Most of the Garage 61 team will be in Frankfurt this weekend for the Sim Racing Expo. Send us a message if you want to meet up. We've got a pile of stickers to hand out.

We haven't just been sitting at the beach this past summer, we are gradually tweaking things, adding new features and fixing bugs. Here is an overview of some of those changes.

Track map updates

The track now has an indication of the finish line, sectors and shows you the wind direction and speed of each lap. For each car we also show an arrow for the direction it is pointing at, which can be very helpful for figuring out who is over or under-steering.

Push-to-pass

For cars that support it, such as the Super Formula 23, telemetry graphs now indicate when push-to-pass was used during a lap.

You can also filter your lap searches to specifically search for laps with or without the use of push-to-pass.

Reactions

Messed up someones race and want to apologize? Or congratulate a competitor on that fantastic move they pulled off? You can now send reactions to events and driver profiles.

Streaming page refresh

The "Now streaming" page got a much needed refresh. Use this to tune in to streams of other Garage 61 drivers currently racing. You can also find Twitch links on the live timing pages, if you want to look over the shoulders of your competitors.

Link your Twitch account on the my account page to have your stream appear on Garage 61.

This change is part of a larger gradual redesign of the UI, which will be landing gradually over the coming months.

Discord bot commands

The Discord bot now understands /garage61, which you can use to fetch a whole lot of Garage 61 information, directly in Discord.

Selectively clean lap records for teams

If you want to reset some of the team records, you can now do so selectively for a selection of cars and/or tracks.

Find similar laps

"Find similar laps" allows you to search for laps in similar conditions quickly. Just select the tolerance and we will pre-fill the search filter with the right selection ranges to get you that perfect comparison lap. This is part of Garage 61 Pro.

And finally...

We also had dozens of small improvements, bug fixes and a lot of updates on the developer API.

There are much bigger changes coming soon, but that'll be for another day, when time is ripe to discuss those. Enjoy the racing and hope to see some of you at the expo.

https://garage61.net/whatsnew/202610151730

Been racing for about two months now. I got out of rookies pretty quickly and now I’m racing in C class in Sports Car and am currently climbing to C class in Formula.

For the first time in Formula, I qualified first at Oschersleben (god I hate this track). Needless to say that I was super nervous before the start of the race. I managed to get a good start and led for 8 laps. The more laps I did, the more stressed I got. The guy behind me wasn’t particularly aggressive so I didn’t need to race hard but around the 8th lap I made a mistake arriving too fast into turns 1 and 2 and had a big spin. Obviously, it was because I was overly stressed.

What are your tips to be less stressed?

IMSA Long Beach GT3 class single split race, old mate in his Red Bull Verstappen livery causes a big collision at the end of the formation lap, holding the back half of the field for 13 seconds, and then fences it at turn 1 and wrecks another few cars.

Seriously! I bought a trackir device for some flight sim stuff, and wanted to get back into sim racing. I decided to give trackir a whirl on my sim, it’s incredible! It’s like VR but it uses hardly any more of your computer and can give almost the same situational awareness. For $170 to be able to physically look where you want is honestly a steal

We had no prior accidents, never even raced next to each other on track. He went off, and waited for a few cars to go by. And then, as I was going by he decided that he wants to rejoin at that exact moment? Why?

This cost me 15 minutes of repairs in total.

Just won my first race , still in Rookie
This was my 7th or 8th race overall

What rating and class do I need to be to compete in longer endurance races ? Me and my friend want to do that eventually and how do we get there ? New to i racing and the progression is a bit confusing to us
Do you need to get past a 3 safety rating for all race types to get to the next tier of license or does it independently apply - meaning can I be a rookie in dirt racing while being a d class in sports car ?

Hello everyone!

I’ve been on iRacing for a few months using a Moza R5 and the KS wheel (2 pedals). I feel like it's time to turn off Auto-Blip to get a bit more realistic (and faster), but I'm running into a coordination issue.

My trail braking is okay, but whenever I try to blip the gas with my right foot while trail braking, my left foot spikes out too, out of instinct, and my trail braking gets ruined completely.

Any tips on how to stop the left foot from reacting to the right foot blip? Also, do you start downshifting towards the end of trail braking?

I'm finding it really confusing to coordinate the downshift paddle, gas blip, and brake modulation all at once.

(I'm mainly racing FF1600 and MX5 btw)

By far one of the most common patterns I've seen while coaching others is to do with medium/high speed corner entries.

I tried exaggerating the slow example a bit to get the point across. If I remember correctly it was a tenth and a half slower. Nonetheless, this is something that I see all the time even with drivers around the 3k mark or above, and its a substantial factor behind the 1+ second pace deficit that's often talked about.

The tricky part is that it doesn't feel slow or wrong if you've never experienced what doing it right actually feels like, which is why many people get stuck here.

I tried keeping everything but the entry pretty similar to make the comparison fair.

Slow example (too little slip/safe driving)

In the slow example, I decelerate the car quite a lot before turning. This is necessary to make the corner because I'm not reaching the tire's optimal slip, so I necessarily have to go slower. I'm clearly still applying some brakes up until the apex, but it is not enough to force the tires into their ideal slip which generates most lateral force. From the steering angle it's clear that the car is in a very safe state. I'm able to force the steering quite a lot and I reach the peak angle quickly. It's also noticeable how the tire noise appears after I trail the brakes and not on the transition from deceleration to turn in.

Fast example (correct slip)

Now let's look at the fast example.

For a good amount of time during the entry, my steering angle is tiny yet the car is continuously rotating up until my minimum speed. Since I keep a much higher brake pressure on entry, the effectiveness of my steering wheel is amplified. When compared to the slow example, the tire noise is there from the first moment of turn in. In this example, I'm extracting more grip from the tires, which allows me to do the entry way quicker.

How do I know if I'm doing it well?

When you optimise the slip on these medium/high speed entries, it will feel like one degree of steering on turn in is enough to make the car flow through the corner (this will apply to a different extent depending on the car). The force feedback will feel heavy and reactive because the car is on edge. Its also not incorrect to feel the rear stepping out just a touch. This means you achieved some extra rotation and you will now be able to accelerate earlier.

How can I force the car into the correct state on entries?

The key is in the transition between straight line braking and the turn in.

The vast majority of drivers already know what trail braking is and apply it in some measure. However, many people treat entries like a two stage problem where first they decelerate and second they turn with a fixed amount of steering and brakes.

This methodology is what causes the slow example where I decelerate, drop the brakes to a certain point and then I suddenly add steering. It's very clear where the two stages are in this case.

In the fast example, the transition between these two "stages" is almost invisible. There's obviously a point where I start steering and trailing the brakes, but it's not nearly as defined. In practice, this uses the tires grip a lot earlier in the corner and I'm able to do the entry at a greater speed.

Muscle memory is not the point of the post

Knowing how something looks or the theory behind it is essential, but it won't make you be able to replicate it. Behind every percentage drop of the brakes and forcing of the steering there are countless hours of practice. These variations happen instantaneously and constantly, so they can't feasibly be explained in words.

However, knowing what it is that you should achieve should help tremendously when practicing as now you have some sort of validation as to whether you're doing it correctly or not, at least from my experience.

Peace out.

I really want to get into iracing because of its online servers and the game itself seams great, but im from new zealand and my ping will probably suck for example i get around 100-250 ping on australian servers in a few games and around 300 on Singapore servers. is this playable? or should I stick to singleplayer games like automobilista 2?

(edit: dont know how populated aus servers are and i want to do the touring on iracing mainly)

Multiclass shenanigans and a close call. I don't have triple screen (one wide 34) so you know my heart skipped a beat (and my late reaction lol).

(don't mind the edit, I'm just messing around)

Hey guys! I mostly race GT3, always Porsche or Ferrari, and this season I thought it’d be a good idea to buy the Mustang GT4. In these 3 weeks I just haven’t been able to get along with this thing lol. The rear keeps stepping out all the time, even in super easy corners, and I can’t predict anything. In GT3 I could feel the limit coming, in the Mustang I’m already spinning before I notice. Pretty sure it’s GT3 habits, I’m driving like I still have all that downforce holding the car, but I don’t really know what to change. Anyone who’s been through this got any tips? Driving, setup, TC and ABS, anything helps. And honestly, is it worth sticking with it or should I just give up and grab the Porsche GT4? I’m in Brazil and with the time zone it’s really hard to test cars before buying, so I don’t wanna throw money away again.

iRacing freezing, stuttering audio and packet loss issues – looking for advice

I'm having some ongoing issues with iRacing and wondered if anyone else has experienced anything similar or could offer some advice.

Whenever I join a session, whether it's practice or a race, the game will occasionally freeze completely. The screen becomes stuck, my steering wheel starts shaking, and the audio stutters. This can last for around 1–2 minutes before the game recovers and I can continue driving.

When it happens, the in-game performance indicators in the top-right corner show CPU latency in red and packet loss in red. I've spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting and making changes to try to resolve the CPU issues, and the red CPU latency seems to have improved significantly. However, I'm still occasionally experiencing the freezes, and packet loss continues to appear.

My PC is connected directly to the router via Ethernet, and I've never had these issues before. I haven't knowingly changed anything that should have caused this.

I've already tried various troubleshooting steps, including reinstalling my graphics drivers, but the problem persists intermittently.

Has anyone experienced similar issues where the game freezes, the steering wheel and audio stutter, and packet loss appears despite having a wired internet connection? Any suggestions on what might be causing this or what I should investigate next would be greatly appreciated.

This was my first evening driving GT3 in iRacing and i had only 2 minutes of practice before race 1 started (which in itself was practice) and after that race i had 5 more minutes of practice before going in for qualifying on this one.

I'm aware lack of practice before the first time driving a new car class is reckless, i overlooked the timer and didn't want to forfeit qualifying.

Anyway here's a clip of my final lap in the race which was my best time 1:46.262 on autodromo internazionale in the GT3 Porsche.

If i keep practicing i might shave off a little more time but i feel like i'm probably making a rookie mistake somewhere that could cost me a second. What am i doing completely wrong and where are clear areas for improvement?

Any help and tips will be appreciated!

Hello! Been on iRacing for about a year now (4 months religiously and the last 8 months very off and on) almost all on road cars. I love the Miata’s, GR’s and PCUP!

I’m looking for motivation to get on and race more often (1-2 times per week) instead of letting it sit for a month or 2 at a time.

That being said, are there any leagues currently running or about to start that are 1-2 sessions per week? Usually later evening weekdays like 7pm EST or later? Or anytime weekends!

🏁RELENTLESS RACING🏁

🗣English Speaking
🕙EU Timezone Friendly

Relentless Racing is an up and coming league looking for clean, competitive drivers (Target iRating: 2-3k however any skill level is welcome) for weekly racing on Assetto Corsa and iRacing!

🚗The Cars:
Citroën C1 (MK1) Assetto Corsa
Legends Ford ‘34 Coupe iRacing
Porsche 911 Cup (992.2) iRacing
❓1 car to be chosen by the community (TBD)❓

🏆What We Offer:
Regularly scheduled Citroën C1 championship on Assetto Corsa
Regularly scheduled Legends road championship on iRacing
Regularly scheduled PCup championship
One-off fun events with wild and whacky concepts you won’t see anywhere else!
iRacing special events participation
Cash prizes for championship winners

Join us now and help build the grid!
👉 Discord Link: https://discord.gg/5Hn5SPdctt

G29, PCup, p500 pedals, MAIRA.

I set understeer to reduce the nm, so I have a clear edge feeling when understeer kicks in.

However, I notice that in some instances I can turn a few extra degrees, and the car still lets me turn more, even after the understeer edge feeling appears.

Is this the way you're supposed to do it? Feeling the limit, and going that extra 3-5 degree.

Is this overheating tyres? Again I'm not whipping the wheel, just a few degrees past the cliff feeling and the car still turns more.

Is this a fault with MAIRA or the g29?

Should I stop doing this?

Thanks!

Title. I could not get the sim to load into the race until halfway through, constantly got stuck at 90%. Running 12600k/32GB ddr5/5080. Scared to sign up for another race as I lost 70 irating.

Epic is dumping dev effort into EAC v2 so that Fortnite runs on Linux.

This seems to me like a possible tipping point in the crusade for getting iRacing on Linux. What do you all think?

Just finished a GT3 sprint race and I knew it was trouble since the start of the formation lap.

I started mid pack and since the get-go I can see the car behind me was making reckless swerving right behind me. He was no more than .1 seconds behind me and would clip me if I made any kind of sudden slow down.

Then half way through the formation lap, he starts slowly way down and then accelerating hard until he slammed on his brakes right behind me.

I was nervous as hell the entire time, and of course, it only took 4-5 of these until he mis judged and slammed right in the back of me at near full speed and wrecking me.

I hadn’t even started the race and I was out already

Now, the entire time he was doing this, I tried getting out of his way by leaving the center lane completely open by hugging the grass. I even avoided my typical tire warming ritual and just drove as steady speed as possible. And yet he still hit me.

Question: what are my options in that case? Could I have identified this issue and allowed him to form up ahead of me? Could I abandon my position? Can I just stand still? Can I exit and start from the pits? Are penalities/incident handed out in these cases?

I only got 1x because I touched the grass, other than that it was 0x despite the wheel banging.

What are your thoughts?

Hi everyone, I have recently started iracing about a week ago and I’m just loosing irating, I just want to know if this is a learning curve or I’m just dreadful at the sim and should reconsider things. Thank you

Here I am just enjoying my lap one on GT3, I noticed smoke and Jim telling me about cars going slow. I take precaution understanding the risk.... then bam... I lose all steering...

Not much I can do. I tow, do repairs, and make of what I could of the rest of the race.

Watch out for netcode cars out there.

If you don't have a clutch, you can use your controller for standing starts.