Norris explains the key differences between real racing and simracing

Besides being one of the brightest young talents in Formula 1, Norris also has a big online profile, as the 19-year-old is very active on his social media while also live-streaming regularly on Twitch.tv.

The McLaren driver often streams racing games like iRacing, in which he has a virtual racing team with the likes of Max Verstappen and Rudy van Buren.

With him having experience in virtual racing as well as with real-life racing, Norris explains the similarities and the differences.

“I think it can make you very good in quite a few areas such as racecraft, accuracy, knowledge for set-ups and how to make a car better,” he told RaceFans.net.

“It can bring a lot of positives. But the only thing is people don’t do well with G-force and fear. There’s a lot of things you can learn and do very well in the simulator and Esports and racing which they can correlate very well when they actually get a chance to go in a car.

“What can be very easy on a sim is the only feelings you have is your steering wheel and the pedals, and there’s hardly any interchangeable conditions. So it’s much easier to be accurate and do the same thing every single lap."

Norris showed his simracing skills not long ago, when he won the virtual 24 Hours of Spa alongside Verstappen. However, he admits in real life the conditions would be much tougher.

“With real life you have the tiniest bit of a headwind or a tailwind the car’s going to snap unpredictably, you’re going to lock up unpredictably, it’s then getting more adaptable to those kind of conditions. Maybe in the future simracing will be better on that type of thing but that’s still to come.

“So there’s a lot of skills you can learn but then the fear, the G force and the determination to just get on track and be able to do it like that that’s the thing which I think they will struggle with.”