Mindset+time+setups tailored to you = alien times They’re not impossible to recreate, the consistency is because it requires practice = time that most people do not have.

100% true. I think for us - people 2/3/4s behind the aliens the most important thing in sim racing is a good, close and clean racing. Not for P1 - P3. Not even for P10. But for P15 if we had bad luck to be put to Split 1 anyway. Good racing for P15 in Split 1 is much more enjoable than easy winning by 20s in Split 3 imo.

I hear you, time is hard, as a husband and father, with another one on the way, it’s hard to find the time. When I do I’m loving it and just acknowledge that my times are ok 😂

Main key for me improving is relaxing. If im tensed up and not in chill mode my times really.suffer. relax. Great channel fella. X

I am part of a racing league with quite strong aliens and while some times they are untouchable, it is just like real life sport, they are still humans and make mistakes. I gathered a couple wins being at the level you describe and even finished a season of the communities at second place, just being regular and consistent.

Aliens also often use very aggressive setups, very oversteery cars hard to drive then pracitce long enough to build perfect muscle memory, exploiting the fact that mistakes in sim doesn't matter. Your training sessions also have to be efficient, not just blinkdly lapping but try to identify where you can gain, different line, setup, move brake point etc.. test analyze, repeat. At this point it might start not to be so much fun as you just want to hop in and enjoy a race or so without putting stress on yourself. There are many factors but as you said, without enough time put into the sim it is hard to gain this last 2-3 seconds.

Completely agree. It's all about keeping those motor skills sharp. Same as any physical activity that requires sharp motor skills and muscle memory. You could be an amazing concert pianist but if you haven't played for 5 years, you're going to be rusty.

Totally agree! It's all about the reps & learning proper race craft. As a working family man with limited time my priority is not to be the fastest sim racer. It's simply to enjoy the hobby. Good video!

Most important thin i learned … you dont have to be the fastest or on podium to have fun in sim racing There are much more fun challenges, for example to have fair fights or get a better place than qualifying, no matter which position

Really liked it, great way to help people see something from a different perspective!

I agree with you 100%. I have lack of time, FT job, kid, wife. Just not enough time to practice. But I try to maximize my time when I get to sit on the rig.

It’s all in patience and consistency. Once u reach a certain level where u can run near the absolute limit, it all comes down to practice, to getting the 1%. Keeping the balance just a bit steadier, getting a few cm closer to the apex, having the perfect setup… basically consistently. But if ur an intermediate level driver, I think that there are other things to learn and other “advanced fundamentals”before you can “just practice” and “grind”. Good video!!

Great video once again Arnout. I seen another video a while ago about the habits of aliens. 1. They always hit the apex 2. They us all of the track 3. They are on throttle at the apex Switching my mindset to incorporate these habits has helped me improve a lot.

it's the same old thing with how getting better at something gets exponentially harder the closer you get to perfection. There's pro sim racers or even irl racecar drivers who spent 100s of hours in real and on the sim perfecting it, of course there'll be a gap until we start getting technical and understand everything.

This video allows me to ask myself the right question: do I want to become an alien. Thanks for sharing experiences

Love this video, very honest and to the point! I feel the same way. You have earned my sub. Thank you. 🙏🏽

Great video hope your channel continues to grow!

Great video. Sometimes it's best to take a step back and see the big picture. As realistic as the sims get, at the end of the day it's still just a game and you don't have to take it so serious all the time. As long as you get to experience good racing it doesn't really matter which split or position you're in. Nice content man, just discovered you. Also, nice flag on top of your car! ;-)

Agree one other thing I find is that when I do get an hour spare time to jump on if I’m not in the mindset to drive I won’t do well. You need to want to drive , not just because time permits.

You have really hit the nail on the head! This is an excellent video, not just for sim racing, but for improving at any skill in general. For some context, I'm no hardcore sim racer, but I enjoy loading up AC with a controller and trying to improve my hotlap times. I was at one point top 5k in a pretty competitive rhythm game, and I only got there by applying the strategies you mentioned in this video. Mindset, willingness to experiment, and lots of time are key. Here are two other things that you can keep in mind on your journey to become an alien! 1) Your performance is somewhat like a rollercoaster or a sin wave. You will have god-tier sessions, followed by sessions where you think you've lost your touch. This is normal! Don't hone in on one specific session as your benchmark; it's the average you should pay attention to. 2) Don't compare yourself to other people, only compare yourself to your previous self. Asking why you're not as good as someone else is a fast-track to burnout. You touched on this in the video, but a huge source of motivation for me is seeing how far I've come. I can look back at old replays and tangibly see my improvement. With enough time, you hit those benchmarks you never thought you could achieve when you started. tl;dr subbed

Thank u for these videos big help for me. 🙌

Jij bent goed bezig. Loving the setup guide you made me wanne get on to set ups again.

Wow, what a great Video. Great value you provide, keep it up 👍🏻

Kerel! je kanaal is gegroeid man.. netjes!! Dude!~Your channel has grown fast... Nice!

Great Video and good fun to Watch, keep it up xD

I like your videos a lot. Keep it up!

Spot on. Priority should be fun and conditions for having fun in sim racing is clean and close racing.

Woot... Said the guy who is 2 seconds off pace, explaining it is mostly about the time you spent playing. When you are 0,5-1 s off pace, while doing 2:15.4 on Spa, 1:39.7 on Kyalami, 1:42.7 on Barcelona (everywhere 23/27), times of quickest drivers seem to be really totally unreachable. I did plenty of analysis of laps side by side, it is like braking, turning, lifting, accelerating is almost identical (same with speed at straight, at apex, etc...), it looks insanely similar, yet, somehow over the entire Spa lap there is 0,8 s I am missing (at Spa for example) :D I had a stints when I was capable of keeping Jardiers' pace. One time I overtook him while driving the same car with similar amount of fuel (during endurace, he had no damage, neither I had). Yet, there is a huge gap between us, at his advantage... I feel slow, even if I manage to do nearly perfect lap as for my capabilities. There is a very good reason that they are called an aliens :)

Great content! Keep it up.

I love your spirit 😊 Set up is the absolut key to be quick. There is no way around that.

It's so true ! Thx very much. 👍

Excellent video, thank you. As I started a new business, I only have a maximum of three hours per week to race; so I have given up trying to keep up with the fast guys, Also, I want to play a variety is sims, which further dilutes the practice time. When I used to race Grand Prix Legends exclusively, I was quite decent; but everyone has improved so much that I rarely finish in the top 10 of an online race now. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me… there is more to life than sim racing and I now make time for my other hobbies also (such as riding my bicycle every week-end). Make no mistake, I do still love the thrill of sim racing! Blessings for the Holidays and New Year.

Damn, this video is spot on!

Long story short - practice, 2h a day minimum, remember to put the ENTIRE brain power into those 2h. This is how you improve - at least for me. I also have a job, but I do bare minimum, saving my energy for practice. You cant improve if you are dead after 8h of work (remote work helps as well). You have to be in absolute best shape for that 2h practice, zero compromises. Also you got to learn what energy drinks (coffee, energy beer, normal energy drink) works for you and use them ONLY for simracing, not even for work and not every day, ideally 3 per week, 1 for league race, 2 for practice. My days are like wake up -> 8h work -> 2h practice (which prolongs to 5h if I have important endu race soon) or league race/LFM 45min race the rest is practice -> some time for gaming and relaxing -> sleep. I literally dont do anything else. You dont have to be as hard on this as me, but I believe 2h of your best energy during a day put into practice is the bare minimum to catch up to split 1 guys. About me, I started taking simracing seriously about 7 months ago, before that I've been doing 2:20s on SPA, now im sitting at 2:16.0 with McLaren (no BOP tho), with BOP and full tank I did around 2:17.3, but with 16 temp (endu race conditions, so...) The rest of my times I remember, all McLaren: Monza - 46.7 (No BOP) Donington - 25.9 (BOP) Silverstone 56.9 (BOP) Brands 23.0 (No BOP) Suzuka 59.7 (BOP) - this one is weak Misano 33.7 (No BOP) - If I remember correctly, that might be my Q time not my best time Oulton 32.9 (BOP) The rest of the tracks are not even woth mentioning, as I drove them 2+ months ago and those are massively off what I can do, like when silverstone popped up for me after 2 months I went from 58.2 to 56.9. Its up to you to decide if you want to sacrifice a lot of your free time AND energy for simracing. For me the anwser is yes. Why did I write all that here? To help you decide. So you can have the best possible approximate of how it looks, before you (potentially) throw away A LOT of your free time. Also, be ready for mental challanges - you will literally hit a wall with your head, and you gotta survive that. Oh, and if you want to go all in - you dont need to get $10k rig - whats important is to have sturdy, non moving seat and at least a wheel like T150. Anything more than that helps you learn faster but its not essential.

My man that's great advice for sim racing and life in general.

I have also been what you might call an amateur sim racing driver almost my entire life. I have driven racing games since the diskette version of Papyrus Indy 500 and always thought I was average but I always think I could do better. But just recently my mindset finally changed and I am happy because I can see the results happening. It's funny because it all started when I watched recently Porsche's documentary "Road To Le Mans" where the actor Michael Fassbender drives a real race car at 24 hours of Le Mans in two editions in a row and tells the experience of him while racing and I suddenly understood that we shared the same feeling I had while sim racing, on how to deal emotionally with your own failures. So I had an epiphany and then I was able to change this mindset just like him in the documentary, and boy, I am having soo much more fun now in sim racing. I guess every "not alien" people like us would benefit from watching that movie too. Nice video, and I subbed btw. Love this kind of stuff, the big picture of things.

Good stuff mate. The only thing I would say is to not use different cars. Stick to the same one for familiarity if you are chasing those final small improvements. Only then move onto the next car.

Awesome! Thanks!

Time is a huge factor, Ayrton Senna said many times it was all practice, and extending that a wise guy once told me, you dont practice - you test. Which is also true, practicing the same mistakes or bad setup aint any use!

Yesssss open mind and we can maybe gearing maybe tire’s depending on type of racing

I totally get what you mean. I'm new to ACC. Been playing for about a month or two and it's 100% up to time and like doing a billion laps around seeing where and how you gain time at some turns. Watching how others do it and so on. At first I was like "I can't get that time on that track like someone" but the more I play I was like "wow I'm likely coming close or faster" Ofc it will be a little dumb to compare with top notch players but hey the improvement was there and I know I can do it better and will be in couple of months or so. Also thanks to your setups videos and trying some different setups to figure out changes in car behavior which may be a huge part on getting good/faster but also having more fun at my personal pace. Thanks again!

Using the term alien is going a long way to discourage people from trying, it makes it seem as though the people who are that fast have extraordinary abilities that everybody else does not have. That's true to a certain degree but everybody can improve

What work well is to get the replays. Some of the setups give you a replay, some give motec. Both works well but replays for me is better. Then check your lines and then check brake points on motec. I find if you are 2sec off most of the time you brake to late.

I guess i'm lucky then, even though i've not reached alien level, i never felt i could never achieve it. In my virtual racing career, i've always been progressing and getting faster. And i like the fact that sometimes there are people faster than me, because that means there is another challenge, i see it positively. This video was informative though.

LFM needs to have fixed setup GT3 hourly race servers ASAP. That's how you really know that you are improving imo

Fully agree. It takes hours per day to be even half good...

Yep! I’ve decided the few hours a week I have will have to be enough and I’m just going to have fun and not worry about being the best. Too many other great things in life to spend all my time in a “game” lol.

I've been wanting a wheel for so many years, but still haven't been able to pull one together (one i got cheap on ebay bricked 2nd week, deserved). I've just been using controller to play competizione, I can go decently fast, but its so hard to be consistent with the stick on some tracks. for example my Monza pb is 1:51.8, but most normal servers players are setting 1:47s-1:49s. Ive only been able to pull off a few wins/podiums on noob friendly servers where most people are doing 1:55s or spinning every couple laps. It just feels like there is no in between very rarely will I find someone around same pace as me to have a good battle. But when those moments do come where me and someone trade passes I treasure every second and enjoy it with a big smile on my face even if its for p12.

2:17.3 op Spa is toch een nette tijd Arnout! Maar je hebt wel gelijk. In jezelf geloven, veel veel oefenen en analyseren en tijd hebben of maken ;-)

Creating desire when it isn't there is the trick. Sometimes it is impossible, if you want it enough you will do it though. I tried to learn to play the guitar, have been trying for over 30 years. When I started I did have talent and a lot of people expected me to become really good. I didn't, I'm not even average. Why, I lost my desire. When I had the desire I used to play until my fingers bled, and that is not that uncommon. Now I pick it up 3-4 times a month. When I realised just how much work was involved it floored me but I had to get to a certain level to understand just how much work was needed. !0% inspiration (talent of you want to call it that) and 90% perspiration sounds about right.

subbed! 🙃

Makes sense!

We can and we will as sim racers

Your most time gains will come from having individual car set ups for each track, having the right gearing and downforce on lets say a track with long straights is the difference from a car pulling away from you like it magically has more power or somrthing when its not you are probably just using a stock set up for all tracks

BIGGEST THING...use ALL the track. That's it.

apart from a lot of seat time, good setups and analyzing other faster drivers i can not stress how much your skill wil increase with coaching. there's a lot of guys out there that will coach you or where you can get courses to follow. you will learn so much and don't feel bad paying someone faster than you to teach you, even the fastest F1 drivers have coaches on the sidelines keeping an eye on their performance and debriefing with them after a session.

Word!👍🏻

I just enjoy my race and try to beat myself and not others that probably are kids without personal life and 330 cholisterin 🤣. So very well said 👌

Nice my best lap in the same track was today 2:26 I'm really happy because I just started sim racing about 1 month ago 😂😂 oh and I'm married no kids but 4 pets 🍻

What's the overlay you're using ?

I'm always 4-5s behind epsorters/aliens on all tracks 😂

Enjoy each little success as if it was a major win :)

thats a wierd mindset of some people. u can do everything it just takes practice BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

for 10k hours to be great at something, maybe 300 hrs can be subtracted for talent. the rest is just experience and seat time, seat time, seat time and nothing can replace that.

The link to your discord does not seem to work anymore.

I used to be within a second to second and half of the top guys before 2020 on F1 games. But then my PC broke in 2020 so I couldn't race for more than half a year (because of pandemic I couldn't fix my PC) and then in 2021 I had no money to buy the game so I was pretty much out of racing for 2 years. And boy did I fell in those 2 years 😂. I can't even keep the car between the lines at times. I've pretty much given up on racing by now but, if you want to be good, play a lot.

I have read that 20-30 minutes of focussed practice at a time is more beneficial than practicing for hours on end. 20 min a day is 2 hours and 20 minutes a week. I think this is what VRS recommends, but I may be misattributing that concept.

If you do not have time to practice to be the fastest maybe you should try iRacing you are always in the race with people on a similar level to you so it js always fun and it even has fixed series where everyone is forced to be on the same default setup

I used to be 3 seconds off alien now I am 1 second away sometimes just under depending on the track my tips would be; First and foremost admit you are slow because you are doing something or many things incorrectly and then try to realise what it is, then 1. Stop practicing in the same way and thinking you will get faster you have to change the way you drive to get faster maybe it is the way you brake or the lines you take etc 2. Practice one new technique at a time not many at a time each practice session tell yourself I will focus only on the way I brake or I will focus only on my lines or only on the way I accelerate out of corners, 1 thing at a time really helps 3. Learn the physics behind the sim you are playing, each sim drives differently, and each one has a different tire model to go fast you need to understand the tire model and how you need to drive to go fast

Is de VR die je draagt het waard?

Time is an excuse. I know people who plays all day, are like 5k on iracing, they are good, they read telemetry, but still +0,5 off the pace. If you run 600 times on a circuit, but not being conscious of what are you doing good or bad, it is worthless

Also the fastest guys have a bigger community or a bigger company behind knowing about more of the engine / bug itself and know how to use and abuse. Nevertheless. It’s all about talent and time.

Another thing to remember is that often the top racers exploit the physics engine to gain a lot of time

Was just at spa today, not spent much time there, did 3 races, started in the 2:20s and ended at 2:18.5, Theres definitely sub 2:18s in the setup. there was a guy in all 3 races doing 2:15.8! Which just seems ridiculous.

Really appreciate the Dad racer perspective

It’s nice of you to try and help and I’d love to race again but my bet is that there’s cheating. Of course there are people faster than me but cheating is very common in online shooters so why would it be any different in racing? When I played Battlefield regularly some servers would put a message onscreen announcing when a player had been kicked for cheating and about a fifth of players would get booted. Unfortunately, people really like to cheat!

ACC's more closer to a video game than say Iracing or rfactor is to a sim racing game. It's so hard for me to lose control in ACC. I've lost count of how many times I win. That's not real. That's easy. I get crashed into. Hey look at me, I can still keep on racing.

I have a girlfriend, Ihave to keep....like satisfied...😂 That was so on point 😂😂

No one in the comments is saying another aspect of money. Money for a sim a good sim rig, an expensive wheel direct drive wheels

I started ACC and finally finished the third set if races but realized the game was cheating me by forcing me to race on 20° tyres. The highest i could get the temperature was 22.4. Why?

2:16??? god i cant even break 2:21! lol mind you i am completely lost when it comes to setups

We also have to deal with some next level cheating sadly, beyond those who are at the peak of their game.

bro i cant even go faster then 1.50 on monza. It's pain to watch all this 1.46 aliens

Q: Y? A: I like to go sideways more than winning. Sorry not sorry.

Read Ultimate speed secrets by Ross Bentley

At 3:50 you break your first rule lol. If you say you can't you can't

You do not play Forza Motorsport?

Three words, paid setups

you need to put in the time but not THAT much time, you are going to hit a point of stagnation, and you just need to take a break from the game, either a month or a week, and youll see you might be at the same pace or even faster, and also try to discover how the physics of the game really work and whats the tricks and the fucked shit you need to do to go fast

I do But quite often i cannot, simply because i dont have that much time Generally I need an hour or two to get close to that gap and the rest is hard work to find the finest margins. I refuse to dedicate that time and just stay with what I am comfortable.

😂 a real Alien is natural fast. Everyone else is a astronaut. A real Alien don't need to practice to much.

Should we become no lifers in order to become aliens ? 🤔 😥

Be basically spoke nonsense for ten minutes straight and didn't offer a physical solution to being two seconds faster 😅

Just like in real life, either you have it or you don't, no amount of time you spend will ever compensate for the lack of talent. Fast drivers are fast no matter the conditions or time they spend in a car.

Buying setup, exploits... What a waste of time! Trying to be "the first" in that kind of chase for exploits or hotlapping a track to death - is delusional and never ending game. At the end there are kids that got more time and "morale" than you. So why even bother? All you will get - some occasional "wins" and getting tired to a point you will hate your "used to like" hobby. Real racing or understanding a racecraft is different. It's much more interesting and productive in long run to understand how things work, how you are doing and where to improve next. Driving, setups, strategy, etc. Disregard other "hotlappes" and if you really want to compare - join a league with fixed setup or truly random calendar and scenarios (random track + random car + limited setup options). Again, dump hotlapping, blindly buying setup, chasing poidums, copy-catting some track-guides - waste of time. Learn telemetry, watch your own replays, set small and focus on small targets. Learn resources on setup and race craft like Suellio Almeida. If you really need to fastforward - get a personal coach.

Holy crap... 3 minutes of trying to tell people if they believe they can, then they can. What a crock, Accept reality some people can do things you can't, its life we are all different. Analyzing things like breaking and turn in can make up some change. Setups, quite frankly if you can't lap with repeatedly consistent times however fast or slow they are, then setup isn't going to make that much difference unless the current setup is wildly bad, ( basic defaults are a good start ) , using someone else's setup is cheating yourself out of the learning and understanding, which will never turn you into a good driver.

Hi there! Nice video and your tips help me a lot. I wanted to enter your discord but the link has been expired

What’s your discord called

💯% the mindset in anything in life 👌🏼👍🏼🫡