Project Motor Racing is officially available

I was ready to publish the official press note from Straight4 Studios about the release of Project Motor Racing , but everybody has been talking about very critical issues, and there is a Day 1 patch already available: 1.5.0.0. 

As you are probably not a content creator, neither am I for many companies, you will receive this v1.5 straight to your hard drive, and you can feel lost in this new title. The company published a guide about what to do next.

Introduction

Firstly, thank you and welcome to Project Motor Racing!

This is intended as a quick way to guide you through your first few minutes with PMR. So, let’s start at the top.

When you boot the game for the first time, you’ll be taken through a simple steering wheel calibration screen. This is an important first step when getting started in a racing simulator as it ensures your wheel and pedals are functioning correctly and should, under no circumstances, be skipped.

If you are on a gamepad, the controller calibration screen will be skipped.

Important First Steps

Frame Generation: Enabling Frame Gen can cause input lag on lower spec’ machines. Please disable for more responsive driving.

Wheel Rotation: Please set the wheelbase driver globally to 900° to ensure correct 1:1 steering mapping across all vehicle classes. You can then tune to your liking within each car’s setup screen. (More on the deep tunability of your wheels etc. below.)

FFB: Force-feedback in PMR is advanced. While default settings will work on all supported wheels, we know sim racers like to tinker. Good news? You can tune your FFB both globally (in settings) and per car (in setups). There are dozens of ways you can fine-tune the feel. For best results, please refer to this FFB Guide.

Driving Assists Presets

After you set up your controller, you’ll be able to choose an assist preset. This doesn’t lock you in permanently, but it will apply a baseline of assists, saving you from having to dig through menus right away.

What each preset does:

Rookie / Intermediate

• Traction Control (TC) enabled on all cars
• Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS) enabled on all cars
• These are always-on regardless of whether the real car has them

Professional

• Assists only available if the real-world car is equipped with them
• Designed for drivers who want full simulation behavior

A quick note on assists:

TC and ABS do not drive the car for you. They will however:

• Prevent wheelspin under throttle
• Prevent lockups when braking too hard

You’re still in full control—these tools just help you stay consistent while learning the handling model.

I want to Drive!

If you’re eager to hit the track right away, the quickest way to start turning laps is through Single Player → Race Weekend.

A few things to know about PMR race weekends:

Events aren’t “instant start” with a countdown timer. Sessions follow real motorsport structure:

• Practice
• Qualifying
• Race

All sessions run back-to-back just like an actual race weekend.

If you just want to get comfortable with the car first:

Set up an open lapping session:

1. Go to Single Player → Race Weekend

2. In the Session panel:

2a. Turn Qualifying → Off

2b. Turn Race → Off

3. Leave Practice enabled

This gives you a clean, pressure-free environment where you can:

• Pull out of the pit box whenever you’re ready
• Drive as many laps as you want
• Pause and instantly return to the pits with a fresh car if you crash
• Experiment with controls, assists, and camera settings

It’s the easiest way to learn the handling model before stepping into competition.

Setting the AI Grid and Their Toughness

By default, PMR loads you in with 15 AI cars through the Opponents menu. Even in a simple practice session, this means you’ll see other cars circulating on the track—just like a real test day. You can raise or lower this number depending on how busy you want the circuit to feel.

For new sim racers, we recommend starting with a small grid:

Set 4–5 AI cars for practice sessions

This gives you:

• A sense of traffic and reference points
• Opportunities to follow other cars and learn ideal lines
• Enough empty space to practice without feeling crowded

Choosing the Right AI Difficulty

AI difficulty is meant to scale from newcomers all the way to top-level sim racers. The difficulty slider is a “pace adjustment” and does not increase the amount of mistakes an AI driver makes or how they drive on-track: That is determined by each individual driver’s respective driver traits.

How the scale works:

100% difficulty

• Designed to match the pace of our highest-ranked online drivers

For beginners

• Start around 60%
• Run a few laps, check your times against the AI, then adjust up or down

Dialing It In

Finding the right AI level is normal and a good way of going about this is as follows:

• Load into a session
• Run 5–10 laps
• Compare your pace
• Exit, adjust AI difficulty, load back in

This trial-and-error process is standard with any new sim. Once you land on the right difficulty, the AI will become a great benchmark for improving your racecraft and a solid way to build confidence.

Picking a First Car and Track

When you’re starting out, it’s tempting to jump straight into something fast like an LMDh or GT3 car. They’re exciting … but they’re also demanding—high downforce, sensitive braking, and very little room for error.

For learning the fundamentals, slower cars are your best friend.

Recommended Starter Cars

These options offer predictable handling, clear feedback, and lower speeds that make it easier to understand PMR’s physics:

2017 Mazda MX-5 Cup

• Light, forgiving, and extremely popular as a real-world starter series
• Great for learning weight transfer and cornering technique

1990 Porsche 964 Cup

• No-nonsense, analog driving experience
• Teaches throttle control and momentum management

These are the same types of cars real racing drivers begin their careers in, and they’re ideal for getting a feel for PMR.

Recommended Starter Tracks

Shorter circuits with simple corner layouts make it easier to learn braking points and build consistency.

Lime Rock Park

• Quick to learn, high rhythm, great for developing confidence
• Home of one of the US’s premiere racing schools in real life

Mosport (Canadian Tire Motorsport Park)

• Fast, flowing corners that reward smooth inputs
• Teaches line discipline without overwhelming new drivers

Starting with approachable cars and tracks sets a strong foundation, making it much easier to work your way up to faster machinery later.

Comfort Settings

Every driver has different preferences for how their cockpit should look and feel. PMR gives you full control over these options, so you can tailor your view before you even reach the racetrack.

What You Can Adjust

Inside the Cockpit menu (available directly from the car select screen), you can fine-tune:

• Field of View (FOV)
• Seat position (forward/back, up/down)
• Mirror angles
• Head movement and camera shake
• HUD layout and information density

All these settings offer a wide adjustment range to match personal preferences.

Whether you want a high-FOV, console-style view or something closer to a real Daytona prototype cockpit, you can configure it before you hit the track.

Why This Matters

Comfort settings play a huge role in:

• Depth perception
• Braking consistency
• Ability to see apexes
• Situational awareness during races

Dialing these in early makes learning PMR smoother and more intuitive.

Adjusting Without Loading into a Session

One of PMR’s quality-of-life improvements is that you don’t need to start a race to set your cockpit view.

• From the Car Select screen, click the Cockpit button
• Adjust everything—camera, seating, mirrors, HUD—right there

This cuts down on menu hopping and lets you get on track faster.

Organizing Your HUD

You can also customise your heads-up display:

• Turn specific widgets on/off
• Move elements around
• Choose how much information you want visible

All of this can be done without launching a session.

Using your “Black Box” (Digital Dash)

PMR has its own version of the classic “black box”—an in-car Digital Dash that gives you quick access to critical information and adjustments while you drive.

What the Digital Dash Does

The Digital Dash is your on-track control centre. From here, you can:

• Switch between HUD pages
• Review lap times and deltas
• Monitor tyre and brake temperatures
• Track fuel usage
• Plan and adjust pit stop strategy
• Change in-car settings on the fly
• Everything you need during a race is organised into clean, scrollable pages.

Setting Up Your Controls

PMR ships with default inputs for navigating the Digital Dash, but it’s important to map these to buttons you can reach comfortably—especially if you drive with a wheel.

Go to Settings → Input Mapping → HUD Controls and ensure you have bindings for:

• Next Digidadsh Page
• Previous Digidadsh Page
• Scroll Up
• Scroll Down
• Toggle Left (change a setting to the previous value)
• Toggle Right (change a setting to the next value)

These six inputs allow you to fully operate the Digital Dash without ever taking your hands off the wheel.

Why This Matters

During practice sessions and races, you’ll regularly use the Digidash to:

• Check your pace
• Review tyre wear
• Update pit-stop actions (fuel, tyres, repairs)
• Adjust brake bias, traction control, ABS
• Manage long-run strategy

Getting comfortable with these controls early will dramatically improve your ability to react, learn, and race effectively.

Cold Tyres

Did you just roll out of pit in a 800 bhp monster with no traction control and floor the throttle? Not a particularly pleasant experience on cold slick tyres!

When you first pull out of the pits, your tyres in PMR will be cold, and that matters more than new drivers expect. Race tyres are designed to work at specific operating temperatures, and then generally a lot higher than what they are in the garage. Until they heat up, they produce less grip, feel less stable, and respond less predictably.

Why Tyres Are Cold

• Tyres cool down quickly when the car is parked
• The rubber becomes firm and doesn’t flex as easily
• A cold tyre has less friction with the track surface
• You’re effectively driving on “hard plastic” for the first lap or two

How They Improve as They Warm Up

As the tyre gets hotter:

• The rubber softens and conforms to the asphalt
• Grip increases dramatically
• Braking becomes more stable
• Steering becomes more precise
• Traction under acceleration improves

You’ll feel the car go from “skittish” to “planted” as temperatures climb into their ideal range.

What to Expect on Cold Tyres

During your out-lap, the car will:

• Slide more easily
• Understeer in slow corners
• Oversteer if you apply too much throttle
• Lock the brakes with far less pedal pressure

This is normal—even real-world pros tiptoe until the tyres wake up—and you should definitely not make any judgements about the car until you get the rubber warm.

What Not to Do

Until the tyres reach temperature, avoid:

• Braking at full pressure: Use a longer, softer brake zone
• Full throttle on corner exit: Feed the power in gradually
• Fast direction changes: Weight transfer is harsher on cold rubber
• Racing lines at full speed: Build pace over the first 1–2 laps

Pushing too hard too early is the fastest way to spin, slide off-track, or flat-spot cold tyres.

How do I Learn a Track?

Learning a new circuit is one of the most important skills in sim racing. PMR gives you several tools to help you understand braking points, racing lines, and corner flow—even if you’ve never seen the track before.

1. Start With the Driving Line (Rookie/Intermediate Presets)

If you’re using the Rookie or Intermediate assist presets, the driving line will already be enabled.

It shows:

• The ideal trajectory
• Where you should position your car
• When to brake, turn in, and accelerate

This is a great way to build early confidence and memorise layouts.

2. Turn Off the Line When You’re Ready

Once the basic layout feels familiar, try turning the line off.

You can then follow the rubbered-in racing groove on the track surface. This groove indicates:

• Where the real-world racing line develops
• Optimal grip levels
• The natural flow of the circuit

Your goal is to learn to read the circuit without relying on artificial guides.

3. Use Brake Markers and Trackside References

Every real and virtual driver relies on external reference points to find consistent braking zones. PMR tracks are no different.

Look for:

• Brake marker boards (usually 300 / 200 / 150 / 100)
• Gear indicator signs
• Trackside objects like light posts, marshal stands, or sponsor banners

A good rule of thumb: The 150 board is often where you’ll begin applying meaningful brake pressure in many cars.

These markers are reliable, repeatable, and work in any car class.

4. Don’t jump from track to track.

It can be tempting, especially with so many iconic tracks on PMR’s roster, to spend five minutes here, and five minutes there. Our suggestions is: Learn one track fully before advancing to the next. This will give you confidence and a feel for the way the cars handle.

Your First Race

Once you’re comfortable with the basics—car control, braking, warmup laps, and navigating the Digital Dash—you’re ready for your first full race weekend.

Enabling Race Sessions

From the Race Weekend menu, turn on:

• Qualifying
• Race

(You can run both together, or run only the race if you prefer.)

This gives you the authentic flow of a proper motorsport event.

Handling Qualifying and Practice

You have two options for each session:

Run the full session

• Drive laps at your own pace
• Build confidence in traffic
• Learn race lines and braking points

Simulate to the end

• Set a session length
• Press Next to skip to the results instantly
• Useful if you want to jump straight to racing

There’s no wrong choice—pick the style that suits your comfort level.

Race Starts

PMR uses standing starts as a means of a simple race start procedure that can be understood by rookies and veterans alike.

Important details:

• There is a five second grace period before the starting lights activate
• You’ll see a 3–2–1 countdown represented by starting lights
• Keep the car completely still until the lights go green: Rolling slightly will trigger a jump start penalty
• Once the lights go out, feather the throttle to avoid wheelspin on launch

What to Expect in Your First Race

The early laps will feel busy and exciting:

• Cold tyres will still limit grip
• AI cars will behave realistically and defend/attack within reason
• Visibility and awareness matter more than raw pace
• Staying consistent is your main goal—finish first to finish first!

Focus on clean lines, predictable braking, and giving space to other cars. A solid, incident-free first race is a huge milestone in PMR.

Why have I Been Given a Time Penalty?

PMR uses a realistic penalty system inspired by modern motorsport. The goal isn’t to punish you, but to prevent track cutting, unsafe advantages, and jump starts—just like in real life racing series.

Here’s how it works:

Types of Penalties

1. Minor Off-Track Penalties (2s)

• Running wide or lightly cutting a corner usually results in a small 2-second penalty
• This is intended to discourage repeatedly abusing track limits

2. Major Cuts (Slowdown Penalties)

If you skip a substantial portion of the track:

• You’ll receive a slowdown instruction
• Your car must drop to 60 km/h for 3 seconds
• Failing to comply triggers an additional, larger time penalty

This mimics how real race control invalidates laps or issues drive-through penalties.

3. Jump Start Penalty (15s)

• Moving before the lights go green in a standing start results in a 15-second penalty applied to your race time
• Prevents unfair starts and collisions caused by false launches

4. Contact With Other Cars

PMR does not give you a time penalty for hitting other cars.

Instead:

• Simulation damage is your penalty
• Contact harms your aero, suspension, tyres, and braking performance
• Repeated contact will ruin your race—just like in real motorsport

In short: you won’t get penalised for rubbing on the scoreboard, but you absolutely won’t get away with using other cars as brakes.

How do I Know I’m Ready for the Full Enchilada?

Project Motor Racing features two major progression paths outside of simple Race Weekend mode:

• Career Mode: A full single-player experience with team management, financial decisions, car repairs, and multi-season progression.
• Ranked Online: Structured, competitive races against real sim racers from around the world, complete with scheduled start times, driver ratings, monthly championships, and full cross-play.

Both modes are incredibly rewarding, but they demand a higher level of consistency and awareness than casual single-player practice.

So the big question is:

When Am I Actually Ready?

You’re ready to step into Career or Ranked Online when you can meet one simple benchmark:

Drive 20 minutes—or 10 consecutive laps—without crashing.

If you can do that, you’ve demonstrated:

• Control over cold tyres
• Consistency in braking and cornering
• Awareness of track limits and traffic
• Predictability that other drivers (or AI) can safely race around
• Confidence with your car and setup

This is the minimum skill foundation needed to enjoy the deeper parts of PMR without frustration.

Why This Matters

Career Mode punishes mistakes:

• Repairs cost money
• DNFs affect your standings
• Authentic difficulty removes restart abuse
• Poor consistency means poor results

Ranked Online is even more demanding:

• Other drivers rely on your predictability
• Safety ratings drop if you cause incidents
• You’ll face clean, fast drivers who expect clean, fast racing

Surviving 20 minutes or 10 laps isn’t meant as a test—it’s a sign you’re ready to enjoy the game’s full depth without feeling overwhelmed.

If You Meet That Benchmark…

You’re ready to explore:

• Full race weekends with longer formats
• Season-based progression
• Endurance events such as the Endurance Hall Leaderboard challenges
• Online competition
• Advanced car classes
• Multi-class racing
• Strategy-driven pit stops

PMR is built to grow with you. Once you can drive consistently, the rest of the game opens up in a really rewarding way.

Accessing Ranked Online: The Lime Rock Test

Ranked Online is the deep end of the pool in Project Motor Racing. It features:

• Scheduled start times
• Monthly championships
• Split races sorted by driver skill (matchmaking)
• Full cross-play
• Clean, competitive racing modeled after real-world motorsport

It’s designed for players who want structured, predictable, high-quality racing with drivers of a similar level.

Why a License Test?

To keep Ranked Online clean and enjoyable for everyone, PMR requires all players to complete a license evaluation—similar to real motorsport governing bodies.

The goal isn’t to intimidate you.

The goal is to ensure every driver entering Ranked can:

• Control a car for several laps
• Avoid major crashes
• Navigate traffic responsibly
• Maintain a baseline pace

If you can do that, you’re ready for real competition.

The Lime Rock License Test

Here’s what the test involves:

• Car: 2017 Mazda MX-5 Spec
• Track: Lime Rock Park
• Format: 8-lap race
• AI Opponents: 3 cars
• Goal: Finish the event in 8:20 or faster

You can attempt the test as many times as you want. There are no penalties for retrying, and no limit on attempts.

Once you pass:

• Ranked Online becomes fully unlocked
• You’ll be assigned an initial Driver Rating based on your performance
• You can immediately join scheduled races, compete in championships, and progress through the ranking system

Tips for Passing the Test

1. Let the session unfold naturally

Lime Rock is a simple, short track, perfect for beginners. Don’t overthink it.

2. Follow the AI for your first laps

The three AI cars maintain a consistent pace that’s quick enough to pass the test. If you simply stay within the small pack, you’ll meet the time requirement.

3. Make safe passes on the front straight

If you’re faster than the AI, set up overtakes on the main straight. Avoid risky moves into the uphill chicane.

4. Focus on smoothness, not aggression

Fast laps at Lime Rock come from:

• Early, controlled braking
• Maintaining momentum
• Avoiding oversteer on corner exits
• Letting the tyres warm up naturally

5. Don’t panic about mistakes

You have plenty of margin to make minor errors and still finish under the target time.

Once You Pass

You’re officially ready for the world of Ranked Online:

• Clean, measured wheel-to-wheel racing
• Multiple races each day
• Championships and leaderboards
• Skill-matched splits
• Full cross-play competition

Pass the test, and you’re in.

It’s race time!

 

Discuss this news item in our forum or in Discord.

You can buy them with a discount by clicking here:

• Project Motor Racing
• Project Motor Racing Year 1 Bundle
• Project Motor Racing Group 5 Revival Pack
• Project Motor Racing GTE Decade Pack