Find more pace in your Favorite Car (sim-racing)

Assetto Corsa Competizione

My favorite car is the Aston Martin V8 Vantage “Jenny”.

And Jenny may not be the prettiest girl in class, but she is marriage material.

However, I do like to cheat on her from time to time for the following reasons:

I want to keep driving different cars to increase my knowledge of the game and be more flexible, and I like the variety.

The other day, it became crystal clear to me.

So, for the last 6 weeks, I've been driving the Mercedes AMG Evo. To be competitive in this car, you need to be creative with setup and driving style.

I also took the 992 for some races, and this car also needs a different approach. And recently, I fell in love with the Nissan as well.

So, I'm a bit of a player, really. I use them all. Not for exploitive or meta-like track car combinations. That's stupid, I think. Often we see sim racers getting the best car for a certain track. I'm a firm believer in sticking it out with a certain car to get better at racing and learning a car.

It is not exactly clear how it is possible or how it works, but I know how my lap time improves over time.

So, a while back, I did a live stream on Kyalami in the Aston, and I believe I did a 1:41:300 or something of that nature. In the meanwhile, I was driving the Merc and the 992, and was testing some stuff on the McLaren. This was a 6-week time period, driving like 3-4 hours a week.

Two days ago, I took Jenny for a spin on Kyalami on LFM Split 1, and boy, did we have a great ride. The qualifying lap I did a 1:40.700, and when the race started, I was able to replicate closely to those lap times and was crazy consistent, ending up with a P7 which might be a new record for me.

To explain this, the AMRV8 is so childishly easy to drive, but only if you came from other cars that you find challenging to drive. You're forcing yourself into driving difficult cars.

And when you're challenged, you're learning…

And difficult means for ME difficult; you could struggle with other cars and find the Macca or the 296 your best pick.

Now take note, my knowledge on a lot of tracks is pretty decent, and I've been doing this for quite some time. But sometimes we cannot see how we could ever get better at sim racing or do we ever find better lap times.

I'm not saying you cannot enjoy racing if you are slow, but being able to improve slowly over time does make sim racing more fun and enjoyable.

So, if you always drive the Macca, just pivot.

Stop using it for a while.

Go with the Ferrari or a front-engine car and stick to that for a while. Try to get into the lap times you are doing with the Macca or get close to it.

Research your new ride, enjoy the newness for like 6 weeks, test it out on a whole variety of tracks, do races with it.

Then go back to your Macca and see if you did improve or learned a lesson. Often times we cannot see progress in sim racing, but in this way, you can see that your skill level doesn't stop developing.