Choosing the Right Racing Simulator for Your Event

Every enquiry we take starts with a version of the same question: which simulator, and how many? The answer depends on four things: who your guests are, how many of them there are, how much space you have, and what kind of racing you want the room to watch. This guide walks through each one, with real numbers, so you can plan before you ask for a quote.

We run 18 simulators from Silverstone, and up to 16 F1-style sims race the same circuit on one live leaderboard, the biggest mobile grid of simulators in the UK. Every hire comes fully staffed, so whatever you choose, our team runs the experience.

F1-style or GT rigs

Our fleet is 16 full-size F1-style simulators and 2 GT sims, and they can all race together on one live leaderboard.

The F1-style simulators are the showpiece: full-size single-seaters that look like the real thing, which matters, because half the job of event entertainment is how it photographs. If your event has a stage, a big room or an audience you want to impress, the F1-style rigs are the popular pick, and hire starts at £790 a day for one sim.

The GT sims offer a different kind of racing: a cockpit closer to a road car, which some guests find more familiar to climb into. They start at £840 a day. Plenty of events mix the two, running GT rigs alongside the F1-style grid on the same circuit and the same timing screen.

If you’re not sure, an F1-style sim is usually the safe bet, because it’s the one guests ask to sit in first.

How many guests can race in an hour

Here’s the rule of thumb we plan events around. With our team running quick changeovers and short qualifying-style stints, allow roughly 8 to 10 drivers per simulator per hour. Longer race formats are more immersive but roughly halve that number.

So over a four-hour evening, one sim comfortably gets 30 to 40 people through. Two sims double it, and so on. If it’s important that every guest drives, work backwards from your guest count and event length before you fix the number of sims.

Hotlap or head-to-head

There are two ways to run the racing, and the right format depends on your crowd.

Hotlap is a fastest-lap time trial. Every driver gets a short stint to set their quickest lap, and the live leaderboard ranks the whole event from first to last. It’s the highest-throughput format and the favourite for corporate events and exhibition stands, because it keeps the queue moving and turns a room of colleagues into a championship that runs all day.

Head-to-head is a live race, with up to 16 simulators on the same circuit at the same time and everyone on screen from lights out. It’s the loudest, most watchable thing we do, and it works best as a finale: run hotlaps all evening, then put your eight fastest drivers on the grid for a final. Our event hire page covers how the leaderboard and race formats work in more detail.

Space and power

Your venue will ask for these numbers. Each simulator has a footprint of roughly 1.61m long by 0.6m wide by 1.42m tall, and needs a little extra room for drivers to climb in and out. Power is one standard 13A socket per two sims, each drawing no more than 1kW, so a normal venue supply handles a full grid without drama.

Setup takes around two hours, so the sims are race-ready before your doors open. And because the seats and pedals adjust for drivers from 125cm tall, ages 8 to 88, you don’t need to plan around who can and can’t take part.

How many sims for your group

Before the numbers, one question decides everything: is the racing the entertainment, or one attraction among several?

If the simulators are the main event and everyone is expected to drive properly, plan for roughly one simulator per three or four guests. That’s the ratio that gets a whole room through a real competition rather than a queue, and it’s what we’d suggest for a race night, a team-building day built around the racing, or an incentive day.

If the racing sits alongside a bar, a dance floor, dinner or a conference programme, you can go much wider. Guests drift over in ones and twos across the event instead of arriving as a crowd. The bands below are written for that second case, which covers most parties, weddings and exhibition stands.

Under 30 guests: one sim works, but two is better. One F1-style sim is £790 a day and two are £890, so for £100 more you double your capacity and unlock side-by-side racing, which makes the second sim well worth it at most small events.

30 to 80 guests: two to four sims is the right range, and three (£1,305) or four (£1,655) keeps queues short at a party-sized event and gives the leaderboard real depth.

80 to 150 guests: plan on four to six sims. Six (£2,330) is a proper grid, and it looks like one, especially with your branding wrapped across it.

150 plus, or multi-day exhibitions: think in throughput rather than headcount. Six or more sims running hotlaps will put hundreds of drivers through per day, and extra sims are £375 each beyond six. Subsequent days of a multi-day hire are discounted 25%.

All prices exclude VAT, and the full list, including upgrades like VR and the 43in digital leaderboard, is on our prices page.

The part you don’t have to think about

Whatever combination you choose, our team runs the experience rather than dropping the kit and leaving. They deliver, build, run the racing, manage the leaderboard and pack down at the end, with delivery included within 100 miles of Silverstone and UK-wide coverage beyond.

Ready to pick your grid

Start with our F1-style simulator hire page for the full package details, then tell us your date, venue and guest count. We’ll confirm what fits your space and send an itemised quote within 24 hours, Monday to Friday.