F1 2019 is ‘too much like an arcade game’ which is why real-world drivers prefer rival titles such as iRacing, according to Lando Norris.

Speaking to viewers on social media yesterday, Norris compared F1 2019 with iRacing and other popular motorsport games. He said the official F1 licence and popular PlayStation series Gran Turismo are “too much like arcade games.

“You don’t drive them anything like you do a real car,” Norris explained.

“iRacing is more like a simulation programme so you have better feedback through the wheel, it feels more realistic, basically. It’s more like a simulator in terms of how it feels through the wheel, the set-up changes and stuff.

“Whereas F1, Gran Turismo – especially Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo is terrible, it feels nothing like a car, you just slide everywhere. It’s rubbish because of that, that’s why no one does it.”

Norris, a prolific simracer, is one of just six F1 drivers who entered the official Virtual Grand Prix series which was launched this year. However technical problems thwarted his effort to compete in both events, and during the latter he removed the game from his system.

He did so after broadcasting a conversation with Max Verstappen, who criticised the official F1 game series, and has not joined the Virtual Grands Prix.

The game’s handling is “why Max doesn’t play”, said Norris, “because it’s nothing like an actual car. Whereas iRacing is a little bit like an actual car.”

“Would I recommend F1 games to serious racers?” he added, “No, iRacing or rFactor.” However Norris is due to return to F1 2019 to take part in the Race for the World series to raise money for the pandemic relief effort today.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Sage Karam, who won the first round of IndyCar’s iRacing Challenge, has over a decade’s experience with the game and has seen how much it has progressed in that time.

“I’ve been on iRacing since 2007 like when it was in beta mode,” he said yesterday. “So I’ve been a part of it for a long time.

“It’s just kind of always been the one I feel like when you go talk about major sim programs, it’s always the top one people talk about. I have all the other ones, but I’ve probably done like 10 laps on rFactor 2 and five laps on Assetto Corsa or whatever – I don’t even know what it’s called.

“I’ve just been a part of iRacing for a while, and it’s cool to see the progression of it, just from even a few years back when you’d have world championship races that iRacing had put together and everybody would be running those.

“Now the amount of money that’s coming into sim racing, you look at the NASCAR world championship series presented by Coca-Cola, it’s a $300,000 prize pool, which is like pretty incredible for sim racers. Porsche just put together a $250,000 or $200,000 prize pool for their championship, so the money is starting to get pretty huge in sim racing. People are starting to make a living, more so than honestly a lot of real race car drivers are getting paid. It’s pretty insane, the top guys.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Video: F1 and IndyCar’s new Esports series compared

Don't miss anything new from RaceFans

Follow RaceFans on social media:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Gaming