Face it, you will never get to race in Formula 1, much less drive a Formula 1 car. And if you spend $120,000 on a hot performance car, you’ll never really have the opportunity to drive it to its limits on public streets. So F1 and Red Bull Racing have a solution that’ll address both those problems: You can spend that sum on a high-end racing simulator, similar to the ones actual F1 drivers use.
For about the starting price of a brand-new Porsche 911, you can buy Red Bull’s “Champions Edition” simulator, which is intended to replicate the experience of driving the team’s RB18 car from the 2022 F1 season. You know, the car Max Verstappen won the championship in, the car that won 17 Grands Prix (Verstappen 15 of those, Sergio Perez the other two.)
Actually, you don’t even need to spend $120,000. You can buy the rig sans the front-wing assembly, aka the “Race Edition” model, and it’ll only cost you $90,000. Since it’ll just be sitting in your mansion’s gaming room instead of catching actual air, that should be no problem. Then again, why skimp?
And though the simulator costs as much or more than any number of really hot cars in the really-real world, it replicates a one-of-a-kind vehicle that is priceless.
The simulator has no wheels nor a rear wing and therefore falls short as a visual simulacrum. But what matters is what you see from the cockpit, where there is a curved display and a computer that serves you up virtual races. You can even link up with other rig owners and campaign your own virtual F1 season.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: “We are delighted to have co-created a unique sim racing experience that puts drivers in the cockpit of the championship-winning RB18. Driving a Formula 1 car is something most of us can only dream of, but this simulator is as close as it gets to the real thing.”
The simulator is in partnership with sports memorabilia outfit Memento Exclusives and “will be manufactured using the same process as genuine F1 cars at Memento Exclusives’ HQ in Northamptonshire in the UK.” It can be ordered at the F1 Authentics site.
All that said, while the virtual driving should be pretty exciting, a $120,000 Porsche in your driveway would be a lot nicer to look at. You could even buy a used race car (not of the F1 variety, admittedly) and take it to the track for that kind of money. But of course if you’re in the market for one of these, the purchase price is probably pocket change.
