it, and they feels unique on different tracks, also with different grip levels, just try setting a tracks friction to ~0.7 and then take "dusty" or "green" track, and you'll have different car again. But yeah... for me it sounded pretty much like he only is using AC for drifting, and it can not be very much, I guess, I find drifting rather boring lol

That "a lot of cars feels similar" could hide something deeper, I can not think about much cars in AC having very similar feel. But perhaps similar challenge, or technical difficulties besides driving it, lack of rough edges... but I don't want to speculate because I have no clear idea about these things, just rough idea. All cars in AC are very reliable and durrable, maybe a few cars has slightly more issues with gearbox damage, or turbo cars melting down the engine and thats it. Stall in combination with proper clutch work, engine overheating issues and so on would bring more character to cars. For example in rF2 917K mod you can't really drive it very hard on relatively slow tracks because it overheats, I wonder if it is realistic.

But in general all cars in AC feels rather unique for me. Only the fact that you will never roll a car grinds my gears, but I bet there are many guys who likes it - because it is not a good thing to flip a car, just like a tire puncture or slipping on oil which is not even visible....

 

I would disagree with him there as well. I think the cars in AC have a lot of nuance to them and don't feel all the same. None of the 911 feel alike for example. None of the GT3 cars feel alike, even the R8 LMS and Huracan GT3 feel different (as they should). You can clearly make out the differences in the array of Lotus cars. An LMP feels totally different from a modern F1, which feels totally different from classic F1, etc. I wouldn't enjoy driving in the sim if the cars all felt "samey".

Still a nice interview though, thanks.

 

Bear in mind he's a professional racing driver...so he has quite good car control. Cars will seem easier to drift to him than most people (and I would trust his comparison to real life more than most as well).

I think when he talks about drifting he's referring more to race cars vs. road cars. The race cars in AC are a bit too eager to lose grip in cornering to me (this is backed by required steering input vs. real life), which is effectively what he's saying with how "some cars should be more planted." That's probably also where his "a lot of the cars feel similar" comment comes from...you guys are taking it too literally...of course an F1 car feels different than an LMP...I doubt he'd disagree. The tires in AC don't have a huge amount of variation to them (besides the vintage stuff, most have really similar optimum slip angles and ratios, fairly similar grip drop-off, load sensitivity, etc.). So obviously while each car feels different due to different suspension, aero, etc., the things connecting it to the road are at the end of the day dynamically quite similar. That's why lazily done mods are so popular in AC...they all have that "Kunos" feel even if they're horribly inaccurate. His comment probably refers to that.

 

I put in about 4-5 hours of adjustments to MMOS and the controller.json file before I'm now 'mostly satisfied' with rF2's FFB on my OSW. I'm still not really enjoying how they handle the FFB for FWD cars, very aggressive when there's a loss of grip on the front tyres. The setup of FFB is definitely related to the 'not very plug and play' comment he gives. AMS is a much more plug and play experience for FFB (same with Assetto Corsa, though I prefer FFB in AMS).

 

I really trying hard to understand this.
Road tyres are really different than semis or slicks in AC. First being friendly, semis will byte you more easily and slicks will lead to tank slapping situations.
Actually from my point of view this is exactly what i like to AC. Not cars but tyres. Cars feel more planted than let's say rF2 where cars slide all over the place (recent Mclaren GT3 being a fine example on this being super friendly at rF2 and on the contrary at AC where you need to be on the edge not to crash).

 

I dont get this too.

Just a few clicks on pressure and is possible to feel the difference, with the same tyres.