Why Most iRacers Plateau (And What a Coach Looks For to Break Through)

For many sim racers, progress feels fast in the beginning. Your lap times drop each week, you get promoted through the licenses, and you feel like the sky’s the limit. But then it happens—you hit a wall. Suddenly, improvement slows down or stops altogether. No matter how many laps you run, nothing changes. This is what I call the plateau.

The good news is that plateaus are normal—and breaking through them is possible if you know where to look. I’m Marian Barbieru, and I’ve been professionally coaching sim racers for over three years. Here are the main reasons most iRacers plateau, and what I look for as a coach to help drivers push past that barrier.

1. Practicing Without a System

The most common mistake I see is racers logging endless laps with no plan. Driving the same circuit for hours might feel productive, but without structure, you’re just reinforcing habits—good or bad.

As a coach, I look for whether a driver:

• Has specific goals for a practice session (e.g., focusing on trail braking instead of chasing lap time).
• Reviews telemetry or replays to spot weaknesses.
• Practices in focused stints rather than grinding until fatigue sets in.

2. Overdriving Instead of Refining

Another big reason drivers plateau is trying too hard to “find lap time” rather than letting lap time come from clean execution.

Here’s what I watch for as a coach:

• Excessive late braking that hurts corner exits.
• Aggressive throttle application that causes wheelspin or instability.
• Overcorrections on the wheel from trying to “force” the car to rotate.

Often, the fastest improvement comes from backing off slightly to refine consistency and car control. Once that foundation is stable, speed naturally follows.

3. Ignoring Fundamentals

At higher levels, it’s tempting to chase setup tweaks, but the real breakthroughs usually come from revisiting the basics.

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When I review a driver, I check whether they:

• Use the entire track width consistently.
• Maintain a stable braking technique (no random pressure spikes).
• Are smooth on steering inputs, avoiding unnecessary scrubbing.
• Carry consistent minimum speed through corners rather than varying wildly each lap.

4. Treating Every Race as Just a Race

Another reason many drivers plateau because they treat every official race as a test of pace, not a chance to learn. Improvement comes from turning races into experiments.

I encourage my drivers to:

• Enter a race with a specific focus (e.g., practicing patience in traffic).
• Use mistakes as data points, not failures.
• Compare their performance against personal goals, not just results or iRating.

5. Lack of Honest Feedback

Finally, the most common reason of plateauing is that it’s difficult for drivers to spot their own mistakes. You can’t fix what you don’t notice.

That’s why coaching is so powerful. As a coach, I look for patterns a driver might not see. Once these patterns are highlighted, they become much easier to correct. And if 1-on-1 coaching isn’t for you, that’s exactly why I built my Sim Racing Courses at GITGUDRacing.com—they cover everything from braking and cornering to racecraft and consistency, giving you a clear system to follow without the guesswork.

Every sim racer eventually hits a plateau—but that’s not the end of progress, it’s the start of real growth. With structured practice, refined fundamentals, and honest feedback, you can break through the wall and reach the next level.

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• Written by Marian Barbieru Article updated on September 1, 2025 Tags: Sim Racing How To Guides, Tips & Tricks, iRacing

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