With March in our rear view mirrors, it is time for another recap - here is our March 2025 instalment of Sim Racers Monthly!
Honestly, we are just as surprised as you are that we are already three months into 2025. Once again, there were a ton of news that piqued the interest of sim racers this past month, so let’s dive right in to our third instalment of Sim Racers Monthly to see what was important in March!
Image: Asetek Simsports
Hardware News
Asetek Initium
This time, we start with hardware news. We had a number of interesting announcements, with Asetek as the first manufacturer out of the gate on March 4: The Danish company announced its brand-new Initium line-up aimed at the entry-level market, including Xbox compatibility. At the same time, they unveiled several updates and upgrades to their existing hardware.Heusinkveld MagShift Mini
Just a day later, Heusinkveld revealed a new piece of gear of their own, launching the MagShift Mini sequential shifter, also claimed to be an entry-level piece of gear – though that is always relatively speaking with high-end manufacturers such as Heusinkveld, of course.Nacon's Revosim PURE
Fast forward to yet another day later, and Nacon officially unveiled its Revosim PURE bundle, which Yannik actually tried in Paris at Nacon’s own event. PURE consists of a 9-Nm Direct Drive wheel base, a 300 mm steering wheel, and a two-pedal set including a load cell brake. More accessories, like a clutch, shifter, handbrake or different wheel rims are set to come as well eventually, but first, the bundle will launch in June.Image: MOZA Racing
MOZA Racing mBooster Active Pedal & Active Shifter
Finally, we had arguably the biggest hardware launch of the month on March 18: MOZA Racing officially released its mBooster Active Pedal to rival Simucube’s Active Pedal Ultimate and Pro offerings at a lower price – which still doesn’t mean cheap as it’s a high-end piece of kit, but with a standalone price of €899, it would burn much less of a hole into your wallet. We are looking forward to comparing the mBooster Active Pedal to the Simucube models to find out how it stacks up against the competition.Aside from the Active Pedal, MOZA had another new product up its sleeve that gathered quite a bit of interest: Their AB9 FFB flight base can now be transformed to be an Active Shifter, which works both in H-shifter and sequential mode and can also act as a handbrake. MOZA promises that with its 12 Nm of maximum torque, "it is designed to deliver a huge leap in shifting realism."
Rennsport Teams Up With Nacon For Console Release
But of course, March wasn’t just all about hardware. Instead, quite a few other interesting and unexpected stories unfolded. Remember the Nacon PURE reveal? That was tied to another quite big announcement, and it involved Rennsport: The still-in-development sim will come to consoles in 2025, with Nacon acting as the publisher. That also means that we will see the full release of Rennsport still this year- for more info on what to expect from that, check out @Michel Wolk’s interview with Rennsport CEO and Co-Founder Marco Ujhasi!On the competitive side, Rennsport looks set to run season 4 of R1 without ESL for the first time. While there has not been an official announcement, the high-profile esports series is exclusively referred to as Rennsport R1 in all communications.
Assetto Corsa EVO: Stefano Casillo Rejoins Kunos
Another sim that is due for its full release in 2025 is Assetto Corsa EVO, and while news surrounding the sim itself have slowed down a bit in March, they sure have not for developer Kunos Simulazioni: On March 7, it emerged that Stefano Casillo, Co-Founder of the studio besides Marco Massarutto, would rejoin the team full time as Chief Technology Officer.Previously, Casillo had worked on a hydrofoil sailing simulator called Hydrofoil Generation with his own studio, Jaxx Vane. Casillo told OverTake that he was "super happy and excited to be back at work with my old friends. I missed the action of having fun with a wheel in my hands and I love what they have been doing with EVO and the vision behind it."
iRacing Season 2 2025
Meanwhile over in the iRacing camp, the 2025 Season 2 build was released on March 13. This time, the new content wasn’t quite as spectacular as the Ferrari 499P in Season 1 back released back in December, but Portland International Raceway and the ARCA Menard Series stock cars were still very much welcome additions.Furthermore, the build introduced iRacing’s first step to transform the GTP Hypercars to be more in line with their real counterparts by adjusting their tire model. Emily checked it out in detail, which you can see in our YouTube video on the update. Our resident iRacing pro Markus Søholm even created a guide on how to handle the new GTP tires properly.
Unfortunately, the adaptive AI that was set to debut in the Season 2 build did not quite make it into iRacing this time around. Accurate implementation of the GTP cars’ hybrid systems will also have to wait for another update, but that had not been planned to be part of this update yet anyway.
Super Trophy Trucks Arrive In Automobilista 2
Shortly after iRacing, Reiza Studios also launched an update to their sim, Automobilista 2. On the content side, this brought back a fan favorite from the original Automobilista via the Adrenaline Pack Pt2 DLC, namely the Super Trophy Trucks. To properly enjoy them, Reiza also added ramps to 12 layouts of pre-existing tracks, which makes for a combination that is excellent fun, as Michel, @Connor Minniss and Yannik found when trying their hands on the DLC on stream. Further revisions to smaller issues of several car classes were also part of the update.Image: EA Sports / Codemasters
EA Sports WRC Hard Chargers DLC
More DLC was headed our way courtesy of EA Sports and Codemasters: On March 25, the Hard Chargers DLC for EA Sports WRC dropped, introducing new cars such as the Ford Focus WRC ’99, the Ford Escort RS 1600 Mk1, and the 2021 Hyundai i20 Coupé WRC, among others.More importantly to most rally fans, however, are the new stages for Sweden and Greece. As usual, two new long stages have been added, run in both directions and chopped up into smaller parts to make for six “new” stages per location. In both cases, the long variants are real life stages, and in Sweden’s case, this means it is the first stage in the actual location of the rally, which had moved from Värmland to Umea in 2022.
Numerous new liveries and Moments to play with round off the Hard Chargers DLC, the final pack to be part of the WRC 24 Expansion Bundle. Could this also have been the final DLC for the game itself? We will see if EA Sports and Codemasters have another WRC title lined up or if the current one will continue to be supported.
Image: Bugbear Entertainment
Wreckfest 2 Releases In Early Access
Wreckfest 2 is just getting started. The successor to the popular destruction-focused racer has hit Early Access on March 20, and developer Bugbear also shared a roadmap that hints at more content to come in May. The first release may be relatively limited on the content side, but it does already feature a multiplayer that allows for 24 players in the same session, a car painting system, and leaderboards.Image: Straight4 Studios
Project Motor Racing: More Teasers & Physics Engine Details
Those who have been waiting for more info on Project Motor Racing, meanwhile, have gotten a first glimpse into the upcoming title’s physics engine. Dubbed ‘Hadron’, developer Straight4 Studios claims it will feature 720Hz physics for “unmatchend handling realism”, as well as an extremely in-depth and interconnected simulation of engine and drivetrain, right down fluid dynamics. Tire and aerodynamic simulation are also supposedly very deep.Previously, Straight4 had confirmed the Gillet Vertigo Streiff, a classic from the GTR2 days, to be part of the sim. Later in March, the Mosler MT900 R was teased to be included as well – it truly looks like Project Motor Racing’s previous title “GTRevival” described the content of the sim quite well.
To close out the month, Straight4 also snuck a teaser of Kyalami into a social media post - a track that had not been seen in the PMR context before.
Image: EA Sports / Codemasters
EA Sports Officially Announces F1 25
To end March, EA Sports and Codemasters finally broke the radio silence on the upcoming Formula One game. While the naming of the EA Sports Beta F1 program had led to speculation about the game possibly not being a yearly release, but rather a multi-year title like EA Sports WRC, the announcement of the reveal trailer designated the game F1 25 indeed.The centerpieces of the announcement trailer were the return of the Braking Point story mode, a tie-in of the upcoming F1 movie, and the inclusion of reverse tracks. Lewis Hamilton, cover athlete of the game's Iconic Edition, featured heavily in the trailer, possibly hinting at scenarios and content connected to the seven-time World Champion.
Furthermore, no versions of the game for previous-gen consoles are planned. Despite this, the PC system requirements remain essentially unchanged compared to F1 24.
Image: Toyota Racing NZ
Sim Racers Start 2025 Campaigns In Real Racing
Finally, we have a few motorsport/sim racing crossover stories. As was known in January already, sim racer Igor Fraga would make his Super Formula debut in Japan in 2025, and ahead of the Suzuka season opener, we had a chat with the Brazilian who credits Gran Turismo and his successes in the game’s competitive scene with raising his profile enough for him to eventually land the Super Formula drive. While Fraga finished 18th in the first race, he managed to bag a very respectable sixth place in the second race after starting 14th.Image: Ferrari Media Centre
On the other side of the ocean, Team Redline sim racer Chris Lulham is set to make his GT World Challenge debut driving for Max Verstappen’s own GT team. Lulham will compete in both the sprint and endurance rounds, including the 24 Hours of Spa. In the sprint rounds, he will share a Ferrari 296 GT3 with Thierry Vermeulen, and the duo will contest the endurance rounds in an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO alongside Harry King.
Image: BS+ Competition
Meanwhile, esports team BS+ Competition and eNASCAR driver Garrett Lowe are going stock car racing in EuroNASCAR this season. Teaming up with German squad Bremotion, Lowe and BS+ are set to make their debut in April at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia.
As you can see, quite a lot has happened in March 2025 in sim racing. We’re excited for April already, and if the news keep on coming at this rate, we should be in for a real treat of a year.
If you want to catch up on previous iterations of Sim Racers Monthly, check out the links below!
Sim Racers Monthly - January 2025
Sim Racers Monthly - February 2025
Which bit of sim racing news piqued your interest the most in March 2025? Let us know in the comments below!
