Nicki Thiim – Suzuka GT3 Race

It is safe to say that most sim racing enthusiasts are also avid Motorsports fans. That’s why we always enjoy seeing professional racing drivers getting involved in our exciting hobby. While only a few years ago, sim racing seemed a taboo in the real world racing scene and often being ridiculed as simple arcade games with no real use in the racing world, times have now changed.

Because of the ever-evolving technology we now have realistic looking laser scanned virtual clones of tracks around the world. Today’s Racing simulators have proven their purpose as a track recognizance and training tool for many real world racing drivers who want to have an edge when competing. Furthermore, the ever-growing sim racing and eSports communities are also becoming an interesting PR tool for those who are pursuing a career in the Motorsport world.

While in the past, most racing driver careers started in karting, nowadays the sim racing scene seems to be the easiest way to get into the sport. It is clear that the real and virtual racing scene is interweaving and that in the near future, racing simulators will become a mandatory part of the aspiring racing driver on both the technical and social sides of the sport.

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Seeing racing drivers participate in sim racing is nothing new. Titles such as iRacing and RaceRoom have always welcomed and embraced the real world racing drivers as a promotion tool for their product. While some racing drivers are clearly only participating for the personal social, promotion or financial benefits, lately more and more drivers seem to really enjoy the virtual version of their profession and are happy to mingle with their fans on the virtual racing platforms.

Famous names from various racing series around the world, such as Max Verstappen, Rubens Barrichello, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Shane van Gisbergen, the late Justin Wilson, Rene Rast, Kelvin Van der Linde, Nicky Catsburg and many more have been avid sim racers for quite a while and compete on a regular basis on various sim racing titles. Some of them have also embraced the sim racing media scene and are publishing their sim racing adventures on various media channels.

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Nicki Thiim – Professional Racing Driver

Most Bsimracing visitors will undoubtedly have seen the videos by Audi Works driver Rene Rast. Lately, another famous racing name started using the media channels to share his sim racing antics with our community.

Besides coming up with trendy hair styles, the 2016 FIA WEC GTE-Pro Team World Champion Nicki Thiim also loves to do some sim racing in his spare time. In his very sympathetic and often funny style, Nicki shares his talk & race sim racing videos on his YouTube channel.

In his latest video, Nicki gets behind the wheel of the iRacing virtual Audi R8 LMS for a GT3 race at the Suzuka circuit. The video below shows us a Nicki Thiim test session with the recently released iRacing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car on the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit.

 

 

The Dansky Junior as he is sometimes nicknamed started his career in the Danish Karting scene and rapidly raced himself trough the ranks to become a professional racing driver. Besides having won some prestigious world championships, Nicki was also an Audi Sport Works driver and won the 2014 Le-Mans 24H in the GTE-AM class. Currently, Nicki is an Aston Martin Works Driver competing in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Nicki Thiim Career Highlights:

• 2001 Danish Karting Champion
• 2006 Danish Formula Ford Champion
• 2006 P6 Formula Ford Festival (world championship)
• 2008 German Seat Leon Supercopa Champion
• 2008-2012 VW Motorsport Works Driver
• 2013 Porsche Supercup Champion
• 2013 24h Nürburgring Winner – Mercedes-Benz
• 2014-2015 Audi Sport Works Driver
• 2014 24h Le Mans GTE-AM Winner Aston Martin
• 2014 24h FIA WEC GTE-AM World Champion Aston Martin
• 2014 Porsche Carrera Cup Team Championship
• 2014 ADAC GT Masters Team Championship Audi
• 2015 24h Spa P3 Audi
• 2016 Aston Martin Works Driver at the FIA WEC
• 2016 FIA WEC GT Drivers World Champion
• 2016 FIA WEC GTE-Pro Team World Champion

Official Webpage – www.iracing.com – www.danskyjr.com