“When you get in the simulator you have to adjust all your feelings – you don’t get the same movements, the same bumps. You drive the same track the day before and on Monday you drive the simulator and the bumps aren’t there, the kerbs are different, the speed is different. You don’t feel the speed, you don’t feel the physicality of it.”
Hamilton claims that he could spend a relatively small sum on a Playstation and learn the same amount as the incredibly expensive simulators from a driving perspective. He does make mention that from a technical and engineering standpoint simulators have their uses. It seems like the Brit’s main problem is with how a real car feels as opposed to the simulator citing that:
“When you get into the simulator you have to adjust yourself to it and when you get in the car you don’t adjust to it, you drive.”
The complaints levied aren’t just at his current team though, making mention that at McLaren he felt the simulator was used ‘too much’ with no real outstanding benefit to the simulation runs. Traditional methods of learning a track also escape Hamilton, with him insisting that whilst walking around a track may help other drivers it makes ‘zero difference’ to his driving. Hamilton stopped walking around tracks in 2010.