Credits: IMAGO NurPhoto, IMAGO HochZwei

Oscar Piastri may already be a multi-time podium finisher in F1 but he is still very young and belongs to the new generation of drivers. The 22-year-old has now explained how being born in this generation resulted in him following different steps as compared to the veterans of the sport to eventually get to F1. Piastri explained the same by comparing his situation to the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.

Advertisement

In a recent interview with Esquire Australia, Piastri said, “When Fernando and Lewis started racing, simulators weren’t a thing much at all. So that aspect of things is very different. And the sport’s advanced a long way. Even just for me, the guys a few years younger than me, they’re playing iRacing in home simulators from the [same] age they’re racing go-karts”.

Piastri then shed some light on the benefits aspiring motorsports drivers can learn from simulator racing. The current McLaren driver revealed that since aspiring racers do not “really think about the fear side of things much,” sim racing helps them learn how to “just jump in the car and drive quickly”.

Advertisement

Oscar Piastri believes that the likes of Hamilton and Alonso did not have this luxury. However, the Australian believes that compared to the 2007 McLaren duo, the amount of actual on-track testing time today’s drivers have is “basically zero”.

This is a fact as even Alonso has mentioned how relative to his early racing days, testing has reduced quite a lot. Regardless, similarly to Piastri, Max Verstappen also believes that sim racing helps him improve as an F1 driver.

Verstappen explained how sim racing helps him improve as an F1 driver

On several occasions previously, Max Verstappen has explained how sim racing has helped him perform better in F1. Other than just getting his mind off F1, sim racing also helps the Dutchman understand different tracks better and improve his reaction timing, among other things.

Verstappen believes that sim racing is more realistic than what most people believe as barring the real-life dangers of F1, virtual racing incorporates most of the other elements. The 26-year-old is so dedicated to sim racing that he was up all night just hours before the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix took place.

However, it is pertinent to note that Verstappen is not the only F1 driver who enjoys sim racing. Even the likes of Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, and Alex Albon are avid sim racers. They all often stream their sim races via platforms such as Twitch.