Get into leagueracing with Simracing.GP

In March of 2020, MrGit kindly sent me an invitation to Simracing.GP. At the time, I was unfamiliar with what it was. We did a few races to try things out. At the time it was very barebones and only supported Assetto Corsa (AC1). Over the following months, the platform kept adding new features.

When the day came that it started supporting Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC), MrGit organized a few leagues through the platform. This made me fall in love with it. So much so that when we started The Privateer’s Pitbox, we decided we wanted to organize our races through Simracing.GP exclusively.

I am writing this article because I truly believe in the platform’s potential. It deserves to be more in the spotlight as it is in its current format. After running and evaluating two big championships on the platform, it seems our users agree. After our Ginetta Cup, the SGP experience was rated an average of 4.57 out of 5. The SuperTrofeo evaluation proved even more positive, with an average of 4.64 out of 5!

And no, I am not being paid to write this. In fact, I wasn’t even prompted to do so by anyone involved. I was asked not to post this until the platform reached Open Beta, which it now has!

What is Simracing.GP?

Simracing.GP is a free platform for simracing made by the guys at RaceDepartment, and is currently in open beta. It supports Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione and RaceRoom Racing Experience. Support for Automobilista 2 (AMS2) is confirmed and on the way. Support for other sims (such as rFactor 2) has not been confirmed yet, but could potentially be in the pipeline.

Simracing.GP (from now on: SGP) is community-driven. This means that the communities themselves are central to the platform. Each community gets their own directory within SGP. They have the freedom to create their own events, series and leagues, within the parameters offered by each game.

For Assetto Corsa this also means that it utilizes and supports RaceDepartment’s vast library of (legitimate) mods. This means that a lot of unique combinations of cars and tracks are on offer, like our weekly 90’s DTM series. And, if a legitimate (not ripped from other games) mod is not included, chances are it will be in the future.

A small selection of the communities within Simracing.GP

By letting these communities run their own events, there is a multitude of different formats of racing to choose from. Because of this, you will always find something which is to your liking. Take our own Ginetta Cup, Supertrofeo or DTM GT3 Challenge for example. In these championships, I could select a particular set of cars, tracks, date and time (both in-game and real life), scoring system, race length, and much, much more.

This bottom-up approach is different to the top-down approach of other similar platforms, such as found within iRacing or TheSimGrid for ACC. On these platforms, the owners/developers decide when and where races will take place. The freedom a bottom-up approach, where the players dictate the formats, offers to simracers is one of the reasons why I personally believe in the future of this project.

Your view upon entering our community, The Privateer’s Pitbox’ little nook, currently 244 members strong in just 4 months!

What are the advantages of Simracing.GP?

Beside the community-driven aspect of Simracing.GP, racing through Simracing.GP offers many advantages to its users. The biggest one, for me, is the tracking of statistics.

After each race, the results file generated by the server is uploaded to the Simracing.GP platform. The platform does its magic, and presents the results at the event page.

On top of that, it adds the result pertaining to your account to your racing history. This means that as you race more and more, your driver profile shows you more and more meaningful statistics to your performance.

My statistics from the races I have done through Simracing.GP so far

At the moment, it records basic, factual information. However, because Simracing.GP is still in beta, this featureset will expand in the (near) future. One of the features rumoured to be added is a MMR- or Elo-based rating which would measure your performance against other participants.

What makes this driver profile worth more than anything a single game can offer, is that it can use data from multiple sims. This means that you feel less obligated to stick to one particular game, foregoing any sunk-cost fallacy many simracers might have. You have an opportunity to try new things while being able to track your performance in one place.

SGP combines your results from all communities and all games in your driver profile!

On top of that, Simracing.GP will remain completely free to race on. It’s the communities themselves paying a (small) fee to pay for server costs, for a fraction of the cost it would mean if you were to rent your own servers (since server access is shared between communities, you foot the bill together).

SGP is uniquely positioned to become a springboard for loads of community activity, and even eSports. SGP themselves state:

Starting mid-2021 there will be full scale global esports tournaments on simracing.gp. There are competitions running on the platform, sponsored by popular simracing brands, open to everybody.

Simracing.GPs ‘about’-section

How to join the fun?

First of all, you register to SGP through your Steam-account. This validates your ownership of the games and your ability to sign up for particular races. When you get in, you’ll meet with a great number of communities. Feel free to look for a bright orange/black logo with the name “The Privateer’s Pitbox” beside it and join.

By joining a community, you get a subscription to all the events the community creates. By joining more communities, you get more options to choose from. If you see an event, series or championship to your liking, you can simply click on the event, choose one of the available cars and click to register.

If registered, you simply need to wait for the event to start. Depending on the game, this is where matters change:

  • For ACC, simply search for the unique server hashtag in the serverbrowser and make sure you have selected the right car. Enter the server password from the SGP event page and simply enter the server.
  • For AC, make sure you have the correct versions of all the mods listed on the events page installed. Search for the server hashtag and make sure you have the search parameters selected rightly (see this picture), select the car you selected on SGP and enter the server (no password needed).
  • For RaceRoom, I actually have no idea, but it won’t be too hard to figure out!

Now, all you need to do is win the race! Or, just have fun.

Closing remarks

That’s it. I hope I convinced you to try Simracing.GP. Our community, The Privateer’s Pitbox, welcomes you with open arms.

Don’t forget to visit The Pitbox, join our discord, sync our calendar and follow our twitter account if you haven’t done already to keep up with the latest news and upcoming races!

To finish off, I’ll just post the testimonial I wrote for SGP which features prominently on their website. I stand by these words!

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1 Response

  1. April 28, 2021

    […] you’re already sold, you can skip reading and register your participation on Simracing.GP (which just entered open beta!) here – limited space […]

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