The Most VALUABLE Skill You Can Learn as a Simracer!

Рет қаралды 8,483

Ай бұрын

A forgotten skill that we need to talk about in simracing: Being able to focus and staying focused. I explain it's importance for our genre and how you can train your focussing ability!
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Timestamps
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:33 The "magic" Skill
00:01:21 Why it's important
00:03:12 Challenges of Simracing
00:07:01 Impact of lack of focus - and breaking the cycle!
00:10:51 How to improve your focus!
00:17:05 Setting realistic goals
00:20:38 Book recommendation
Music Provided By Bass Rebels - www.bassrebels.co.uk/Playlists
Simracing is difficult. Learning how to drive fast takes time, dedication and persistence. Assetto Corsa Competizione is one of the best simulations with highly sensitive aerodynamics that want to be respected. Telemetry, such as motec helps with analyzing car behavior and finding major issues in the car setup or driving style. Special sim racing hardware also helps with becoming better, but certainly is not _the_ solution to your problems. Load cell pedals offer better feel. Stronger but most importantly more detailed force feedback of e.g. direct drive wheels offer more immersive sensations. Though I know and I've seen throughout the years, people with entry level hardware perform on top level.

Пікірлер: 96

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

What do you guys think? How do you to focus? How do you suffer from it?

@charlie-charles Ай бұрын

Awareness as you mentioned I think can be as important as focus. Most people are not aware of their thoughts. Meaning that wondering of the mind is thinking. When you aware of yours mind distraction you can decide to focus. Great topic !

@charlie-charles Ай бұрын

Of course this is a very simplistic way of explanation. :)

@pierrestone3217 Ай бұрын

My laptimes are varying a lot and improving my focus will help a lot I think.

@aficionadosalsimracing Ай бұрын

My advice is to enter long races as a basis, even against the AI. Short races are simply not enough to put your skills to test. Endurance races are the best practice to stay focused. One if my "permanent" in-race goals is to "make my best lap out of every lap", this is, to keep lap times within 0.5 seconds of my best time. The very time I fail this goal, my "spider senses" awake: either refocus, either manage traffic, either manage tire degradation, etc...

@99chrisbling Ай бұрын

My wife," are you in a race?" Me, "not anymore" as I go off the track due to my concentration lapse!

@kanojo1969 Ай бұрын

Interesting to hear someone else talking about this. I've got pretty bad ADD and 'attention control' is one of my biggest problems. I've found sim racing to be one of the most demanding situations for someone with ADD, because I can easily lose focus just between two corners. It took me a long time to be able to do even one lap without one bad mistake caused by some distraction in my brain. Over the years I got better until I can now do about 10 minutes without a mistake fairly consistently. Past that 10 minutes, though, and you can see in my lap times when my focus starts failing. I do keep improving, so I think sim racing is actually a really good tool for dealing with ADD and similar problems.

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

I also seem to have trouble with keeping myself focused. But I never looked at simracing as a tool to improve that focus. Very good point!

@luizarthurbrito Ай бұрын

I've got add as well. I used to play csgo at a pretty good level and most games I was in the zone. Sim racing is much harder to keep focused, although nowadays I can do 45 minute races comfortably (it took me a good while to get there). CSGO was way easier because I had total focus for 30-45 seconds each round and then a good break until the next round. The closest thing to a mental break in sim racing are the straights. Very tiring for sure!

@emre.gry01 16 күн бұрын

18:54 my goals are mainly: -Finish on podium. -New personal best if possible. -No incidents.

@hotmetalslugs 26 күн бұрын

This actually explains so much! I’m not going to beat myself up over not getting as good as I want as quickly as I’d like. The amount of distractions some days are just unrelenting!

@arjen7024 Ай бұрын

I'm very much a novice, so what I do when I catch my mind wandering is simply tell myself (out loud if need be) what the next corner is, where the braking point is, where I should apex, etc. Really just the basics, just so I can get back into that rhythm you talked about of the feedback from the car. And setting realistic goals definitely helps to keep my wits about me too, staying out of trouble and finishing 15th is a good race for me and having that mindset helps me to achieve it and not get distracted

@MichaelRaces Ай бұрын

Focus is the entire reason I stopped streaming, I progressively got much quicker and more consistent by not having to split my attention 🧠

@RubyNekomata Ай бұрын

Even being diagnosed with ADHD and having life long issues with attention not usually in my control, some of these things you point out have helped me. Of course, medication helps me too, but I still try to practice reminders like breathing and I always follow goals that are achievable like top half finishes or avoiding safety rating losses. Thank you for another insightful video. :)

@Simonkingracing 14 күн бұрын

Simply lovely !!! ❤ Elephant in the room ..... 100% agree. Personaly , i think the psychological aspect in racing is even more important than the pure skill .

@AtomicAndi Ай бұрын

I'm still convinced that "feeling the car" is what sets top drivers apart, and still looking for hints how to get better there

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

For someone who is 101-102% off the pace and spending 100+ hours on each track in practice with telemetry and being just 1s shy of absolute aliens I can really confirm this. Obviously feel and understanding of car is very important, but focus is what really sets apart best from aliens. Of course practice is another things that is very important and more you can practice the correct way the better you will become. But with greater focus you really archive things faster and easier, just as Nils said. Still haven't reached alien times, yet ;)

@rahulchakraborty195 Ай бұрын

There is no other element is as important as Focus in sim racing. Here's few things I found about focus while sim racing. 1. Time of the day: Focus is everything in sim racing. If I have the stats I could show you how bad my racing is in daytime because of lot of distractions like people coming and going from my room, phone ringing, messages popping, people shouting etc. compared to my nighttime racing performance where there is less external distractions. I am not a fast driver but even that I can drive my best at nighttime. 2. Brain's capacity/ condition prior to the race: If I am already bit drained out, physically or mentally or both due various reason, I tend to make more mistakes and ruin the race in the end. Sim racing requires your brain to operate at 110% all the time. Slight tiredness can lead to disasters. 3. Long stints and physical tiredness: I tend to loose focus if I have any physical discomfort or ache in certain body part. My brain constantly shifts it's focus to the discomfort rather than focusing on the driving. So any physical discomfort to begin with or to have in the middle of the race can lead to bad races as well. 4. Something to eat/drink in between: I tried to eat chocolate bars and cold fresh juices in between driving. Seems to help a bit with focusing. Probably because it injects some glucose in the brain which seems to help. for me cold juices seems to work better than chocolates. Sim racing actually helped to me retain my focus in any life situations better than anything. If you keep sim racing long enough, It will act as meditation for most of the part.

@RacingPCs Ай бұрын

Well. It's a very insteresting topic. I've began to be aware of how I am when I sit and train/play. At times I really see myself disconnected. At times I'm present. At times I receive information and not adjust to what they mean. At times I become too conservative. At times I adjust or try to. Especially in LMU that doesn't have ABS, track evolution per se or coming from rain to dry is a big thing in how quick you adapt, how you explore what's possible without making mistakes etc etc. I've experienced days in which I am really present. I'm of course not becoming a faster driver per se but I can exploit myself to where I am without compromising it. There's development though. At the beginning my attention span was shorter and I was less prone to realise I was loosing focus while it was happening. Thanks!

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

Nils with another banger of a video! For last months this was exactly what I understood for myself spending 10-100 hours training each track and training my pace/times (being 101-102%). And I've never understood this as much as I understand this now, that focus and/or concentration on the moment is what actually helps me get better, but I really struggle with that. I feel like I have some psychological problems with concertation, however I have completed endurance championship and was easily doing double stints with no time drops. However when I practice alone it gets tougher as there is no adrenaline from race that helps me keep up my concentration and I tend to do short practices (to my point of view), where I usually drive ~25 liters until pit for around 1-2 hrs before draining out. And sometimes keeping concentration even for those ~25 liters seems hard. That's why I try to improve my sleeping habits and be/feel "fresh", before jumping into race or practice session. Also thank you for your content you've really helped me improve in my driving and understanding of things and I honestly suggest you to anybody as best of the best simracers/coaches. (Idc if someone says you're not, considering how you understand racing and are able to articulate it in words and videos to others is amazing, best content!)

@TzeiEm Ай бұрын

Good point. Also personally for me the aspect of training is often to extract better laptime, so I'm just constantly watching the delta and either get too excited or too frustrated with how it is going. That's why sometimes I match or even break my lap records in sprint races, because I'm just focusing on the driving and the cars ahead and not purely on the delta

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

@@TzeiEm I used to use delta to help me improve but over last months I found that as I keep my eye on it distracts me more than it helps. So I practice not to look there and trust my feeling and look at telemetry afterwards.

@jakub-k Ай бұрын

Instructions unclear; lost my focus after 5 seconds... In all seriousness, great video as always, shining a light on something that's completely overlooked by more 'hard skill' oriented topics!

@SlowMallu Ай бұрын

While recognizing my short focus/attention span, I have a time-based and an event-based focus reset strategy. Time based one when I am on my job and event based one while doing other things, like racing. During a race, I TRY to reset every 1, 2 or 3 laps (depends on the length), on the start-finish stretch. I am slow, but fairly consistent. Pro tip: If you want to focus while reading a long sentence (like the above one); just hold your breadth and read. :D

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

I also have problem with keeping focus so most important for me to keep up my 101-102% pace is to be on adrenaline. If I'm not sweating I'm not focused which means I'm not going fast enough. But your suggestion is also interesting!

@Manc268 Ай бұрын

So true & certainly worth a mention ! Great info again Nils

@AmbientMike Ай бұрын

Fantastic video. As someone who's main racing sims are usually rally based this skill is incredibly important. Because to PROPERLY be on the limit on a WRC stage with pacenotes, car control, etc etc it can be daunting. Especially when you have to really be visualizing the pacenotes to know whats ahead. All it takes it one single lapse at the limit, and you can easily loose your pace.

@e9h9hoho Ай бұрын

I really like your high goal, low goal idea. Usually I go in with no low goal and get frustrated quickly when I mistake on one corner that was correct last lap. Thanks for the video and ideas.

@Octoputzi Ай бұрын

Setting low and high goals is pretty importand imo. I think it is much more fun to reach certain goals and even overcome them

@Zer0C00lness Ай бұрын

Thank you for making this video. I am still learning how to sim race, and I am at a point where I am not finishing where my pace says I should finish. I think focus and consistency are where I am coming up short, so this video is helpful.

@Shhh41 Ай бұрын

This is a very interesting point, except with me is total opposite, I make more mistakes in a quick race around the 20-30min mark format over 60-90mins races. I don’t seem to understand why that is with me yet but working on it

@juanmata4318 Ай бұрын

After perfect practice with data pack and visual replay practice, when official race starts my goal is to finish race and hit my realistic consistent laptime during race. Usually crew chief will say your laps are consistent. And then focus on that lap time and not the coach data pack laptime.

@rankisdumb214 Ай бұрын

This is one of the main reasons I don't play in leagues much currently! It's almost impossible for me to get a full 90 min chunk of time where I'm not interrupted. When I do practice, 1. the first thing I find is a set up that I feel comfortable with for that track. 2. I try and find a pace I can duplicate for the entire race! It's irrelevant if I can start off super fast if I destroy my tires and lose a ton of lap time in the final laps. 3. I try and work on stamina as I have nerve damage in both my feet and a horribly bad back! 90 min is about my max although I'm working up to doing 3 hours with full 1 hour stints.

@emre.gry01 16 күн бұрын

11:20 I'm checking my notifications on straights 😂

@SimracingPopometer 15 күн бұрын

not sure thats helpful :D

@maximilianloffler9907 Ай бұрын

What Helps me massively is also the IMMERSION into the Game. There is very good Hardware to Buy and also Hardware Not to buy (eg LED). Triple Screen/ big curved screen / Maybe VR, good headphones as described in this Video, darkness in your room, powerful PC for better graphics and Flow of the Game, gloves to prevent abrasions etc. etc. . Good Video ❤

@CliffBulcke Ай бұрын

thank you nils! great video

@_Symtech Ай бұрын

Thank you uncle Nils. Now I am feeling better today :)

@petermallmann8120 Ай бұрын

Meine Philosophie. Konstanz. Beste Hotlap bringt null wenn Du den Fokus auf der Strecke nicht permanent bringst. Und die schnellen Jungs können beides.

@jenschristiansen5734 Ай бұрын

danke für deine Videos :) sehr hilfreich !!!

@Django45 Ай бұрын

16:05 "Becoming more aware of your farts and getting in charge of your mind wandering can be trained". I knew I was missing something! Gotta become more aware of my farts. Cant wait for the result! 😂 I cant unhear it and I bet now you can't, either. Enjoy! 🤪 Anyway, Focus really is the hardest skill to master. Sometimes just focusing on your mirrors or what the guy in front or behind is doing can throw you off and make you lose what you needed to do. Gotta get more aware of these things distracting you and temper the way you focus so it is always on the most important thing ahead.

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

fair. :D

@joeofoysterbay7197 Ай бұрын

I do better at 'busy' tracks where I have less time to mentally wander. I'm getting better at one hour races though with fewer and fewer brain farts, but there are absolutely abysmal days and also days when I can really lock in and the finish line shows up fast. I just can't forecast which one is coming in. I know good sleep makes a huge difference for me. It fixes a metric ton of performance issues. Good sleep is like starting on pole for the new day.

@RossoSimRacing Ай бұрын

Secret Service agents were changing every 15 min some time ago, becasue it was believed that you can remain fully conrentrated on task for not more than that time. Interesting...

@robinjosse9415 Ай бұрын

hi man, love your vids ! always usefull and entertaining :) have you a similar book but in english perhaps ?

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

not aware sadly, no

@MarcelNinety Ай бұрын

Wichtiges Thema ✅🏁👍

@roadless_wanderers Ай бұрын

Hi, Nils, I really really have to thank you for all the videos and dor sharing super valuable information. Based on your videos I scrapped around 3s. Now I am racing with a friend and he is constantly 1s faster than me. We looked at the telemetry and he has around 10km more in each corner. How can I gain those 10km. My mind will not let me release the brake faster. What I am doing wrong? How can I increase the minimum apex speed? Many many thanks, Catalin

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

that depends on the specific error, but it all starts with cleaner trail braking to allow the front to smoothly grip up for the turn and/or using the entire track width during braking

@RK-io2os Ай бұрын

Best man ❤

@MrPichichi78 Ай бұрын

"To finish first, first you have to finish".

@Xpl0jd1 Ай бұрын

Wife and kids don’t give a F if I race 😂

@AtomicAndi Ай бұрын

2:57 .. is pretty high - and so am I. 😂😂😂 Drugs are NOT a skill!

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

oopsie :D

@TheOfficialRandomGuy Ай бұрын

There’s guys from the UK that I race with, and it blows my mind how good they can still race while being both stoned, and drunk.

@AtomicAndi Ай бұрын

@@TheOfficialRandomGuy actually helps to concentrate for some ppl

@virtualawakening2299 Ай бұрын

I'd like to see a bunch of aliens put on an EEG brainwave measurment tool in a laboratory to see what kind of alpha or theta brainwaves they have. Psychology calls it the flow and sports calls it the zone. I agree that some kind of meditation practice will help with lengthening focus.

@ihavealife002 Ай бұрын

Do they drug test for LAN events? Checking for adderall and other forms of speed?

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

they don't. but I doubt anyone there really is on any substances other than caffeine

@sergisebas Ай бұрын

What is your take in listening to music while racing?

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

doesn't work for me at all as i rely so much on game audio to know whats happening to the car. if your ear can differentiate game sound from music - fine, if you don't rely on sound but mostly vision and ffb - also fine. and if music relaxes you, well, also fine. personal thing, but not mine :D

@TheOfficialRandomGuy Ай бұрын

I’d like to know his thoughts on this as well! I know I can’t do it. I tried listening to music even while just cruising, and learning the track. Too much noise pollution

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

Sometimes I use music to help myself with focus and adrenaline to upkeep my focus. But sound is also very important to me most importantly in braking as I tend to define my braking speed with engine braking/rpm sound.

@TzeiEm Ай бұрын

Personally I have found playing background music to be really helpful. Since I started that habit, I have made significantly less errors during longer races. But I wouldn't choose my gym playlist of course, instead I usually listen to some lofi beats playlists that are actually intended to be played in the background and improve your focus

@Reetzah Ай бұрын

@@TzeiEm Good suggestion. I usually go with rock, electronic to keep up high adrenaline or I tend to fall a sleep :D

@xUnfx Ай бұрын

What about Jardier? He's significantly slower than you, but still so much faster than casuals, while he's constantly talking, reading chat etc. during the races :d

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

i think you answered it yourself :D

@xUnfx Ай бұрын

@@SimracingPopometer True :)

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

and there he goes and wins a race :D

@FelixLyhs Ай бұрын

i really do wonder how folks with ADHD deal with this, as it is a lot harder for them to concentrate for long periods of times

@RubyNekomata Ай бұрын

I thankfully have medication to help, but a lot of the time I have to have someone to talk intermittently to get my focus back on the race. Usually my mind will have racing thoughts and I'll get super restless whilst my inputs get impatient and imprecise, but once someone tells me that I'm doing well or that I'm closing in I get back in it. Crew Chief updates as "simdad" as they are actually help me too. Just little things that I try to use to remind myself.

@Lunatic_Snowy Ай бұрын

Make the setup easier to be consistent with & listen to music and such at the same time so its easier to not lose focus out of boredom

@RubyNekomata Ай бұрын

Even with this though it is still very hard compared to someone who is not suffering from ADHD. I realize that in sim racing I have a disadvantage but that makes the triumphs that more important to me whenever I do manage to place excellently or even improve quite a bit. :)

@alpha007org Ай бұрын

I wonder what analytics look like for this video. Avg time watched, is it more than a minute?

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

5:54 - but thats less than usual :D

@asdf2593 Ай бұрын

focoos jorj focoos

@studlydudly Ай бұрын

I turned this video off after 23 seconds, I lost focus ;)

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

thats 3 times longer than the average time of focus. congrats!

@AtomicAndi Ай бұрын

I understood everything at 12sec and went on to write dumb comments

@ThislsYusuf Ай бұрын

2 minutes in I'm already in the comments.

@radugoguta5974 Ай бұрын

yes, but i have adhd :))))

@matthiasgrunwald895 Ай бұрын

Compared to LMU, ACC is much more arcade-like-game. You dont even have to modulate the brakes, because you have ABS. In LMU, no ABS for GTE-class, and a more realstic tyre-model. This is what real-world-racing-drivers say.

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

so you are complaining about real GT3 Cars having abs? and obviously you don't know what you are talking about. just because you reach 100% input in acc doesn't mean there's no modulation. you didn't look close enough, or watched bad drivers for whom abs is designed. if acc is oh so easy, go and drive fast in it, we're waiting you always come with the same stuff, stop boring us all, and this video is even entirely unrelated to any of that - what's wrong with you? maybe watch my video on sim Fanboyism.

@matthiasgrunwald895 Ай бұрын

@@SimracingPopometer If you talk to race drivers, they usually prefer rFactor 2 and LMU. Thats for a reason.

@RinceWindWizzard42 Ай бұрын

Nils made an awesome video about your issue :)

@roadi1983 Ай бұрын

wow, did you just speak for over 20 mins to tell people how great you are? :D my god nils. youre an awkward, narcisstic person for real. you could have explained that in under 5 mins. but you just LOVE to hear yourself talking.

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

lol

@roadi1983 Ай бұрын

@@SimracingPopometer it is what it is.

@SimracingPopometer Ай бұрын

@@roadi1983 yeah I really record and cut a video for 6 hours just for myself :D

@awakeandwatching953 Ай бұрын

dude what are you blabbering about, hes talking about focus.. found it quite interesting.. you seem to have some personnel grudge against the dude.. wonder where that animosity comes from