Welcome to the Sim Racing Wiki
Dear (future) sim racer, welcome to the Sim Racing Wiki!
The following six tiles will show you all the necessary information about sim racing. Due to the large number of different simulation games and one's individual taste, we mainly focus on hardware bits and pieces.
Before you to dive into the world of virtual motorsports, here are some facts and figures that might wake your interest:
1974 Gran Trak 10
Atari's Gran Trak 10 is the world's first racing game. It features a steering wheel, a 4-speed shifter, and a set of pedals. Today, the two-dimensional game would be counted as part of the arcade racer genre.
1984 Revs
Geoff Crammond's Revs features a relatively realistic physics model and for the first time in sim racing history a fully emulated grid of drivers instead of randomly appearing obstacles. It is one of the first racing games for personal computers and is considered one of the world's first racing simulations.
1991 Formula One Grand Prix
Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix is the world’s first true Formula One simulation and was released in 1991. As a novelty, it offers rain races as well as the possibility to network two PCs.
1998 Grand Prix Legends
With Grand Prix Legends, a simulation of the 1967 Formula 1 season is released. Its back then-revolutionary tire model is still considered realistic today and has enjoyed great popularity since then. In the meantime, the game has been fundamentally revised and greatly expanded with mods.
2005 rFactor
rFactor sets new standards with its new tire and aerodynamic modeling in 2005 and was considered the best racing simulation on the market for a while until it was retired in 2013 by its successor rFactor 2.
2013 RaceRoom Racing Experience
RaceRoom Racing Experience becomes the first free-to-play simulation on the market and has been regularly supplied with updates since its first appearance in 2013. Nowadays R3E is one of the most successful simulations in the world.
2018 Official Motorsport Discipline
Racing simulations are officially recognized as a real motorsport discipline by the German Motor Sports Association (DMSB). This once again confirms the close connection between sim racing and real motorsport.
2020 from virtual to real
Tim Heinemann, winner of the 2015 virtual DTM championship, becomes the first champion of the newly founded DTM Trophy. He thus completes the step from virtual to real racing, causing a sensation since he first raced a real GT4 car back in 2018. With his winning season in 2020, sim racing, as well as racing history, has been made.