iRacing is rolling out its new Development Update for February 2025. With the Season 2 build just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to share the latest progress in our simulation development.
Without further ado, here are the official notes for this update.
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Hello iRacers,
It’s been a busy start to the year at iRacing – our development team has been working hard to prepare for the Season 2, 2025 build while our operations teams have been hustling to support the special event trifecta that begins each year, with the iRacing Roar, Daytona 24, and Daytona 500 running back to back. We’re also balancing many longer-term projects, made possible by significant investment and growth in our development teams. The result – we’ve never had anywhere close to this number of significant projects and tech initiatives in the works at the same time. In this update, I will touch on some of these initiatives and set expectations for the upcoming S2 build.
Before we preview development, I would like to thank all iRacers who participated in our special events so far this year. These events take a tremendous amount of time and effort to plan and operate, not to mention the years of development and infrastructure work that power them. It brings these teams great satisfaction to see the high turnout from sim racers around the world, and this year, we set participation records yet again with the Daytona 24 drawing an impressive 24k entries, making it the largest and most significant single event in sim racing history. Thank you again for your passion, your time, and your participation.
Season 2 is around the corner, and we have a great set of cars, tracks, improvements, and new features in store. Let’s start with a quick review of the upcoming content…
It was way back in 2009 that we released the car that is used in our ARCA Menards Series today. This car and series have become one of our most popular Oval racing offerings and draws close to 100,000 total drivers each week. However, given the age of the art and driving model, as well as advancements in the real world, we are well overdue for a refreshed ARCA release. With the S2 build, we will be releasing multiple fully licensed ARCA cars. Right now, we are going through the approval process with the manufacturers, so details will be shared soon. Each car has been built from the ground up with new artwork and physics that incorporate advancements we’ve made in how we create art and our physics modeling.
Many iRacers have previously purchased the about-to-be-outdated ARCA car, and we are sure there are questions about how we will handle the placement of the new cars in our series. The new physics model is based on the modern-day cars, and will not BOP with the old model. As such, we have decided to remove the old car from the ARCA Menards official series. This replacement will be accompanied by credits issued to iRacers who purchased the old ARCA car within one year of the release of the new cars. Credit amounts will be based on the duration of ownership. As many have observed from other recent programs like this, this does offer opportunities for grabbing the old car in anticipation of the new release…
In addition to the ARCA release, we will also update another popular car—the Legends Ford 34c. The Legends Ford 34c is part of our base content package, and this update will be applied to the existing car package. The rebuild incorporates our latest physics and art advancements, and the car looks great and drives even better.
Last season, we updated our GTP and LMP2 cars with our latest (pre-V10) release-ready tire version. This version improved dynamic response and driving feel and resulted in a model that was much more in sync with inputs. The new tire also incorporated more accurate degradation and updated compound and construction modeling. However, with the release, it quickly became clear to us that we missed the mark in an important way – cornering performance was off, and iRacers were justifiably let down by this lapse. Together with a much-needed but yet-to-be-delivered update to our hybrid system modeling, the release did not measure up.
It is and has always been our mission at iRacing to provide the most realistic simulation racing experience possible, bar none. When it became clear that we did not hit the mark with the release and with the deservedly high expectations of iRacers and sim racers, our team rallied and came up with a plan to attack the issues with urgency and to make things right.
This plan had two phases:
Phase 1 – A comprehensive reconstruction of the physical tires and compositions, utilizing new real-world data and adjusted and expanded testing practices. This includes all GTP cars and LMP2. We have spent the last three months on this update and have collaborated with several racing drivers, including professionals racing at the pinnacle of motorsport in the world’s top racing series.
Phase 2 – A complete overhaul of the hybrid system to bring it up to date with the design of the current real-world cars and appropriate rulesets.
Phase 1 is ready to go and will ship with S2. We are thrilled with the effort our team put into this and the quality of the result. We do, however, need to set expectations. The former release missed the mark primarily in high-speed cornering performance, which resulted from too much grip. The adjusted model is true to life and can be a handful at times, especially when the tires are cold. iRacers should reacquaint themselves with their favorite GTP or the LMP2 in test sessions before jumping into a race with their iRacing peers. Practice leaving the pits safely and establishing warmth in the tires. What you experience will give you a greater appreciation for the skill involved in piloting these technologically cutting-edge and high-performance racecars in the real world.
The Phase 2 hybrid system updates remain on track for S3.
Season 2 will see the debut of a great track we’ve wanted to add for some time but have not had an opportunity to scan until recently: Portland International Raceway. Owned by the city of Portland, Oregon, PIR is a nearly two-mile road course and will feature multiple configs. In real life, the track is raced by NASCAR, IndyCar, Trans-Am, and ARCA, and it has fielded races in Formula E, Pirelli World Challenge, and AMA Superbikes. Originally known as “West Delta Park,” PIR has a great deal of history, spanning back to the early 1960s. Expect to see PIR raced across a diverse set of racing series in iRacing.
Previously, we shared that we are working to improve the art quality and modern-day accuracy of many of the tracks on iRacing that have become outdated. These past couple of years, we’ve seen such updates applied to Okayama, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, and more. Starting around a year ago, we began to emphasize accelerating the pace of these updates and have been building up teams and processes to perform the work at scale. Today, we have upwards of 50 artists devoted to this initiative, and their work will debut in sizable batches over the next few seasons, starting with many NASCAR tracks. We are nearly done with Bristol, Darlington, Dover, Homestead, Kansas, Vegas, and Iowa (repave), and will ship many as free updates in Season 2 (to owners of these tracks). Season 3 will see many more updates, and from there we will widen our focus to other categories of racetracks on the service. We are really excited to get these older tracks up to date and ready to take full advantage of our future new graphics engine.
Another track-related update with the season 2 build will be a greatly expanded list of tracks that support 3D curbing. This system requires per-track customization to ensure accuracy and results in a more dynamic racing experience. We look forward to the release of 3D curbs at Jerez, Aragon, Sandown, VIR, Winton, Rudskogen, and Hockenheim. Barcelona and Road America are on the bubble as to whether they will be in S2 or available later.
Season 2 will also see the debut of new sim features and functionality.
Debris Refresh Phase 2 improves this system with significant tweaks to rendering and dynamic modeling and the all-new inclusion of local debris cautions. Local debris cautions are informative only, and the work has begun to exercise our minds regarding future expanded road course caution support…
There are few sim racing experiences more frustrating than being out on the track with racers who are dealing with networking problems. Network problems can manifest in various ways, such as cars blinking in and out of existence as connections improve and worsen. While our netcode is robust and powered by decades of experience and refinement, there is a limit to what can be done when connections are severely compromised. To improve the experience for all, we have implemented a new Connection Flag system. This system will flag racers whose connections are insufficient and automatically pull them back into the pits until their connection improves. If they wish, they can disconnect and try and improve the problem, they can wait, or they can ghost drive. Once the connection does improve, they will be allowed to resume their race from the pits.
I’ll list our next feature under Season 2, but note there’s a chance we hold it back – it really depends on how testing and iteration go these last few weeks. This system is targeted to improve the approachability and difficulty of AI races and is called Adaptive AI. Adaptive AI is an optional feature designed to provide races with a dynamic and responsive level of difficulty across all cars and tracks. With Adaptive AI, users are able to customize the level of challenge they would like in terms of words (easy, medium, hard, extreme) rather than percentages, and one person’s Hard might be another person’s Medium. The system will adapt to you and provide the experience that is requested. This feature is inspired by NASCAR Racing 2003 Series, which many of our developers worked on many years ago. The system stands the test of time and will be the first of many improvements on the way for AI racing in iRacing.
An all-new and vastly improved Lighting Model will debut with Season 2. This lighting model is being developed in parallel with the new renderer and a new sky model, and we are happy that we were able to port over aspects of our new systems to the current renderer rather than have to wait to enjoy it. The new lighting model transforms the rendered world and the light that is imparted onto the scenery and the racecars. This work is beautiful to look at and gets us so excited about all of the additional initiatives in the works. It will look even better in the future when paired with the new graphics engine and the new sky model. To support the new lighting model, our art and content teams are tweaking and rebalancing thousands of textures and materials across the entire sim – it has been a big lift and a full team effort!
iRacing is a global platform with sim racers from all over the world. How incredible is it that technology can bring us together on the virtual racetrack, sharing experiences together at 200+ mph? We are excited to expand our efforts to reach and support sim racers who speak languages other than English in coming builds, and will roll out expanded language support in the launcher UI. We will begin this expansion slowly through the addition of Spanish and gradually add additional languages and support. Support in the sim UI will follow in the future as well, but that is another project with different foundational tech.
Another update worth mentioning is more of a usability/quality-of-life enhancement. Payment and account management have been refactored to a dedicated application, which will serve as a foundation for improved account creation and flow.
Season 2 will also feature hundreds of additional fixes and improvements, which are too numerous to mention here, but they will certainly be covered extensively in the upcoming release notes.
The final note on Season 2, before we move on to future development, relates to the New Sim UI. It had been our hope and tentative plan to debut the New Sim UI with this release. That said, we are and always have been committed to delivering iRacers the best experience possible, and we need a bit more time to hit the required quality standard. As many of us who are devs know, the last 10% of a project can be a real bear and requires extensive effort, detailed work, testing iteration, and fit and finish. We’re really proud of what we’re building and the future that the new UI framework will provide for the expansion of functionality and new features.
Now, let’s review some of our future projects and initiatives before we wrap things up and prepare for Season 2.
I’ll start with the New Graphics Engine, which is supported by a full team of the best graphics engineers in the business. Creating a custom graphics engine is not the most common path game developers take these days, but it is critical to us at iRacing that we develop an engine that is tailored to precisely meet the needs of simulation racing. The end result will look amazing and realistic, but most critically, it will take advantage of modern graphics techniques and hardware and be built around a performance-first mindset that encompasses full support of the many various ways sim racers experience sim racing (VR, multi-display, curved display, etc).
Recent advancements in the project include support passes defined by shaders, improved culling, and support for array, cube, and 3D textures. The improved culling is designed to better support objects with a large number of primitives. Last week, our Principal Graphics Engineer also shared a new shadow system prototype that will dramatically improve the shadow appearance and performance seen in the current render. Also, as mentioned earlier, we are working on a new sky model and have made significant progress.
As we have shared in previous Dev Updates, this project will require patience. We are doing the hard work that will create a strong foundation for the sim for years to come. When possible, we are strategically finding ways to improve the current renderer with work that is adjacent to our efforts on the new renderer. For example, lighting improvements will debut in S2.
The graphics engineering team surprises and impresses us nearly every day with their innovation, ingenuity, and talent. We couldn’t be happier with the project’s progress. This update includes a few preview screenshots that show the prototype new sky and an early version of the new shadow technology.
Last quarterly update, I touched fairly extensively on physics development and priorities, so I won’t elaborate too extensively here, but it is worth a quick recap of initiatives and priorities that are underway. V10 tires top the list, and we have already invested years in R&D and built tools to accelerate the project. Additional improvements include (this is a quick recap from November’s update)
- Double-precision physics calculations
- Better FFB
- Better contact patch modeling
- Better tire shape
- Better tire compound modeling
- A better grip model
- Better modeled heat buildup and tire memory
- Better “moments”
Single Player Career Mode is moving along well, and our focus remains on delivering what we’re calling “AI Championships” first as we build towards a full career mode. AI Championships will provide an all-new mode of racing with AI in iRacing, where you can simulate the career path that many racers take from grassroots racing all the way to the pinnacle of the sport in NASCAR, Prototype racing, Grand Prix Racing, and more. The racing ladders in AI Championships will have flexibility available and various paths one can take and will support systems that evaluate performance in ways different from the typical iRacing metrics. Development on AI Championship mode and Career Mode is also fueling improvements to the product as a whole, such as Adaptive AI, and future systems such as Auto AI and Save Race.
The Audio team is dialed in on completing architectural improvements that will set the foundation for a greatly expanded and more modern feature set. First up on the priority list are reflections, which will provide a far more immersive experience and a transformatively enhanced auditory presence as sound reflects off of surfaces within the car and around the racetrack environment.
Fair competition and the security of our data are central to our sport. We have staffed a full anti-cheat and anti-tamper team comprised of industry leaders.
We continue to invest R&D energy and priority into the exploration and development of new features and functionality powered by AI technology. As we shared publicly late last year, we have partnered with the world-leading AI technology experts at Microsoft Research to co-innovate together and further the science of AI research while also building new systems and experiences for iRacers. Our collaboration will advance our goals of developing AI-powered driving coaching/crew systems, among many other opportunities. We have focused our efforts on a system designed to assist racers in piloting their cars around the track with better guidance and support. This should dramatically enhance the learning trajectory of new iRacers, as well as support veterans with more precision.
I could continue with many other development initiatives, but as always, there will be future opportunities to share more about these projects and the many more in the works that you’ll learn about soon. However, before we conclude, let me run through some updates on future cars and tracks in the works.
A pair of Gen 4 cars are nearing completion. These 2003-era cars include speedway/superspeedway variants, both in terms of physics and in terms of the actual car model. We were close to shipping these with Season 2, but ultimately need a bit more time to get the project to the finish line.
Significant projects are underway with our IndyCar and NASCAR Cup cars. Each will receive the latest pre-v10 tire model, aero modeling updates, and associated advancements.
We have another Ferrari in the works, and our team has been challenging themselves to deliver the best physics, graphics, and audio models possible, utilizing all of our latest development tooling improvements and quality standards.
Our scan of Adelaide went well, and our sizable scan and photography team successfully navigated the dynamic public roads race track. They came home with tens of thousands of photos and hundreds of millions of laser scan points. Due to its location, this track won’t be a breeze for our team to complete, but our experience developing Long Beach and Chicago Street Course has prepared us well for street circuits around the world.
Miami International Autodrome is progressing nicely. Prototype versions of the track are drivable and used by the track for its own development purposes.
We signed Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez! We are so excited to expand our offering of real-world NASCAR and F1 tracks, as well as enter regions of North America that are new to iRacing. Mexico City is a great track with many unique characteristics, ranging from its high elevation to the winding Foro Sol section, where the track runs between two large grandstands that previously were part of a baseball stadium.
We have plenty more in the works, but that will have to do for now. Again, I just want to quickly reemphasize how excited our team is about the future of our great racing sim and platform. In my role as Executive Producer, I’m fortunate to interface with our teams across all development disciplines – art, production, rendering, audio, physics, design, AI, hardware support, and more. With this visibility, every day offers glimpses into exciting progress across our entire product, and I have to tell you, what we have in store for the next few years is going to take iRacing and sim racing to a level never seen before. This is a new era of possibility, and we are all going to share these advancements and improvements together where they matter most – on the (simulated) track.
Before we conclude, there are a couple of special events coming up worth mentioning: the Bathurst 12, which will run from February 21st to 23rd, and the Sebring 12hr, which will run from March 21st to 23rd. Check them out here: link. It will be fantastic to race Bathurst with the GT3s, and the Sebring event will feature our rearchitected and more realistic GTP/LMP2 tire model—it should be great.
Thanks for your continued support. I look forward to seeing you out on the track. As always, enjoy the assortment of screenshots and other media.
Greg Hill
Executive Producer
iRacing
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