Max Papis sees a bright future and business opportunity in sim racing

By Apr 25, 2020, 10:00 AM EDT
Joe Skibinski / IndyCar
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Max Papis has raced in nearly every form of professional motorsport.

Having competed in Formula One, CART, IndyCar, Grand-Am, AMLS, IROC and all three of NASCAR’s national series, Papis’ racing resume is one of the most diverse in racing.

However, there is one form of racing that the 50-year-old Italian is still learning – sim racing. While he may be new to it, Papis already has embraced the virtual sport.

Papis is one of the drivers competing in the Legends Trophy, an online racing series for drivers older than 40.

Created by Torque Esports in mid-March, the Legends Trophy pits drivers from multiple different disciplines against each other in a virtual All-Star championship.

Notable drivers competing in the series include Jenson Button, Helio Castroneves, Gil de Ferran and Papis’ father-in-law, Emerson Fittipaldi, who is the oldest driver in the series at age 73. Papis has enjoyed being able to race against all of them.

MORE: At 73, Emerson Fittipaldi enjoying introduction to sim racing

“It was amazing to be able to virtually compete on the track with a bunch of people that you never would have been able to compete against, or you crossed paths but never really had the chance to be on the track together,” Papis told NBCSports.com. “Sim racing has created a very similar feeling that I had when I competed in IROC, where it’s gloves off and everyone is from a different kind of motorsports background and is willing to compete with the same car on the same playground.

“This would have never been possible in any other way than virtually. It was tremendous fun and an extremely high challenge, but at the same time, it was something that would have been very hard to make happen without the virtual work.”

In addition to being able to race with fellow drivers from around the world, Papis said he enjoys sim racing because it allows him (virtually) to drive the same cars his racing heroes once drove. During the virtual race at Silverstone, he had the opportunity to drive a McLaren Formula One car just as Ayrton Senna once did.

“When I started the engine and went out of the pits, I almost had tears in my eyes because I always dreamt about racing with my mentor and being able to that virtually was something I never thought about until I went out that time a few weeks ago,” Papis said. “That’s what virtual racing did for me. I was able to take a step back in history and do something that in reality, might have never been possible.

“In general, that’s what I like about sim racing. It reminds me of being about 14 years old and taking my scooter from home, driving to Monza, and jumping the fences just to be able to watch and hear Formula One cars practicing. It gave me the same feel.”

While he may be new to competing in sim racing, Papis is no stranger to the business side. His steering wheel company, Max Papis Innovations, recently has begun to sell specialized wheels for sim racing.

The company first began selling the sim racing wheels around last Thanksgiving and recently has begun to sell more in the absence of real racing because of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Papis even sent Robert Wickens a customized wheel to help him with his iRacing efforts.

“When we saw the situation happening, I had a meeting here in the (MPI) office, and we decided to bring back and accelerate the sim racing product,” Papis said. “I was extremely pleased to see that most of our racers upgraded to an MPI steering wheel.

“We’re pleased to provide this service to the community. We will have a lot more things coming in the future. This is just an appetizer.”

Aside from its obvious recent increase in popularity, Papis said he believes that part of the reason why the sim racing community has continued to grow is that it has created an alternative for individuals who want to participate in motorsport but would otherwise not be able to financially do so.

“Motor racing is unfortunately becoming more and more of a privileged sport,” Papis said. “It was not always like that. If that would have the case, I would have never raced, because I was not privileged.

“I think that sim racing will humanize motor racing more and will allow the next generation Max Papis to still dream about it and not stop at the fact that they don’t have $10,000 to buy a go-kart. That is what I see as the great benefit of sim racing.”

Additionally, Papis sees sim racing as a way to further prove the true talent required to race in real-life by showcasing the real driver’s performances versus the amateurs.

“Let’s say I’m running Sebring and I do a 1:52, and Joe Blow goes out there and tries to do the same thing with the same car and runs eight seconds off the pace,” Papis said. “It’s exactly like me looking at Tiger Woods when he can put in a 300-foot par and I can only do 80.

“I think sim racing is going to do two things: create more respect in general towards racers and make people dream like I did when I sat in Ayrton Senna’s car. Those are things I think have been lost tremendously in the last 10 years of the sport.”

Round seven of the Legends Trophy takes place at 12 p.m. ET Saturday at a virtual Nurburgring. Live coverage can be viewed by clicking here.

Follow Michael Eubanks on Twitter @michaele1994

‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

JOSEF’S FAMILY TIES: Newgarden wins Indy 500 with wisdom of father, wife

Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500