Lando Norris has described how he used data from his real racing experience at Circuit of the Americas to win last weekend’s IndyCar iRacing Challenge on the circuit.
For the race the McLaren driver was reunited with his 2019 race engineer Andrew Jarvis, who had moved from the team’s F1 division to its IndyCar programme.The pair enjoyed a successful reunion, as Norris took pole position and won on his debut in the series. He described how they used data from last year’s United States Grand Prix to improve how he and McLaren SP team mates Pato O’Ward, Oliver Askew and Robert Wickens were driving the Austin track.
“I’ve probably never put so much time into testing and so on as I have for this race,” said Norris.
“I have a lot of similarities between the actual racetrack and the sim. We were bringing up bits of data from last year when I drove COTA in F1.
“I still improved a lot on my time from looking at them and working together as a team, not just joining as a single driver. It kind of was a bit more serious.”
Norris bounced back from a mid-race spin to take victory. He spoke to his fans on Twitch at times during the race, and joked he was “blaming my spin on them”.
“It does add some pressure,” Norris admitted. “I have to split it between trying to interact and answer questions and say hello to my chat and focus on the next braking point for the next corner which often goes very wrong.
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“I can’t multi-task with those two things particularly well. If I ever do make a mistake, I normally blame it on chat because I keep trying to read it while driving.”
“Having fixed setups for everyone is good,” he said. “Everyone is on a similar playing field. It also means there’s less work to do from that side of things, I think that’s really good.
“I’m happy that is how the championship is set because [there’s] unlimited time you can spend on creating set-ups, making them for ideal conditions in the race and quallies. There is no testing limit, unlike real life. That’s different. It also makes the racing and entertainment a lot better from the outside watching in.
“But still a lot of things you can do, from the strategy, the communication. I kept asking my engineers or Jarv how many push-to-passes Pato had on the last couple of laps. I think with two laps to go he had four and I had one, so I was getting a bit worried. It’s things like that, not just driving alone, but looking at the data, really working through things.
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“It wouldn’t have been as good if I was doing this with someone I didn’t know. It wouldn’t have been bad, but knowing the guy and knowing Jarv really well, him being my actual engineer for the last year, a lot of testing I did in Formula 1, that was crucial. It really helped. He knew how I wanted to drive the car, how I do drive the car, my weaknesses and my strengths, so on.
“I think 100% it helped. If there was more to do, if we did have to work on the set-up, then it would be even tougher, and more of an advantage to work with a guy I knew.”
Norris said he would “love to” return for this weekend’s race, but said he expects to be at a disadvantage on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval because of his lack of experience.
“I’ve done a couple of ovals in iRacing, not Indianapolis. I think that will be a big challenge because I think there’s a lot of these drivers, IndyCar drivers, a lot more used to oval racing. I’m not at all.
“It’s going to be tricky. This is like them kind of coming into my world. I knew a lot of the tricks on iRacing about how to drive this particular car on this particular track. I think the oval stuff, how you save the tyres, the fuel saving and everything, I think that’s much trickier in the ovals. I’m going to be having to play catch-up a bit more.”
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John H (@john-h)
27th April 2020, 9:26
I watched Lando’s twitch stream, it was very tense when Rosenquist span and he nearly got collected. It was tense because unlike the F1 events, it felt like this mattered for some reason. The jokes were after the race, it was pretty amusing to watch him as he navigated the Zoom press conference. Thanks to RFs for providing the links and start times.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
27th April 2020, 12:00
It was my first try at eSport racing as a spectator and was almost sure to close it after a few minutes… I ended up watching the whole race and quite liked it (from main feed). I didn’t bother for F1, but positive feedbacks from fans, here on RF and easily accessible stream decided me for indycar. Both drivers field, sim and commentator were up to the task.
Nice to have views of the drivers and most have own stream to have the inboard, feel the tension and focus (I watched them afterwards but next time I intend to prepare some side streams and switch the sound source between commentary and driver specific).
I think I will also watch Indianapolis if I have the opportunity, just to try an oval.
jet
27th April 2020, 12:32
Fixed setup? Then all the testing was to dial in his rig? Before too long, they will be running with adjustable sets and real drivers are going to realize how much a good set is worth. A pro spending a couple thousand on a good set will probably be common place.
Sloppy Shades (@sloppysmusic)
27th April 2020, 15:55
This was the first virtual race I’ve ever watched that actually felt like a real race. I noticed for the first time drivers had actual real engineers helping them. Not just advising on strategies but actually operating their computers remotely, quite impressive. Tuned into Josef Newgarden with his several hundred viewer stream in between switching to the actual race coverage. It made for some fascinating viewing seeing the driver in cockpit view talking shop with other pro drivers. A point of particular interest was to hear them discussing Lando’s chances in the race. They were pointing out his vast sim experience but stating he had an advantage as he was ‘gaming’ the race by running zero torque on his sim wheel. I presumed this meant his wheel turned very easily unlike the real thing without power steering would feel like. Finger steering sensitivity if you like which would be a big disadvantage to him in a real indy car. They were not really complaining about this as huge amounts or money were not at stake but Jeff said he wouldn’t feel right gamifying his own setup that way as it would mean considerable adaptation from his real life skills.
The engineers direct control became obvious to me after Jeff decided to pit early after only a few laps as he was in traffic and wanted to change tires and get into some clean air to gain an advantage later. For those not familiar with iracing you are allowed unlimited pit stops to repair your car after you receive damage and these happen in real time so big repair =long wait. To stop a single incident ruining someones race (especially if caused by someone else!) each driver is usually allowed ONE free pit stop. This means all repairs are instant so only the pit entry and exit itself cost you time. In this particular race drivers were alloted TWO free pit stops. So Jeff enters the pits and explains his strategy to viewers then when his car stopped a repair timer started counting down from 5 seconds. WT* said Jeff?! Why isn’t this a free drop I thought we had TWO?? His engineer came onto the radio rather sheepishly and said ahh we (we not I) didn’t know you had any damage, sorry man. Jeff replied well you really dropped THAT one…. In iracing before you go into the pits if you want to use a free pot stop you need to tell the sim BEFORE you enter, so obviously this told me that the engineers DID in fact have control over Jeff’s sim software. They would be able to see if he had damage too but it was such a small amount they missed it.. Oops! He was pretty gracious despite effectively losing 5 places or so on his return to track.. We can work with this no worries he assured his team. Pretty impressed by the guy myself, I’d never have known his personality from official broadcasts. Here he was sitting in a small room at home with a couple of brown leather recliners pushed out the way in the background!
Balue (@balue)
28th April 2020, 6:53
@sloppysmusic Interesting with Norris running his steering wheel soft, but what struck me was why most had their steering wheels and screens high in the air like that (and even quite far away). You saw some had to put down their arms to rest sometimes. Norris had it all in a more reasonable position. Maybe they all wanted to mimic the real thing or didn’t know better, but from my own simracing experience, I find this positioning hugely important to get the hands as involved as the arms.
Sloppy Shades (@sloppysmusic)
28th April 2020, 15:38
@balue Good point. Lando is as much a gamer as he is a driver, maybe even more so. On his Twitch stream you’re more likely to find him teaming up with friends in a multiplayer than actually see him racing. My point is that he has had 15 years to acclimatize himself to the most natural screen and control input for long term playing sessions. The drivers who are setting up and using sim rigs for the first time out of necessity can only go by ‘the book’. By this I mean that as successful people they instantly want to do something for the first time the ‘proper’ way and have maybe read technical manuals or official recommendations about how far the screen is away relative to its resolution, where to put the wheel for most comfort and least risk of muscle strain etc. The problem with following such guidelines is that it doesn’t take into account immersion and performance as much as the tech stuff. For instance I have been using 4k monitors and tvs ever since they came out as with age my eyesight has been deteriorating in the short field so to avoid glasses I need sit further away from the screen and therefore bigger was better for me. My pc screen is placed just far enough awat so the text is clear but being 55inch its easy for me to feel IN the game or sim. I actually do have to look right or left physically to see the edges. My TV is the same in the lounge although it is larger at 75 inches. I also have a ps4 connected. Setting my distance to the screen to the ‘optimal’ distance means my wheel is approx 6 or 7 feet from the TV. This might look comfortable for the external field of view around the car but my peripheral vision is interrupted constantly by all the real life distractions in my lounge. Maybe with a plain white room it would be better. Much worse than this is the undeniable fact that the in car view of my dash, which appears pretty much life size, is actually so far away that it appears I am driving from the back seat of the car! Most unnatural and silly basically. So that’s why I think you noticed these disparate setups between different pros. The wheel should really be where it would be in real life, with the same physical forces needed to turn it, and the screen should be positioned where it looks like you are really in the car. The mind doesn’t lie being told what to do and can recognize when it’s being duped.
Well that’s just my opinion, thanks for the input!