BMW Motorsport is winning a lot in esports, and here?s why

And right from the start, BMW Motorsport took full advantage, locking out the podium at a virtual Sebring with a 1-2-3 finish for the iRacing version of its M8 GTE race car. "And we thought it's worthwhile to expand our activities and also try to really have a very structured backbone, like we would have in any other motor racing discipline; to really be able to work on this stuff the way we're used to do in other programs."As a manufacturer, BMW's involvement with a platform like iRacing starts early on, with reams of technical data and images for the M8 GTE race car supplied to the developers to ensure as accurate a model as possible. Therefore, if you're ambitious enough, you can spend the time and really try to figure out what your best possible configuration is," Dittrich said.Despite the high fidelity of current racing sims, it's not quite as easy as just using track-specific suspension or aero settings straight from the real-world M8 GTE. But with sim racing you don't need to schedule a track, load up the trailers, or spend hours scraping knuckles, adjusting suspension setups between runs."Sometimes I'll be thinking overnight 'Okay, I have to try this tomorrow morning,' and then I wake up first thing in the morning, I go in my sim and try something new on the setup, even if it doesn't always work," explained Bruno Spengler, one of BMW's factory racing drivers and the winner of the first two rounds of IMSA's iRacing Pro series.If they wanted to, drivers could spend every waking hour practicing, and the aliens that dominate professional esports will have countless thousands of hours under their belts.