I’m a chase cam user. Why? Because that’s what I learned with years ago and I’ve never proven to myself that any other view let’s me “feel” the car better. Not to mention I have an incredible view of the track ahead and peripheral of competitors. I’m not saying it’s the best view for everyone but it’s the best for me. I have driven karts my whole life road racing, sprint and dirt. I don’t beat my chest about having driven real race cars and scoff that this is a silly sim like others. I think there is an incredible amount of realism in sims. But the biggest difference is feel. In a real vehicle your steering, throttle and brake are largely controlled by your eyes and what your body feels. G force felt by your body in all directions controls a large part of steering and pedal input. FFB in sim, when adjusted properly, does an amazing job of giving us a small sense of “feel” for what the car is doing. But it obviously can’t compare to true feel in your body and butt. Lol. So that’s where my affection for chase cam comes into play. I can visually see everything the car is doing. I can see the slightest of tire slip, I can see weight transfer, I can compare my car dynamics to the guy I’m following to see instantly why I’m not getting through a particular turn as quick as him, etc.
I tend to run a lot of qualifying laps. Not only trying to run the fastest hot lap I can, but also simulating race pace, simulating “how am I going to take this corner if there’s a guy under me in the preferred line”, simulating taking turn one on lap one because it will be slower trying to get up to speed. During that process the racing line becomes muscle memory. Once I’m at that point, I focus on my braking point and from there my hands know what to do (usually). Chase cam allows me to look at how the car is reacting through the corner vs. what I saw the #1 qualifiers car did in the video I just watched. If I’m cutting the course as tight asi can for qualifying, I can consistently put my tires within inches of a penalty. I know many great drivers can do that with other views. I applaud them. I have yet to figure out how to do it consistently with other views. Nor have I found a reason to want another view. Of course while racing I’m not studying my car. By then, I better have it figured out and all eyes are on the road.
My last reason for preferring chase view will likely sound stupid. Perhaps my 47 years on earth are just now starting to show. But I don’t need to feel like I’m going 200mph in a Honda Civic or 300mph in a 911 RSR when I’m in a serious race. Chase mode (to me anyway) slows everything down visually. I feel like I have way less stress about hitting my braking points, seeing my line ahead, contemplating strategy and how I’m going to recover when this a$$ behind me gives me the boot.
Ive raced GT since GT 5. But I only tried my first online race 4-5 weeks ago, Racing a few nights a week for a couple hours each. I’m nearly A/S (I’m high B/S). I have 12 wins. Last night I got my first win in a field of S/S and mostly A/S drivers. The S/S driver was within striking distance the whole race but I won by a couple car lengths. I certainly wasn’t holding him up by driving defensive. My point is that I feel many people don’t take chase cam drivers seriously. I take it very seriously and would switch views tomorrow if I knew it was worth 2 tenths on the watch. But for now chase view is working
Some people choose bumper or other views simply because that’s what everyone else uses. If you do what everyone else does, you’ll only be as good as everyone else. Do your own thing.