I’m a sim racer with a passion for Motorsport, good racecraft and the tech side of sim racing. I made SIMRACINGCOCKPIT.GG as a place to share my experiences. I hold an International Class C race licence and write for sim racing store G-Performance and Motorsport resource Driver61.com
Featured Image: Igor Rodrigues (Brazil)
Sim racing is an FIA recognised Motorsport and it’s highly competitive.
I’ve argued the case previously that sim racing is just as competitive as a sport as real-world motor racing; and, in the upper echelons of the sport – the realms where “Aliens” exist, the sim racers are so good that getting within two seconds of their pace ought to be considered a win by us mere 2k iRated mortals.
What Fanatec Gear did they use at the FIA Motorsport Games?
Sim racing attracts and grows huge personalities and very skilled individuals. It’s not an unusual event to come across Max Verstappen in a Discord chat; nor is it unusual to occasionally race or share a practice session with the likes of Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, and Tony Kanaan. But the sim racers themselves are the real stars of the show; having refined their abilities in pure sim racing over the years. Teams like Team Redline, Apex and VRS Coanda Simsport have massive followings on Twitch.tv and their various social profiles.
What is the FIA Motorsport Games?
The 2022 FIA Motorsport Games featured Esports for the third year as one of the 17 Motorsport competition disciplines staged 26-30 October 2022 in Marseille.
Each FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) National sporting authority (the MSUK in the UK, for example) nominated a single sim racer to enter the Esports competition.
The platform of choice was Assetto Corsa Competizione with the drivers competing in GT3 cars the simulated equivalents of the same cars that compete in GT, GT Sprint, and Endurance disciplines around the world. Pretty cool.
Fanatec provided all of the simulator hardware, so in this brief article, we’re going to take a look at the anatomy of an Official simulator rig intended for competition in the FIA Motorsport games.
By the way; here’s what happened in the final:
Fanatec Sim Racing Equipment at the FIA Motorsport Games
I’ve taken a few screengrabs from the video above and managed to get a few closeups of the drivers in the process:
The anatomy of a sim racing setup is always as follows:
- Rig (read our guide to sim racing rigs here)
- Seat (read our guide to seats for sim racers here)
- Monitor Stand (often built into the cockpit or included – always check)
- Pedal Base (usually included with the cockpit)
- Wheeldeck or wheel mount (usually included with the cockpit)
- Sim racing wheelbase (read our guide to direct drive wheelbases here)
- Sim racing wheel (read our guide to Fanatec wheels here)
- QR hub (included with Fanatec equipment)
- Pedal set (read our guide to sim racing pedals here)
- Gaming PC (read our guide to sim racing PCs here)
- Nuts, Bolts and Cables (almost always included with the cockpit and peripheral components)
Cockpit
We’ll start with the cockpit. That’s Fanatec’s own Rennsport V2 sim racing cockpit.
As you can see, it already has a pedal mount plate and can accommodate a standard sim racing seat, or you can add the optional Sparco Pro 2000 QRT Seat.
DD Wheelbase
The wheel deck is an optional item as it’s running the side-mounted Fanatec DD2 wheelbase:
Every Fanatec wheelbase already comes with their proprietary QR hub so you don’t need to worry about which Fanatec wheel you buy – they’ll all fit a DD2.
Just be sure that you’ve added the “high torque” QR hub with the Mclaren GT3 v2 wheel if that’s the wheel for you.
Sim Racing Wheel
So, the wheel it appears they’ve fitted is the ClubSport Steering Wheel Porsche 911 GT3 R V2 for Xbox / PC. This flavour of steering wheel would make sense as each rig is clearly running a sim racing / gaming PC (pictured bottom right).
As you can see from the image above, there is a lot of useful information on the wheel’s DDU (Dash Display Unit), including best lap time, last lap time, gear, track speed, and delta to the cars in front and behind. Very useful, simple information for a serious race.
Monitor
Given the Rennsport V2 has a Samsung G9 monitor installed, I’d guess that they are using the RennSport Cockpit Single Monitor Stand option to mount the monitor. You can also mount triple monitors too; with the RennSport Cockpit Triple Monitor Stand V2, another optional add-on for the Rennsport.
You’ll notice in the picture above there’s an emergency stop switch, which is provided with the DD2 wheelbase. Aside from the small detail, though – that’s more or less the entire rig!
If you’re interested in building your own simulator, you can follow the sim racing kit list outlined in this article, or skip ahead to our guide on how to build the cheapest simulator, or a higher-end but affordable simulator. If you’re interested in what professional racing drivers are using, take a look at this article. Enjoy!