Mercedes W13 iRacing vs F1 22 Comparison

Today I’m going to be taking a look at the Mercedes AMG W13 which has just been added to iRacing, and I’m going to compare it directly to the W13 in F122.

The W12 felt amazing in iRacing. Something about the iRacing physics just allowed the car to really shine in a way that the F1 games simply don’t. So it’ll be interesting to see how this new W13 feels.

I’m going to show you a few onboard laps from both games, compare the speed of the cars and how each game handles, and do a side-by-side lap comparison.

We’ve got to remember that we aren’t really comparing like for like here, as iRacing is a pretty intense simulator, with insane physics. Whereas F1 22 is a strange hybrid between simulation and arcade physics. But that’ll become apparent in this video I reckon.

You can continue to read on below or watch the video for some side-by-side gameplay of the Mercedes W13 in iRacing.

iRacing release Mercedes W13 in iRacing Season 1 2023

I’m going to start by talking about the W13 in iRacing. The first thing I immediately noticed when I jumped onto track was the tyre physics and just how different the car felt from what I was used to in F1 22.

In F1 22, the cars start with zero grip as you leave the pits on cold tyres, resulting in potential spins galore.

In iRacing there is a much more progressive feeling of loss of grip. Yes, the tyres also have very limited grip when you first leave the pits, but rather than this causing spin after spin, you simply get a tonne of understeer and tyre slip, as shown here on my first few sighting laps with cold tyres.

I also immediately noticed the realism of the display on the steering wheel. This represents what we see on a real F1 broadcast each week. When you change brake bias, it flashes on screen. At the end of each lap, the display is dynamic and shows fuel consumption and lap times.

It’s about time that the real officially licensed F1 game replicates this display much much better.

---

Physics differences

In iRacing the W13 feels like a completely different beast to the one found in F1 22. The tyre model is so good that lockups occur much more naturally. If you hammer the brake pedal really hard you will lock your wheels.

And rear locking is much more apparent. If your brake bias is too far rearward, below around 53-54% your rear wheels will lock up under heavy braking which is extremely unnerving the first time it happens. I had to turn off my sim and go and have a sit down after locking my rear wheels going at 150mph into turn 3 at Silverstone.

I only spent an hour or so with the W13 in iRacing, and I still felt like I had a lot of lap time to gain, but towards the end of my stint, I could already feel that I had the confidence to start pushing the car in certain places around the track.

I had much more confidence that the car wouldn’t snap on me and spin if I overstepped the mark. And while the car did certainly feel skittish in certain places, especially when accelerating through a corner like out of turns 5 and 18, I nearly always felt in control.

---

iRacing vs F1 22 gameplay comparison

You can watch our side-by-side laps on both iRacing and F1 22 of the Mercedes W13 in the video above.

You will immediately see just how much more immediate grip the W13 has in F1 22. I could take so much more speed into corners, brake much later without worrying about wheels locking, and take much tighter lines through corners such as turn 7.

This is the arcade nature of F1 22 showing through. It’s the part of the game where it makes the cars feel much easier to drive at speed when the tyres are warm.

I can take a much more unnatural racing line in F1 22, getting much tighter to the kerb around turn 7 while accelerating much earlier. And through the sweeping turns 11 and 12 I barely had to slow the car before dabbing the brakes into turn 13.

Watching the real-world cars on track, and when behind the wheel in iRacing, you can see this isn’t the case. You have to lift into turn 11, position the car much more accurately and slow a little more into turn 12, before a much heavier braking zone into turn 13.

With F1 22 your car has so much grip, especially on warm soft tyres, that is until you push just a little too hard and then you have no grip at all.

As soon as you overstep the levels of grip in F1 22, the car gives way and is almost destined for the wall without any hope of saving it from spinning.

Whereas on iRacing you have so much more finite control as the car starts to give way. It is both easier and harder to spin in iRacing.

I say easier as the car behaves in a much more realistic way. The car feels heavier, more skittish and isn’t planted to the track like it often is in F1 22.

But then, as you feel the car starting to lose traction and grip, you have a much better chance of preventing the spin before it happens.

You’ll see the difference in speed between the two laps as they play out. In just seven laps in F1 22 I was almost five seconds a lap faster than I was in iRacing when using warm soft tyres and a full qualifying deployment mode.

Although this isn’t massively representative as you can see in my final lap in iRacing after around an hour of practice, my lap time was one and a half seconds better than my previous best.

This really shows that I have so much time to still find in iRacing. Whether I could ever get the lap time down close to my personal best F1 22 time, that’s debatable.

---

Overview

The Mercedes W13 feels so good in iRacing. If you’re an F1 fan and already have some of the tracks purchased in iRacing, be sure to check out this car as it is so much fun, and in my opinion a much better representation of the W13 than in F1 22.

Of course, that’s coming from a guy who has never stepped foot in an F1 car, so take it all with a pinch of salt.

---

---