Sim racing race preparation: the 48-hour check-list

Forty-eight hours before the start, there is little left to learn. The driving you bring on Friday evening is the driving you have built over the preceding weeks, and two days will not change that significantly. What still happens in this window, however, is almost everything that costs you a round: a place lost for want of a message, a peripheral that is no longer recognised, the wrong car variant loaded at the moment you enter the track, a regulation article discovered mid-race.

At this stage, race preparation in sim racing is no longer a question of speed. It is a question of verification. Below is the check-list we apply at the JOBARD Racing Academy Series, in the order it unfolds.

Why 48 hours, and not the day before

This deadline is not a figure of speech. It is written into the Pre-season regulations, and it appears there twice.

First, in Article 4: when a place becomes available on the grid, a reserve driver is called no later than 48 hours before the start of the relevant round. Beyond that point, the field is closed. Second, in the absence clause: a registered driver absent from two consecutive rounds without having notified race direction at least 48 hours in advance loses their place to the first reserve driver and moves to the bottom of the list.

In other words, the 48-hour window is the moment the grid is set: the last point at which your presence, or your absence, still has an effect on the event — and the first at which an oversight becomes irreversible.

Your place is never guaranteed by default

The grid holds 19 cars at every round, including on circuits that could accommodate more, and no additional field is opened: beyond the nineteenth entry, drivers join a reserve list. A reserve driver has the same access as a registered driver, and scores points in the round to which they are called.

Three checks, therefore, within the 48 hours.

Confirm your attendance, or announce your absence. An absence declared within the deadline carries no penalty. A silent absence, repeated a second time, costs you your registered place. The cost of a message is nil; the cost of silence is a season.

Verify that your category is correctly assigned. Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Bronze: the category is set by race direction — it is not chosen by the driver. The level you declare at registration is a separate piece of information with no effect on the standings. The regulations are clear on this point: no driver takes the start without a category.

If you are a reserve driver, remain reachable. The call comes no later than D-2, and it comes through the official Discord. A driver unreachable in this window simply passes their turn.

The machine, and the car that shares another's name

The regulations require a stable connection, and race direction may exclude a driver from a round if repeated disconnections disrupt the event. Reason enough to test the full chain two days in advance rather than discovering a problem at 21:30.

Run through the complete sequence once: launch the game, connect to the official server, complete a few laps, return to the pits. You verify at the same time that your peripherals are recognised, that your force feedback settings are what you expect them to be, and that no update has reshuffled the deck. And above all: install nothing new on the eve of a race. A new wheel driver or a new version of a utility the night before is a risk taken for no return.

One trap deserves a specific mention. The Pre-season is run as a one-make series on the Mazda MX-5 ND Cup — Global Cup ND2, sequential gearbox. There is also a Global Cup ND1, with a manual gearbox, which carries the same model name in the game's selector: only the variant distinguishes them, and their performance indices differ. Loading the wrong one means arriving on track in a car that does not belong to the championship. Check the variant, not just the name.

The evening's schedule must be known by heart

A driver discovering the format mid-evening loses time where there is none. The server opens at 20:30 Paris time for one hour of free practice, and the first qualifying session starts at 21:30.

In Sprint, the sequence is fixed: Qualifying 1, a 10-minute hotlap session; Race 1, 20 minutes on the grid from that session; then Qualifying 2, another 10-minute session; and Race 2, 20 minutes on its own grid. Each race starts from its own qualifying session — there is no reversed grid. Both races award points.

In Endurance, the format changes: a 15-minute qualifying session, then a single 60-minute race with a mandatory pit stop within a set window. The crew remains individual — one car, one driver, from start to finish.

Ten minutes of hotlap qualifying means two to three genuinely useful laps. Knowing in advance how many laps you are targeting, and which one will be the right one, does more for your grid position than ten additional practice laps.

Drive less, but drive with precision

The official server remains open throughout the week. That is where the foundational work is done — not at D-2.

In the 48 hours, the objective shifts: you are no longer looking for the lap time, you are looking for repeatability. Three clean ten-minute stints are worth more than an hour of fast laps interrupted by excursions — what you are checking is your ability to set the same lap twice in succession.

If a sector is still resisting, do not work through it at random: study it. We have detailed elsewhere the five telemetry graphs that drive improvement, and why braking later is not enough. Two days before a race, a focused review returns more than additional mileage.

The setup is locked at D-1

Settings are free in the Pre-season — the one-make element applies to the car, not the setup sheet. This freedom is an invitation to tinker until the last moment, and that is precisely what to avoid.

Set up your car methodically, once, following the six-step method. Then lock it: save the file under a name that includes the circuit and the date, keep the previous version alongside it, and make no further changes on race evening. A setting changed during free practice, with no reference point to judge it against, degrades a car more often than it improves one.

Points are lost faster than they are gained

The final point on the check-list is the least technical, and the most costly. Track limits are enforced automatically: three violations result in an official warning; the fourth triggers a drive-through. Each driver also holds a 12-point licence balance over the season — a minor at-fault contact deducts one point, causing a retirement deducts three, and an exhausted balance means a suspension. Conversely, three consecutive incident-free rounds restore four points.

The points structure rewards the same behaviour: a finisher's point is awarded to any classified driver who has completed at least 75 % of the race distance. Finishing pays. The regulations express this in one sentence we would willingly have printed above every screen: when in doubt, the driver lifts and concedes the position, because an incident avoided outweighs a position gained.

Two final actions remain. Attendance at the pre-race briefing is mandatory, with a microphone recommended in Endurance. And should an incident need to be contested, the protest must be submitted within 30 minutes of the finish, on the stewards' channel of the official Discord, with the lap number, a description, and a clip. After that deadline, there is no case — and no appeal.

Discover the JOBARD Racing Academy Series →

In brief

Why 48 hours and not 24? Because that is the deadline set by the regulations: a reserve driver is called no later than 48 hours before the start, and the minimum notice for declaring an absence without losing your place is 48 hours. At D-2, the grid is set.

Is it necessary to drive a great deal in the final two days? No. The foundational work is done during the week, on the practice server that remains open at all times. In the 48 hours, the goal is consistency, not lap time: three clean stints are worth more than an hour of fast laps.

Can the setup still be changed on race evening? Technically yes — settings are free. In practice, it is the surest way to compromise a car without any point of comparison. Lock the setup at D-1, save it under a dated name, and keep the previous version.

What if I cannot attend? Notify race direction at least 48 hours in advance. An absence declared within the deadline carries no consequence. Two consecutive unannounced absences cost you your registered place.