{"id":1815346,"date":"2026-03-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1815346"},"modified":"2026-03-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:00:00","slug":"opinion-is-iracings-dominance-under-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1815346","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: is iRacing\u2019s dominance under threat?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you know anything about sim racing, you\u2019ll be aware of iRacing<\/em>. It\u2019s the thing Max Verstappen does when he\u2019s supposed to be getting a tight eight hours of sleep ahead of a Grand Prix. It\u2019s also the most popular online sim racing service, with hundreds of thousands of active users.<\/p>\n

Nothing else compares to it in terms of fair and competitive online racing, and if you want to experience the thrill of being a professional racing driver but your dad didn\u2019t own a petrochemicals company, iRacing<\/em> is the closest you\u2019ll get.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Or at least that used to be the case. I wonder if in 2026 there\u2019s something of a reckoning coming for iRacing<\/em>. You see the problem is, while you don\u2019t need to be a multimillionaire to play iRacing<\/em>, you do have to pay for the privilege. For a start, there\u2019s a \u00a310 monthly subscription to access the service at all, you can\u2019t even practice on your own unless you have a paid membership.<\/p>\n

Then, while there\u2019s a handful of free cars and tracks, the majority of online races require you to purchase individual cars and circuits in order to compete. Oh, and if you want to host a private testing session with your mates, you have to pay per hour for that as well. It\u2019s like if Ebenezer Scrooge designed a sim racing platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This would all be slightly less of an issue if the service was rapidly evolving and improving, but development of iRacing<\/em> occurs at a pace that makes tectonic plates look sprightly. iRacing<\/em> is a genuinely excellent experience, but for a company that rakes in millions of dollars every year, new cars and tracks arrive at a trickle and graphically the game feels like it\u2019s marooned in the previous decade.<\/p>\n

The imminent problem for iRacing<\/em> is that other sims\u00a0are, finally, starting to emulate what the service offers but without the burden of a subscription. Take Rennsport<\/em> and Project Motor Racing<\/em>; it seems every new sim now launches with a schedule of daily and weekly events and a license system to ensure safe players don\u2019t get torpedoed by lunatics at turn one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Le Mans Ultimate<\/em> is the most likely competitor, because it\u2019s a modern, graphically impressive simulator and it too has a physics engine that probably realistically accounts for the seasonal toenail growth of the driver. There\u2019s also RaceRoom<\/em> Racing Experience<\/em>, the least inspiringly named video game of all time, which boasts affordable cars and tracks, including 1990s BTCC touring cars, if you want to conjure the spirit of split-screen TOCA Touring Cars<\/em> battles on the PlayStation.<\/p>\n

And of course there\u2019s Gran Turismo 7<\/em> which, while not the most realistic sim out there, has a huge established player base and a substantial new update.<\/p>\n

Do I think iRacing<\/em> is going anywhere? No. What I do hope, though, is that other sims providing a credible alternative will push iRacing<\/em> to improve to see off the threat. Then we all win. Well, except me, I usually finish around 14th with considerable suspension damage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you know anything about sim racing, you\u2019ll be aware of iRacing. It\u2019s the thing Max Verstappen does when he\u2019s supposed to be getting a tight eight hours of sleep ahead of a Grand Prix. It\u2019s also the most popular online sim racing service, with hundreds of thousands of active users. Nothing else compares to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1815346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}