How Assetto Corsa’s creators nearly made an official F1 simulation

Somewhere, there is a parallel universe where an official Formula 1 simulation game is being supported by Kunos Simulazioni.

The thing is, the creators of the Assetto Corsa sim racing series came close to such a deal in our reality, too, when the opportunity arose six years ago.

“Once we had a chance in 2019,” said Co-Founder and Executive Manager of the Italian team, Marco Massarutto, to Multiplayer.it.

“When the exclusivity of Codemasters with Formula 1 was, let’s say, in the discussion phase, we had the possibility of making an official, non-exclusive, F1 simulation for PC.”

In the end, the Birmingham-based British team clinched an extension to its existing deal until 2025 – a deal that is currently open to negotiation once again.

And Kunos? It decided against making what would be a complementary simulation. Serious in its focus, but not just for B2B use, for the mass-market PC user too.

“Well, F1 is the unicorn to us since the very beginning: we can’t imagine creating a product with the extended career mode of Codemasters F1, but definitely, it would have been a true-genuine simulation featuring advanced physics and all the circuits laser-scanned,” explained Massarutto further to Traxion.

“Of course, a project like that would have required all our resources, attention, stamina, etc., at 300 per cent, no matter what, full commitment.”

Around the same time, the diminutive Italian team was working on its second Assetto Corsa title – the Competizione spin-off, acting as the official simulation of the SRO’s Blancpain (later re-named GT World Challenge) championships.

It was released into PC early access in September 2018, before hitting Version 1.0 in May 2019. This title would be the initial basis for the proposed single-seater title.

“The concept was ‘Let’s take the structure of Assetto Corsa Competizione and all the work that has been done, and change it to fit Formula 1,’ such as adding the missing circuits and features,” continued Massarutto to Traxion.

“So we brought to the team this idea that we could do this thing. We probably would have had to work behind closed doors for around three years, and we had just come out of Version 1.0 for Competizione.

“Most of the team, who had worked so hard on Competizione, said that it hadn’t yet expressed its full potential. Eventually, the idea was to expand and improve ACC to the point that ACC would have been in a very good shape, being also the basis for the F1 sim. I would say this was ambitious, but still possible.”

The Rome-based outfit does have experience with licensed Formula 1 content. The original Assetto Corsa featured several real-world open-wheelers, including the likes of the Ferrari F2004 and SF70H as DLC.

But, ultimately, available bandwidth and the group’s passion for its ACC product meant the F1 simulation was never created, according to Massarutto:

“At the end, Stefano Casillo [fellow Co-founder and CTO at Kunos] and I clearly felt that part of the team didn’t have our same vibrations on the F1 project, and to go for it, we would have needed each single guy at maximum capacity.

“So, instead of forcing the hand, forcing them to listen to us, we listened to them and we kept all our focus on ACC. 

“In hindsight, I can’t say I regret the decision we made. Implications with F1 are huge from any possible perspective, and a project like this could turn out to be ‘the end’ for a studio of our size.

“That said, touching the tail of the unicorn has been quite cool.”