Assetto Corsa Competizione: the first ten hours

Assetto Corsa Competizione is a GT racing simulator and nothing else, and that narrowness is exactly why it is the fastest way to learn GT3. One class of car, one style of racing and a fixed set of circuits means every hour you spend goes into the same skill instead of being spread across five disciplines.

What you actually get

The published content is deliberately focused. The base game covers the GT3 class with over 30 cars and 11 circuits: Barcelona, Brands Hatch, Hungaroring, Misano, Monza, Nurburgring, Paul Ricard, Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps, Zandvoort and Zolder. Across the whole range there are more than 40 GT cars and 26 circuits, with the remaining 15 tracks and the GT4 and GT2 classes spread over nine downloadable packs.

The class structure is the part that matters for a beginner. The 11 GT4 cars and the 6 GT2 cars in the paid packs are separate disciplines with different behaviour, and buying them in the first ten hours splits your attention before the base class is learned. The base game already contains more GT3 machinery than anybody masters in a season.

The modes are Career, Championship, Free Play and the Open Series. For the first ten hours only two of those matter, and neither is Career: Free Play to learn a car and a circuit, and the Open Series once you can complete a stint without an incident.

The first ten hours, in order

Hours one and two go to hardware, not driving. Set the seat, set the field of view and set the force feedback strength using the clipping meter rather than feel. A driver learning a circuit through a badly calibrated wheel learns the wheel as much as the circuit.

Hours three to six go to one car and one circuit. Pick a GT3 car with a reputation for stability and pick a circuit with visible braking references, then drive the same twenty minute stint repeatedly. The measure of progress is not lap time but how much your times vary within one stint: a spread of over a second means you are still learning the circuit, and no setup change will fix that.

Hours seven and eight go to the racing rules rather than the racing. Learn the pit procedure, the flags and how the game handles track limits, because those are the three things that end otherwise good races. Practise a pit stop in Free Play until it is boring.

Hours nine and ten go to your first races, and they should be short. The goal in the first five races is not a result, it is to finish every one of them on the lead lap without contact.

What to leave alone at the start

Setups, first of all. The default setups in this game are competent, and a new driver changing dampers is changing something they cannot yet feel. The only adjustments worth touching in the first ten hours are tyre pressures towards the recommended window and the brake bias, and even those only after the lap times have stopped moving.

Aids next. Traction control and ABS exist on the real cars and are not cheating, so leave them at the default level rather than proving something. Turning them off before the car is understood produces spins that teach nothing about racing.

And the DLC. Nine packs are a lot of money and a lot of choice, and every circuit added in the first month is one you will not learn properly. Add tracks after you have raced the base eleven, not before.

Where the ten hours actually pay

GT3 racing is close, and the skill that separates finishers from retirements is spatial awareness in traffic rather than raw pace. Ten hours spent on one car and one circuit produce a driver who can predict what the car does when somebody arrives alongside, and that is a transferable skill that survives every future change of car, class and simulator.

Sources

1. Assetto Corsa Competizione, official content overview
2. iRacing, controller setup and calibration

Frequently asked questions

Which GT3 car should I start with?

One with a reputation for stability rather than outright pace. The differences between GT3 cars matter far less than knowing one of them properly.

Do I need the DLC to race online?

Not for the base circuits. Add packs when a series you want to enter uses a track you do not own, not in advance.

Should I turn the aids off?

Not in the first ten hours. The real cars have them, so running them is not a compromise, and turning them off early costs you laps rather than teaching you.

When should I start changing setups?

Once your lap times within a single stint vary by less than about half a second. Before that, the variation is you, not the car.