What can one million dollars get you? A lifetimes supply of your favourite takeaway? The home of your dreams? If you are BMW, the answer is a state of the art sim racing setup to prepare your drivers for all forms of global motorsport.
BMW Motorsport invited Jimmy Broadbent to Munich for a ride in their $1 million DTM simulator used by their professional drivers. It’s safe to say it’s a bit of a step up from his humble shed sim.
Jimmy is joined by Sheldon van der Linde who was on hand to offer some pointers and an insight into how the team uses the simulator in preparation for races.
“Sheldon gave me some really helpful tips, especially with braking because that’s what I struggled with at the start,” explained Broadbent.
“The BMW Motorsport engineer who was in the simulator helped me with this a lot as well. He showed me a graph and said: “Look, this is what Sheldon’s doing, here’s what you’re doing, do what he’s doing.” With that advice, I went a second faster pretty much straight away so having that feedback I think is really invaluable – for sim racing as well. Anyone who wants to go really fast and has the opportunity should be using data analysis.”
