iRacing To Produce Dallara iR-01 Fictional Open-Wheeler

iRacing recently announced that they would resurrect the fictional Coca-Cola Superspeedway from NASCAR Racing 2002 Season because, as many probably already know, iRacing is staffed by a lot of ex-Papyrus Racing Games staff, was co-founded by one of the Papyrus co-founders and bought the NASCAR Racing 2003 Season codebase that iRacing is built on. While building the track didn’t really fit with the ethos of their product or service, I suppose you could understand them doing it, especially with the recent Coca-Cola sponsorship in their official NASCAR series.

This is a whole different tier though… Because rather than licensing a real world upper tier racing car for their 2021 Open-Wheel World Championship, they have essentially produced a concept vehicle from Dallara and placed it above any real-world vehicles. I love the idea, I just don’t think it fits what iRacing has been saying or doing for the past 15 years.

iRacing and Dallara began work on the Dallara iR-01 in May 2020, engineering a car that is ready to race in the real world but will make its debut in the virtual one. Featuring a lightweight chassis of only 600 kg, its naturally aspirated 3.0-liter V10 engine can produce more than 900 horsepower. With limited electronics on board and a fully decoupled suspension, the new car will prove easy for new drivers to pick up and fun to race, but difficult to master.

You can read more on their announcement news item, and see screenshots below: