[agoodthrowaway]

Not raced cars but raced motorcycles and the very real difference is the vast sensory overload when you’re approaching corners, while in traffic, late braking trying to overtake, trying to stay in the power, being in the right gear, while protecting. By the way all of this is on the edge of your ability, you walk a line crossing back and forth between triumph and catastrophe. The heat is a very real thing and really wears you down physically and mentally. While physically able there were times I approached corners in traffic at very high speeds when my brain felt overloaded like I couldn’t process quickly enough everything that’s happening. My speed was more limited by my brain getting used to the speed than it was to ability to lean, apex, etc... In the real world there is physical danger and real significant consequences to making a mistake. A mistake can end your life. In a game you just lose.

[handedness]

Interesting, as I'm on the opposite end of that one. I've never found sensory overload to be a significant issue in anything I've flown/driven/ridden/raced (including motorcycles). The fastest stuff has required a session or three for my brain to come to grips with the rate of sensory input and get fully on top of it, but after that it's never been an issue and it normalizes to no longer being stimulating just for the sake of the thrill of speed. (Which isn't to say there isn't something fast enough to saturate my brain's ability to process my sensory inputs.) Rather, it's the competition and pursuit of excellence that keeps it interesting.

What I will say is that maintaining full situational awareness and keeping my racecraft sharp is more difficult in a sim, because the quantity and quality of the inputs just aren't as good as the real world.

Sims obviously aren't nearly as physically demanding (though a full-length grand prix will still leave me in a sweat by the end from concentration), but I find I have significantly more mental overhead in the real world as it's far more intuitive. And if the physical risk is a persistent stressor that takes attentional overhead while racing, then congrats, you're wired like a functioning human, not a racing driver!

[koffiezet]

> In the real world there is physical danger and real significant consequences to making a mistake. A mistake can end your life. In a game you just lose.

Games can also get immersive and your adrenaline pumping. Now I'm not a racing pilot, and have very little track experience, but I know a few people who have, and have a nice setup for iracing at home, which according to them allows them to hone their reaction speed and try out moves and train moves. Yes you remove the physical part, but you do get immersed in the situation.

Point in case, Max Verstappen trained a specific overtake move on the Spa circuit at the Blanchimont corner on iracing with his teammates there [1]. And then he pulled off exactly that same move in a real race [2], which was one ballsy move to pull off irl.

But it's a very good example of the sims allowing them to fail without much risk gives them the possibility to experiment at will, and at least partially train their brains to handle such a situation.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5-DZNjBOg

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=788IiRsxMqM (sadly potato quality)