Him and max really are polar opposite, yet both incredibly fast

I think another key point to consider that you did not mention is the fact that Hamilton started racing in the era when a crazy amount of on-track testing was legal. By the time he debuted, he wasn't a rookie by today's standards. And I feel like this point of origin really matters in how he still views the simulator today.

I think it's a big generational thing, younger drivers seem to see an advantage. Verstappen especially is really into simracing and said it has helped him in real life racing, You could train certain senses, try lines and overtaking techniques without the IRL risk of a crash.

I can relate. As an simulation engineer for 20 years, the older gen engineers don’t trust simulation results but the new gen take simulation seriously.

I've spent over 2000 hours on sims, but on my first irl track day I had a total sensory overload. I was completly off pace, even though I'm usually one of the "fast guys" in a sim. It is quite a bit different experience, however in the last session, once my brain started adjusting, I was rapidly improving.

Max actually acknowledges that there's a difference between the sim and real world driving. His logic is that the sim does improve his driving as it helps you train other sensory input compared to real driving, while Hamilton thinks it doesn't help him. Max also says it keeps him as sharp as possible and that racing truly is his life. There was never anything else.

I’m not a Hamilton fan, but I’d say he’s done pretty well without it lol.

I think a VERY important thing you failed to mention is that Hamilton started in F1 in an era where sim software was premature and much less accurate. Driving in the sim in 2007 was only useful for learning the track corners and maybe an idea of what gear to be in for each corner. (Hamilton said so himself in the press conference after his fist win in the Canadian GP, 2007). On track testing was far more relevant and useful to improve yourself and your car. Hence, Lewis and other drivers of his generation such as Alonso, never got into sim-work that much and learned to deal and adapt without it. In this way, perhaps not doing sim work actually helped them improve their legendary on-track adaptability!

I started in real cars and got into sims later, I too struggled since I lost the feeling for the car in the seat and there's no way to replicate it. I strongly believe that its easier for a sim racer to get into a real car and get good than it is for a real driver to get in a sim and do good. With a sim driver, they will hop in a real car and have even more information to work with while they're used to working with limited information where a real driver will get into a sim and suddenly have to make due with much less. Its always case by case, have someone I race with who got into iRacing and sits in the 2000's for ir and another who got in the sim for the first time and shot to the 9000's for ir. It will sometimes just click for some people, and not for others.

I remember guys like Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson talking about why they race sprint cars and it’s same concept as the sim. It’s not meant to keep in tune with the car but more so to keep your race craft up to par. Certain skills like being about to read the track and anticipate drivers movement can translate from discipline to discipline.

I remember people argued over the RB car being designed for Max. I understand why though, his driver feedback is great and he's a top 3 sim driver. + Working with Adrian Newey must be a sick combo.

My son (who is 23) seems to benefit a great deal from the sims. To the point that when he goes to a real life track he's never been to before (but that he's driven on a sim), he can get within a tenth of the fastest drivers in pretty short order. Sim racing seems to be like sensory deprivation - and when sim drivers get onto real life cars they suddenly have all that other sensory information available to them. I'm, only privy to my son and his contemporaries who started racing at a time when sim racing games were already plentiful. These young guys seem to demonstrate that it's easier to go from a sim to a car than the opposite. In other words, the translation works a lot better going that way, because there is much less to unlearn, and much more to learn - and unlearning is much harder than learning. As a mental exercise, it's an amazingly valuable resource, and that's just one aspect.

I think that’s why the sim can be important to some drivers. It forces you to adapt to a different dynamic of driving where the sensory inputs are very limited. Now this may not aid or reflect directly in your pace in real life, but you are training your abilities to adapt to different scenarios which the ever changing factors of racing (weather, tires, car characteristics, etc) can pose a challenge. Max alludes to the adaptability part on the video Scott made about his sim experience as well. The focus of how you use the sim can influence the real life driving imo

To be fair Hamilton did say he didn't like simulators in 2021, then proceeded to non-scheduled intense simulator sessions before Silverstone 2021 (both qualifying and race) when he saw that the championship was going to be tight, and continued ever since................

When Max bypassed Leclerc in the rain @ Suzuka - Thats a move that he practiced in iRacing to see If it was possible. I think this is a good example that iRacing indeed can help drivers onc the track.

max is a sim racer and plays sim games all day its like a hobby for him that's why he doesn't mind doing it.

As a pilot, retired by age-related vision loss I was excited when the recent MS 2020 sim came along. Thought I could re-live my experiences, but without gravity and the forces of nature the experience was rather hollow. You can be on final in a monster crosswind making all the right control inputs and nature can still sweep you away. Its mainly the terrifying forces working on your body that tells you you have exceed what is prudent or even possible

It could be a generational thing. Seb himself said he had a simulator but wasn’t “focused on a virtual career.” Hamilton and Seb might be the last from that generation. Norris, Russell, Verstappen are from a new generation that concurrently spend a lot of time in the sim and now sets the precedence that all new drivers to be good on the sim.

I think at the back-end of 2021 he said he used it a lot more, as he was pushing for the championship in every way. I remember him saying that he did a lot of work in the simulator and working out and working with the engineers to do everything he can

It’s pretty simple. It’s a generational difference. Most drivers who started with real racing and then tried simulators usually have problems with adapting to it, meanwhile most drivers who started with simracing or simultaneously started racing in both sim and real racing usually have it much easier to adapt. I know it because it was my case 😄

Lewis is also from a time with basically unlimited testing, and he made his debut as a 22 year old. If I had to guesss I’d say 14 or 15 current drivers had their debut at an earlier age, (shit Max was only 17) & with testing restrictions it kind of makes sense for the new generation to implement the simulator as much as possible.

Great to see more insight into how different drivers improve and practice away from the track.

I saw someone comparing sim racing and racing with running on a treadmill and running on a road. It’s definitely different but you will get better. I totally understand the difference to irl and sim racing, I do both aswell but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn anything from sim racing. One thing I think you can learn A LOT from online sim racing is how people will react to different scenarios. This is something no one will ever really master and it’s something you will constantly improve on the more you drive with others

They do come in handy, for me at least. I had the opportunity to run in the 2007 Nurburgring 24 Hour and did about 150 laps in rfactor to learn the track. It helped immensely. I also use it to help me practice keeping the car under control when it gets out of shape - I got sick of running into the fences in the sims so I got good at timing the brakes, throttle, and steering to guide the car away from the fence so I could keep going. And that skill has helped in real life as well.

I’m pretty sure it was mentioned recently that he has started doing more sim work lately.

Its generational. When Hamilton was coming to the sport sims wasn’t good as they are rn. And had unlimited track tests. But now it’s different. Sims have vastly improved. That’s one of the reasons that Verstappen is able to maintain a consistent faster lap time than the others.

it's no coincidence that the red bull is perfectly adapted to Max's driving style.

That's always been my issue with sim racing, G-forces. What I've learned is that like a blind person, when you are missing senses the remaining ones try to compensate. In sims this relates to the wheel, gauges, sounds and the cars vector relative to its motion.That's all you have. It's all the information you need, It's you are just not used to using it that way. Why would you when the seat of your pants in more intuitive. You don't have to think about it. What's interesting is it forces you to look at driving from a different mindset, you notice things that didn't matter before but are essential now. Lewis is right, there is no replacement for G-force. However what you get from not having it is a better understanding of all of the other cues and what they mean to your car.

VR helped me a lot. I can't Sim race without it. Completely agree with the brake feel as well. Still so hard to feel a lockup. Also not sure if iRacing is just funky with brake lockups. I find once you grab a wheel it's really hard to unlock it. Almost feels like you accelerate with a brake lockup haha

I have 400+ hours on my sim, and i have just driven once on track (a 4 stroke kart, nothing fancy, but good enough). Driving irl seemed much easier for me than on the sim, i had so many more information about the car's behaviour, g forces helped me being more consistent and understanding better what the car was doing and how much i could push. When i came back home and did some laps on my sim, everything felt so numb and i wasn't enjoying it as much Driving irl came so natural to me at a time i didn't even have a driving license. From that day on i convinced myself that i'd be a better irl driver than a sim one

He’s absolutely spot on, vision is one of the last senses you use in terms of car control! I remember with my very amateur sim set up and even using the controller drifting was as easy as driving in a straight line but after trying it for real and with my body subjected to forces I hadn’t anticipated, I found it a lot harder to concentrate and find the sweet spot! Practice and getting myself used to the physical feeling made it easier over time but I’ll never forget the first time I got a real car sideways, such a rush of forces exerted on my body in ways I hadn’t even thought of and how my lower back was giving me so much information on the car’s position! A wonderful feeling! I must get another RWD manual car asap!

The guy is 38 and has raced at the highest level for almost 25 years. He is driving and racing the real car all year long. He does not really need to develop his skills with something that is not close enough to the real thing. For 99% of driver those cheap laps are a good thing but for him It's pretty clear it's a bit pointless apart from planning next year structural changes to the car.

I think with enough time in the sim you can sort of develop a seat of the pants feel. It's like the brain starts to fill in the gaps of information that is missing. So you have the forces through the steering wheel, visual ques and maybe even some tactile feedback through the seat. Then, when you get really tuned in to the simulator, the brain fills in some of the gaps. This last part is probably why some struggle with it. They don't get to the point of being deeply in tune with the sim, and therefore feel disconnected. I have many examples of when I can drive based on information that doesn't actually exist in the sim. One thing that comes to mind is feeling rear getting light. Say for example last corner at Oulton Park where you pass a crest. With many cars the rear gets really sketchy there. I can't feel it through the steering wheel. There's not really much in terms of visual ques, except for the attitude of the car. Still, I can get on the throttle keeping the rear just on the limit. That's something I feel more with my gut and my butt than anything else.

I tried recreational karting for the first time a few years ago as an adult and it's crazy how in-tune you become with the machine when driving. You feel every track imperfection. You know precisely where the limit of grip is, you can feel it. You know exactly what all 4 tires are doing at all times. You can feel when you lock up and slide under too much braking. I can see the logic in both sides with Max and Lewis when it comes to the sim

One thing folks have to realize is that Corrections at the Limit are done unconsciously. The conscious mind is too slow at racing speeds. The conscious minds job is to supply data to the brain, looking ahead especially. So if a Simulator can’t supply the tactile inputs that the subconscious reacts to, hams correct, it Could get ones reactions a tiny bit behind. Obviously fabulous drivers, especially the younger drivers who grew up with Video Games, know how to make it all work for themselves.

I mean, if I was getting paid to drive on the weekends, I'd probably live on the simulator, in the gym, and pestering the engineers like inspector Seb 😂

Great video as always!

Lewis grew up in the non simulator era and dominated in the Sim era......and he won with NA engines and Hybrid Engines lol how he not GOATED

I feel like another reason why he's not as bothered with going to the sim just to make sure development direction will go his way is that he's probably trusted Mercedes enough that he knows the team can already try to make a car that suits him and helps him win. Even with the mess this year and last year, it's also where the habit part comes in. Even if he wants to go to the sim again, he'd probably see that as something that's alient to him anyway. Then again it could also be that the gains he could make driving in the sim are being outweighed by the cost of him driving in the sim (in time, energy, etc.) especially when you have that much experience like him on many different circuits that some of the younger drivers can't even drive on.

Could you introduce more about 'computer simulations' for F1? How does it work and what's the difference than a simulator? Thanks.

Hamilton had the benefit of access to unlimited real world testing in his rookie years, so maybe that plays a part in the reason why he doesn't look up to the simulators like the drivers who came in after unlimited testing was banned would have.

I race in IMSA. The SIM is great for learning a track, brake points, and getting up to speed quickly when you arrive at the real track, but not great for improving your actual technique or driver skills, in my opinion. I do still use it before every race, as a refresher so its a good tool but just as another of many tools.

He also has significantly more experience over everyone (except Fernando) in on track Formula 1 driving. He was already racing at the top level when some of these guys were barely walking. That AND he's a 7 time world champ, he KNOWS how to race, so he probably puts his focus on other ways to improve his game and to compete better.

Asking Lewis why he doesn’t use stimulator is like Asking Neo if he watched Matrix 😂

I'm surprised Lewis doesn't use the sim on the new tracks before the race weekend just to learn the course at least. Then again that may be the few times he does use it. I always thought that simulator work was more about car set up and development than driver development anyway.

So true, i friend of mine drives alot of iracing in he's Sim, but i drive tracks in real life. And i find it alot harder to brake on the edge in the Sim then in real life. I can't feel the g forces and the feeling even thought he has a very good setup is just not enought to feel the locking before it happens. But i do think racecraft, track knowledge, positioning ect. are things a sim can help you with. But driving on the edge every single lap seems more like gamebeling and mastering the game mechanics then mastering you'r own skill. You learning to deal with the game, and extraction the most out of it. But there will always be a little bit left out because of the lack of g forces and a motion rig is just not good enough(also most motion rigs don't have the screens mounted at the rig, so the rig moves but the image does not (very distracting).

u can add bass shakers and feather weights to the pedals and overall chair to improve all the feels u need. overall 4 to 5 good bass shakers around ur seat and "chassis" can help u a ton with feelin the road and car. the spinning feather weights on each pedal give u even more understanding of the car. most sim racers even the crazy ones with shaking ground, dont have bass shakers somehow. but u can see them often in low budget sim rigs cause they are cheap and effective.

I want my son to try karting when he's older. This is something I've often thought about.

It’s an analogue versus digital thing. To me the digital simulation never matches the real thing so I’m with Hamilton on this.

I enjoyed that. Thanks for sharing Scott 🌞

I felt that after driving in a sim for so long I was much better when I was actually on track because I could feel so many more forces and it felt like the car was talking to me a lot more. I could feel the grip and slip so much more.

I remember hearing that Michael Schumacher also did not use the simulator during his stay at Mercedes. For what i have heard, he only used it for quintessential setup tests.

I think it’s a problem with older generation drivers And it is understandable. Every human will run out of flexibility when they age.

Max is younger and grew up playing video games. Lewis started with remote control cars

It's the same with flightsims. I love DCS and I fly the Yak-52 in the sim at times. After having had a real aerobatics flight in an actual Yak-52 it felt completely different. Feeling the plane wobble in the air and feel the G-forces when doing a looping or tight turn, it's almost impossible to replicate that :)

For 7 years he could just show up and win… that’s the reason he never used the sim. In ‘21, when his back was up against the wall, he started to train in the Sim before race weekends, and when he did, he looked absolutely at his best.

You know its deadly serious when even the pro himself doesnt have interest in the sim

All the pre 2008 drivers hate the SIM, they all get motion sickness but the playstation generation like max and lando doesn't get affected

Max spoke a few times about the benefits of sim racing. He said: I learned a lot about steering input to be as smooth as possible. He is one of the fastest out there, but some are better in certain ways and learns a lot from this. I think you can see this in tracks like red bull ring where the layout is simple and short. Steering input is so important here to scrape every 100th out of the car.

i agree that the g forces are absolutely a major part of driving and you can't get that in the simulator, but even with my basic set up i don't drive with my eyes, i drive mostly through the wheel and hands, vision is definitely not what i use to react to oversteer, if you set up the force feedback properly that should be your first instrument for detecting either understeer or oversteer, if you're using vision as your first instrument to react to these things then either your technique sucks or your set up does, brake feel now that is harder to simulate but there is hardware out there for that that being said i'm sure in f1 cars the gap between what the sim can do and what you actually do when driving irl is i'm sure even greater

I think I understand. Compared to real-life, even the most sophisticated sim could feel 'canned' to someone on the top tier. No sim can truly replicate every tiny detail of the real thing, so Lewis said that he prefers to focus on dealing with the latter. It's his choice.

It’s like the Cars movie new gen taking on all sims vs the old gen working physically.

I feel like the "feeling in your body" the racer was talking about was the forward momentum you get when letting off the gas witch games simulate but cant be simulated in person but it certainly helps people that dont know how to drive learn how to control a car easier and i know from experience but it did feel weird cuz i wasnt looking at signs as much since i was used to looking at the road XD

So, what you’re saying is the most important “sensor” in a race car is the driver’s arse?

I'm with Hamilton here but I'd still do the sim in the off seasons at least.

While what Lewis is saying is impressive, sim is already a crucial component to a driver and teams. If sim is only like 70% of the real thing (and I’m sure it’s closer then that) then there are great benefits of using it. Turkey 2021 for example, RB’s setup was a disaster, they were super slow in all FP sessions, and Albon literally spent one whole night before qualifying in the sim, trying out different setups until they found something decent. So sim (and Albon) literally saved the day for RB. Besides that sim is just great for a driver to stay in shape during winter break, or just to prepare for a race. For example Baku is coming up, and if Max is driving every day 50-80 sim laps around Baku and Russell is just chilling somewhere of course Max will benefit from that, but racing has million other factors of course. But still that can’t take away benefits from using sim, and they are huge.

3:13 most realistic sim i used was in a arcade and it had a subwoofer below it along with the hydraulic things and good speakers and a direct drive wheel with 3 4K monitors infront of me so when i began to lose control i felt it in my stomach before i even looked at the screen

He hates it and Verstappen loves/is a master at it. 🤔. I think he has an argument but also being a master at vision in a sim can obviously help you on the track. It basically trains different muscles. It’s like a football player doing ballet/dance to help with footwork. Sometimes you can specialize but after a certain point you get so good that being multidisciplinary can help you improve at a quicker pace.

I'm pretty sure the sim does help. Probably why George is quicker 👀

I think I could feel the difference in how the tyre sidewalls were deforming after being inflicted with something awful by Kwikfit (one of those where you've ordered tyres, turn up and have to choose an alternative). I had to go through corners 10mph slower to feel like I wasn't going off the road. I doubt whether a sim would cover something in the feels like that ...

Lewis is from an era where Sims were not used often and it was on track testing. Max is from an era where Sims are common. I'd like to see how often Kimi or Alonso use Sims.

He just wants to chill

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me the sim would sharpen your visual skills as the handling of the car goes. Being a seasoned race driver is already going to have well developed "seat of the pants" feel for the car. It would stand to reason that a sim would elevate your visual cues to where you have another sensory input to tell you what the car is doing.

We see foreign drivers come to Mount Panorama, Bathurst, never having driven there before yet they do great times straight away. The reason of course is that they have learnt this subtle but scarily fast circuit on a simulator. I would think that for a F1 driver a simulator would give a great circuit familiarity refresher course at least. In F1 every tiny bit counts.

I believe Hamilton is every bit as good a driver as Verstappen, despite the age difference. However, those "easy" years at Mercedes, when he won 6 titles and 80 some races, undoubtedly made him a bit complacent, and borderline desinterested, to the point he alluded many times to wanting to do other things in his life beyond racing. Then came 2021, with a ferocious rival in an amazing car, and things went from easy to very hard, especially in '22 and '23. Verstappen, the ferocious rival, is relentless in his training, the kind of driver that, in the old days when track testing was liberated, would likely stack thousands of kilometers in testing during the year. Essentially, Verstappen is hungry to improve and to refine his craft in ways Hamilton is not, and the sym defficiencies, and lack of realistic physiological "feeling" is obviously not a deterrent to Max, as it is to Lewis, because all he wants, really, is to be in a F1 race car, real or virtual, as much as possible. And this may be directly related to him winning 35 races in the past two seasons.

Because he doesn’t have the best car by miles in a simulator

I think it's a mistake not to use the simulator. Lew finished a winless P6 season behind Sainz, Russell, LeClerc, Perez and Verstappen -who ALL won a race and ALL used the simulator to maximum benefit.

I'm a Hamilton fan, but I think the SIM work Max does I believe it's helping him immensely.

People REALLY have no idea how video games improve your brains reactions times, endurance, goal striking, mentality, etc etc etc.. theres SO many things video games will literally turn u into a freak

Lewis is really like McQueen and Max is like Jackson storm. 😂

30 years ago drivers like Prost, Senna, Mansell, Piquet, the Schumacher brothers and other F1 drivers didn't have simulators, the used practice sessions to learn the tracks, but today to cut costs they use the simulators, and everything today is about the budget.

Racing driving at the highest levels is basically an athletic endeavor. The inner ear, and the tactile feel all over your body is THE key feedback mechanism. What makes a driver truly fast is not the line drive. It is first and foremost HOW FAST THEY CAN GO AROUND A CORNER base on their feel for the limit.

7>2 and btw Lewis is old school driver, max is new gen..that's the big difference i think, is like asking prost if he want to play at PC or drive

I guess he didn't need a sim when he was driving a car that was 0.8s faster per lap than the rest of the grid in Q3 and Mercs were finishing with 40s between them and the 3rd place, wouldn't hurt to use one now tho

Lewis liked to pretend he didn’t need the sim when he was winning championships. Now that his car isn’t the best anymore he’s in the sim way way more. Isn’t a sim a useful tool in developing the car for engineers?

If the sim have weight transfer feeling conveyed through the FFB and can convey the chassis flex reactions along with loss of grip, the braking and weight transfer feelings can be learned (if said sim is configured to convey more then "steering rack feeling" only), even tho not realistic "to a wheel feeling", it is a way to know and understand what the car is doing if one dont have all the other aparatus to feel everything else (and G forces is a completely different thing in that matter, virtually impossible to simulate the feeling with any piece of equipment)

Can’t wait for race week🔥🔥

The “driving” bit might be a bit different but the “racing” bit is exactly the same between sim and real life. Its actually harder to race in the sim due to limited senses that you get. Your opponent are also harder as they can practice more and have no fear of death so they likely to go all out where some might chicken out in real car. So sim may not improve your driving but it definitely will improve your race craft. Think about it, between the GP Hamilton did not participate in any races, Max probably had at least 20-30 races in the top professional sim racing league and it shows… Hamilton is done.

The value of the sim for drivers isn't to be a better driver, but to improve the skill of learning to adapt quickly. This is pretty obviously reflected from Hamilton's underperformance in this new F1 era, where he dominated the previous era, but has not been able to adapt as quickly as others.

The real game changer while on sim is a vr head set. It's like you are there in person, look into the corner and everything.

I've been playing Racing sim since Gran Turismo 3. GT4 and GT5 are my favorite racing sim games ever. What I learned about Racing Sim is that it gives you the knowledge of racing. You cannot gain the real-life experience of racing. GT4 was the biggest skill advancement for me because driving with sim cars became more better. I learned how to take lines, how race against bots, what happens during under and oversteer and etc. Eventually I maxed out my racing skills on GT4 and GT5 so it was time for track racing. Which I went to the tracks with my 92 Civic as I experienced everything from G-force, rolls, understeer and so on. With real-life racing, you can feel the tires, the tire pressure, the brakes, the steering wheel feedback, the engine and especially the vibrations. Having both is crucial to stay on top of your game. There are a lot of days where I cannot go to the track so I just play GT5 for 1 hour to keep my racing skills consistent. The great thing about Racing Sim is that you can drive on tracks that you would never be able to unless you have a lot of money. You can race with sports cars that you will likely never own. And you get to crash without major consequences. The bad thing about Racing sim is that all cars drive the same no matter what brand or how much horsepower it has. A FR will drive like an FR and an FF will drive like an FF. No matter if its a Ferrari or S2000, they will drive the same in a Racing Sim because there is no real-life physical limitations to them. Other than that, racing sims gives majority of us people the ability to race on tracks that we will never be able to do in real life.

Simulators help to train yourself in understanding a wide range of cars. And it showed. Now everyone knows Lewis is a limited driver in general, great driver in great cars. However, a “GOAT in F1 in great cars” is not the same as a GOAT in F1 in general. Lewis choosing to not use simulators destroyed his legacy, all documentaries in the future will show his weaknesses, will show Russell joining and matching his pace straight away. And outperforming him in equal sub-optimal machinery. It will show Lewis saying “I cannot connect with this car” while Russell loved driving it and connected perfectly fine. Back in the days without simulators Lewis was great in suboptimal cars. Now with the new generation the level raised and Lewis is no longer average at all. He’s far below par.

how are you gonna make 40 percent of the video about your sponser

With doing track days and autox events, I find it so hard to drive my "sim" which my seating position is terrible. maybe one day ill get the hang of it. I hate the lack of feeling as in speed and slip in a rear car.

Not a hamilton fan, but i agree with him on this. On the flip side you get time on wheel and button control.

But Lewis imo has transcended f1 and it is just doing it for 2 reasons getting number 8 or doing it for fun he did it in the early years also Max is of the younger gen but has traditions of the older gen reasons why he doesn't like what f1 is doing atm

He might need to get back into it. He hasn’t won a race in two years 😂

Always excellent videos 🤯

This is why VR was a game changer for me vs a screen setup… there’s still a lot missing but it completely takes over your senses as well as being 3D.

He hardly ever drive a simulator, and he hardly ever wins any races now lmao Verstappen does both wonderfully