The never-ending blur of tarmac under my car, the loud bang of abrupt downshifts and the high-pitched whistle of the turbocharger: a recipe for overstimulation if ever I saw one. Hurtling around corners at 200mph and violently accelerating down straights isn’t something that I anticipated I would use to unwind, but that is exactly what I’ve been doing recently during races on F1 25. Obviously this game is no Euro Truck Simulator 2, a game which is famed for, and designed to be, a relaxing game about slowly cruising around the motorways of Europe; It’s a game where you can zone out to a local radio station, enjoy your own podcasts or simply listen to the sounds of rain drops on your windscreen. F1 cars don’t have radios, are famously loud and rain turns them into a slippery nightmare. You might be asking how I could possibly find that relaxing? Simply put, it’s the 100% Racing Distance option.
For those who don’t know, the modern F1 games have highly customizable options that allow you to tailor the game to suit your needs, one of the most important aspects in determining the type of races you’ll do is the race distance. You can just do five laps if you want a quickfire arcade experience there’s 25% if you want to include pit stops in your races. After that you have the 35%, and 50% options which give you more time to enjoy the racing but don’t commit you to one and a half hours of non-stop racing. 50% was always my go to, I love tire strategy, and I love a longer race, 50% allows for different tire strategies but it doesn’t eat up too much of my time. I was also under this impression that because I’m not a professional F1 driver I couldn’t possibly possess the grit to focus for an entire race distance. Sometimes when I watch the races on TV, I find myself zoning out, so how could I possibly drive in the game for that long? 100% race distance represented this unthinkable trial that I didn’t believe I was worthy of, that is something exclusively for the sim racers and purists.
I can’t remember when the first thought of trying 100% race distance crept into my mind. I think it might have been to do with tire strategy, which is one of my favourite things about F1. On 50% the options are limited; three stops are out of the question, and two stops are questionable, so the decision space is small. I also noticed that I was flying through seasons and that, like most sports games, the fun stops once you achieve domination and start trouncing everybody every weekend. The most engaging part of any career mode is those first couple of seasons, the rise from the bottom up to greatness. The challenge of the initial struggle was the bit I loved, fighting from the back of the grid, and I was getting through that phase of ascendancy too quickly. 100% racing distance would allow me to enjoy each weekend for much longer and I could enjoy the first season more instead of flying through races and reaching competitive entropy.
So, I finally opted to try a season in which I would do 100% races, I would take my time getting through the season and I could really flex my tire strategy muscles. It would be gruelling, cerebral and probably boring at times, but I would give it a go, I’ll at least do one and if I didn’t like it, I would just carry on with 50% races.
The start of the race was no different, the rush to the first corner, the jostling for position for the first few laps, trying to assert myself without shredding my tires. That was all the same. The pack is still together, I’m either just behind or just in front of another driver, It’s close racing. The five-lap race would be finished by now and we’re approaching the end of the 25% race. The pack is starting to thin, but there’s always someone in view ahead of me, or in my wing mirrors, we’re still very much in the wheel-to-wheel racing of arcade land. As we approach the end of the 25% race, the pit window starts opening, some of those drivers around me start to pit, the crowd around me thins and I jump up a few positions. I still have drivers around me, but much less now. I’m still focused on hard racing, trying to catch up to others whilst giving myself a nice buffer on those behind.
Several laps and later it’s time for my own pit stop, unlike the short race distances in which everybody has the same strategy and pits together, I pit alone. Now it’s about 30 laps until my next stop. I know there will be a second stop because the length of the race and the tire wear demands it. In a short race chances are that after you leave the pits you’re heading into traffic, but this time, I am alone, it’s just me, the car and the tarmac. The full number of laps means that the field gets realistically spread out; there is a car ten seconds up the road from me, so I set my sights on that. In the close proximity of shorter races, the divebomb is king — you don’t have many laps to get through the field — here I need to focus on getting in good, consistent laps to try and catch up.
I keep an eye on the gap to the car ahead, that ten seconds is down to nine after a couple of laps, so in about twenty laps I will have caught up to him, but he’s on hards, whereas I’m on mediums, so whilst I’m on the faster tire his will degrade a lot less. The full race distance peels back the layers of strategy present in real races in a gripping way, drivers on different strategies means the battle doesn’t just take place on the track, but on the pit wall. It also gives you a lesson in knowing when to pick your battles, sometimes it’s best not to battle the car behind if he’s on a faster tire, there’s a chance you’ll get him at the end. Trust the strategy.
The strategy wars instantly make the 100% a much more engaging race. In between those moments of the strategy’s fruition in which you overtake, it’s all about staying focused and consistent, you’ve got to think about the strategy, but you’ve also got to be present in the moment. Those lulls in between overtakes become a test of concentration. I thought the lonely stints of the race would be where the boredom would creep in, but instead I end up in this transcendental, hypnotic state. It feels like an extended practice session, every single lap I identify where I’m losing time, how best to deploy my ERS and how the grip is evolving. Once I got into a good rhythm, it became soothing. Unlike Euro Truck Simulator where I need to navigate, all I must do in F1 is to put in lap after lap, it becomes metronomic, rhythmic, peaceful. Everything else was secondary, I just had to focus on the road ahead. I end up in this meditative state of mind where I was completely present in the moment, and the constant sounds of the F1 engine made for effective white noise, I had accidentally discovered a form of active meditation. The trials of life boil away, all that matters is the next lap.
The active meditation gives way to some storytelling as each race has its own unique narrative, sometimes you will be alone for most of the race, those races become a contemplative journey. Sometimes you might be in the same train of cars for most of the race, or maybe you and another driver end up racing together for the whole distance, those races become tales of comradery. My favourite races have a mixture of both periods of laser focus, happily interrupted by the occasional driver on a different strategy (or maybe you get lapped), momentary company in an otherwise lonely race. It’s like crossing paths with a fellow traveller, you have the same destination but different journeys. Not to mention that the long distance means there is an increased chance of red flags, safety cars and rain, which can shake up the race in hugely unexpected ways.
All of this, and you get a very small taste of life as an F1 driver, completing a full race does take a lot of focus, and despite everything I’ve said, there are moments that feel boring, when you’re not racing anybody it can get lonely on the track, but still you need to keep focus, trying to hold concentration for so long puts you in that mindset that F1 drivers need to be and helps you appreciate their abilities even more—they also have to contend with dizzying heat, harsh g-forces and millions of spectators. Managing to complete a full race distance gives you a small frame of reference to what they do and gives you that lovely sense of accomplishment that we play video games for, even if you are doing it from the comfort of your gaming chair.
We don’t always have the time to commit so long to a race, I certainly don’t, but if you find yourself with the time spare, I implore you to try a 100% race distance at least once. It lets you step into the shoes of an F1 driver by getting a snippet of what it’s like to race for that long, and the focused beam of consciousness that it asks of you lends itself brilliantly to a digitally aided form of active meditation. Anything can happen in a race that long, you’ll have intriguing battles, nail some satisfying overtakes, or something utterly random might happen that throws it all into chaos. Or maybe nothing will happen, which is also okay, sometimes when things seem boring, you just need to keep your head down and be consistent. There’s a meaningful lesson in that
