The Best Racing Circuits for Learning Sim Racing Fundamentals

Like with every sport, the best way to lay your foundation for long time success is to learn fundamental techniques and master the basics. Modern sim racing offers a great variety of racetracks so that the selection can be quite overwhelming, especially to new drivers. In the following we want to make some racetrack suggestions to learn all the basics so that you are prepared in the best way possible for your sim racing journey ahead.

Brands Hatch is a staple in British motor racing and with its old school character, the track’s “Indy” configuration is great to teach you the very first sim racing basics.

This track is quite short, so it is easy to memorize the layout and you can bang in lap after lap to see improvements quickly. This is one of its biggest advantages, as it is easy to learn but hard to master. Moreover, it is well suited for smaller racecars with not as much power, perfectly made for beginners.

Even though the track is somewhat short, it features elevation changes and a bumpy surface, which puts high forces through the suspension on your car. This causes great variety in the car’s balance and teaches you how to adjust your driving style accordingly. With FANATEC’s goal of delivering the ultimate immersion, even our entry level CSL DD wheel base will give you a great driving sensation, feeling every little detail of Brands Hatch’s surface.

The track’s layout itself consists of a fast downhill right-hander with a big compression at the bottom, immediately leading uphill again into a tight hairpin. Followed by multiple medium speed corners and a short straight this concludes the short lap already. But do not underestimate the track - we can guarantee you will find yourself off the asphalt a few times here!

This racetrack is located in Spain and its current layout is driven since the early 1990’s. It is no surprise that it was the official F1 World Championship test track for many years in the past.

The track features everything you are looking for as a beginner. It has an extremely long Start/Finish straight, leading into an array of fast, sweeping corners with different raddi promoting various racing lines to take. This is ideal to feel how a car behaves in fast corners and especially interesting if you drive a car with high downforce. At first you might find that you are taking these corners way too slow, as you are just not used to it in the beginning. But with every lap you get a better sense of how much grip your race car can actually provide in these corners and you get closer and closer to the sensations of driving your car on the limit.

Additionally, the second part of the track consists of more medium speed and slow corners, giving you a great contrast and teaching you even more about car behavior. Here you might find, that the car is moving more in slow corners, as downforce on your car is not that high in this track section. This is great to teach you countersteering and improving your reflexes on the wheel. In combination with our lightning quick CS DD/CS DD+ wheel bases you feel the effects immediately in your hands, giving you full control in these situations.

Of course there are tracks with similar traits, but these two are featured in almost every sim and can prepare you in every single way possible, no matter which car you use. Also, don’t be afraid to spin out! Oftentimes it is even helpful to overdo it a few times, just to get a feeling of how far you can go. With that we wish you great enjoyment in improving your skills using one of our market leading wheel bases.