Can A Video Game Help Chris Harris Win A Race?

The McLaren MP4-12C is one of our very favorite cars. It's a technological tour de FAP that's also amazing to drive. Chris Harris's over-steery antics makes him one of our very favorite drivers.

If you combine the two, you have a sliding MP4-12C. It's cool to look at, but not that fast. In order to win a two-lap race at Brand's Hatch, he needs a little help to defeat McLaren's test driver. That's where Grid 2 comes in.

Harris is an a pretty accomplished racer, but he isn't a pro like McLaren Tester Mat Jackson. When you go up against someone faster, you tend to over drive in an attempt to keep up. That results in oversteer and much slower times than you want.

That is exactly what Harris experiences here. While exciting to watch Harris go sideways into every turn in every car he drives, it's slow. That's a problem because he wants to win.

Instead of practicing on the actual track, Harris takes to Grid 2, the next racing game from Codemasters. This video, as should be painfully obvious, was all put together as paid advertorial by Codemasters. Harris has a deal to work with Codemasters to help them develop the game's dynamics, which makes sense since he's driven everything, and as part of that contract he did this video for them.

It's rather devious because what human being can resist a few hot laps in McLaren and what publication can resist publishing a Chris Harris video?

As you can see, data analysis apparently helps him figure out where he can be faster and where he needs to calm down a little to get the most out of the car. Our only question: you needed data analysis to know that Chris Harris oversteers? HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN A CHRIS HARRIS VIDEO!?!

I've always found console games to be semi-realistic at best, but Grid 2 is promising to be the closest to a full PC sim on a console. I'll have to wait until I try it for myself.

As for Harris, the game appears to help, but at what cost? We like him unnecessarily drifting everything he touches.