Why Cheating Feels Different Between Real Racing And Sims

The history of real and virtual motorsport is full of drivers and teams doing their best to gain an advantage by exploiting the rules. But here’s why cheating feels different between real racing and sims.

While it’s not been official confirmed yet, the controversy in the 2025 iRacing Daytona 24 is the latest in a long list of incidents taking place in professional sim racing. And that’s just what we know to have happened at the top level, rather than in the smaller leagues or general online races. Whether it’s going below the apron or having another driver use your account, sim racing has become as tightly contested as real world motorsport, leading to more cases where drivers and teams are considered to have gone a little too far.

In real racing, there’s a fine line between innovation and cheating. Whether it’s McLaren adding an extra brake pedal in F1, Toyota bypassing their restrictor plate in WRC, or legendary NASCAR racer Smokey Yunick creating Chevrolet Chevelles which have become iconic as the symbol of bending the rules beyond all recognition, finding loopholes and new ways to get an advantage are celebrated, and sometimes even being adopted into the regulations for future seasons.

When it’s eventually discovered, or revealed years later, there’s normally a grudging admiration for the ingenuity, even from rival competitors who would have done the same thing if they’d thought of it first. Especially on those occasions that an underdog or ‘garagista’ team were able to pull off some unlikely results.

Cheating in sim racing feels a lot different. Dipping a bodyshell in acid, disguising a system to change your ride height mid race, or ensuring your front bumper fell off to improve aerodynamics during the 1982 Daytona 500 takes an amount of mechanical skill and ingenuity. Pressing Alt and F4, hiring a stand-in driver, or downloading cheat software takes a couple of button presses or a small amount of cash.

There’s also a difference in the impact of cheating. When an F1 team is able to exploit the rules, it’s generally unique to them until the regulations catch up. Club racers aren’t going to be able to invest the time and money to develop the same technology. But if you see professional sim racing teams using simple tricks, then it’s easy to emulate them in your next online race at any level. You might not even realise that running below the apron is against the sporting code (for example). And without live stewards, scrutineering or technical inspections, it’s much more likely you’ll get away with it.

And lastly, there’s a difference between the level of knowledge and understanding when you compete in real motorsport, and if you’re jumping into some sim racing for fun. Any experience in karting, club racing etc will quickly teach you that everyone is constantly trying to gain whatever edge they can, and you’ll here about it in the small, close-knit paddock communities. But the typical sim racer jumping on for some races in the evening just wants to live out their idea of motorsport without spending hours every day searching for the latest exploits they might be able to get away with.

Cheating is an inevitable problem for any online game, and with sim racing being a comparatively small niche, it’s a lot less prevalent than in some other genres. But it also feels a lot more malevolent and against the spirit of things than it does in the average Call of Duty lobby.