Get faster at simracing data insights from Track Titan.
Track Titan is on a mission to democratise speed in simracing. KTG met with the TT founders to find out more about their business and what drives them to help sim racers race faster.
What’s your history with motorsport?
I originally got started in simracing with Gran Turismo 4 back in the day. Luckily, GT Academy came along and enabled the best simracers around the world to have a go at real-life racing. I came 5th in 2014 which didn’t get me the grande prize (a works driver contract with Nissan Motorsport) but it did open a lot of doors in motorsport.
From then on, I competed in single seaters, GT and Rotax karts all over Europe. I don’t actively race at the moment but I am a test driver and racing instructor with Porsche.
Oh nice - which were your fav UK kart tracks?
Buckmore Park is definitely my favourite due to its uniquely hilly nature and because I won my first race there in the British Universities Karting Championship. Whilton Mill and Daytona MK are also wonderful to drive as - to be honest - most tracks in the UK are!
How did you make the leap from sim racer to data analysis guru and what sim platforms do you work with?
To be at the very top level in racing - whether virtual or real - you need to be deeply analytical. Some drivers certainly have a more natural ability to find laptime than others but at some point, digging into the data is necessary for everyone. Back in the day, that meant watching and comparing onboard laps and the on-screen data points such as your pedal inputs.
From then on, telemetry tools became a common part of improving in both the sim and real-life race cars, especially once you start working with race engineers.
As COVID hit and the demand to coach racers myself simply became too much, I was convinced there should be an automated insights solution that makes coaching insights available to the masses.
Track Titan does exactly that and we currently support iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione, all the latest F1 games and soon Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo 7.
In F1, you hear a lot about terabytes of data being collected from the car each lap. What data is available to you to access?
We pretty much get all the same data points you would get in a real-life race car, e.g. driver inputs such as steering angle, throttle and brake pressure but beyond that a ton of physics data that tells us how the car is behaving. We get about 100 data points every ten-thousandth of a second; the magic then lies in actually turning that into useful insights for the driver.
In the karting world there are different levels of sophistication of data analysis, from GPS integration to raw data feeds from engine, brakes and G-force. What’s your take on data analysis and how does the data analysis your company provides help sim racers improve their performance?
More data is always better but for the majority of drivers, a handful of key aspects are enough to shave off some serious lap time.
As long as you know the kart’s/car’s speed and position, you can deduce 90% of the insights you need. Sure, further details help to get into the nitty gritty but simply understanding what certain racing line or throttle graph shapes tell you is enough to get started. Check out this F123 track guide around Albert Park from Track Titan to see what we mean.
What Track Titan does on top of the data itself is actually telling you what the data shows. Our “quick tips” give you instant hints such as “You are braking too late” or “You are losing most of your time on the exit due to oversteer” that save simracers time and get them back to driving faster and with direct impact.
Visit Track Titan’s guide to Albert Park.
What advice would you give to a newbie sim racer? How much sim gear do they really need?
My advice would be to stick to one game, car and track to begin with and to watch some freely available YouTube guides on driving fundamentals such as the friction circle, the racing line, etc.
Besides that, just get driving!
If you think you need fancy gear to be competitive, you’re wrong. I qualified for GT Academy with a seven years old Logitech wheel, an old kitchen table and a camping chair. I love the immersion high quality gear gives you but it is by no means a prerequisite to be fast or to enjoy simracing and I quite frankly hate the fact that it has become such a status symbol in the community.
As the founder of Track Titan, this might seem weird to say, but don’t look at data for a while. Once you can consistently put in lap times that are seven seconds or less off the top times, a platform like Track Titan becomes relevant for you.
Do you offer educational resources or training programs for new racers? For example, do you offer Track Guides?
We have hundreds of educational guides in our platform’s Academy and our social accounts. Besides that, our Premium Membership is a very popular option with users as on top of video guides and data-based insights, it gives you a personalised coaching plan that really helps you unleash your full potential.
What are the commercial opportunities in simracing? Do you have a team or have you helped a driver achieve success or notoriety?
The esports side of simracing is a tough business. During the covid hype, a lot of good stuff happened but once the world went back to normal, people started realising that simracing esports’ competitor is not really other esports but real-life racing.
Other game categories have phenomenal esports prize pools but because real-life racing will always have that extra bit of experience in terms of the danger and the sensory experience, esports is not an area we focus on too much as it is difficult to self-sustain.
It definitely has its place in simracing and a small group of people are absolute heroes in it and through this well-paid but our mission is to focus on the masses. They might never make money through simracing but if we can get them that surprise victory against their mates in their sunday league, that might be just as valuable.
How do you see the role of data analysis evolving in the world of simracing in the next few years?
As platforms like Track Titan go beyond data-based insights and turn more and more into a “coach in your pocket” that gives you real-time feedback, I believe every simracer who takes the hobby seriously will benefit from data; similarly to how many amateur athletes use apps like Strava daily.
How do you engage with the simracing community to gather feedback and evolve your services?
We have thousands of members on our Discord and consistently chat with them there and on dedicated user research calls. Simracing is beautiful for this - everyone tries to be helpful and we even meet up for lunch with some of our competitors every now and then.
Can you talk about any partnerships with game developers, racing teams, or educational institutions?
Porsche is actually one of our investors and has backed us from the early days which is great. We don’t have any formal partnerships with game developers but we always seek the contact to see how both sides can help each other and how we can move simracing forward together.
We have a deep partnership with Hymo setups, a collective of some of the world’s best ACC and iRacing esports drivers and we are lucky to be able to combine our data insights with their premium car setups.
Looking ahead, what’s the long-term vision for your company, and how do you plan to achieve it?
Some parts are secret for now but we can say this much: We won’t stop with simracing and we will go beyond coaching (and we already do in some parts!). At the core, simracing is a beautiful way to engage with the sport we all love: motorsports. We saw an immediate painpoint to solve with simracing coaching but we aim to use our technology, product and great community to explore other ways to make racing fans of all backgrounds feel like they’re part of the action rather than just spectators on the sidelines.
