RaceRoom: Five of the best combinations you can try now for free

Sim racers are in for a treat this month, as all of RaceRoom Racing Experience’s cars and tracks are currently free to try until the 18th of August.

If you’ve never played KW Studios’ diverse racing sim before, there’s never been a better time, with every piece of content available to sample, from historic cars and tracks to modern-day tin tops.

With an overwhelming amount of content to choose from, we thought we’d collate five of our favourite car and track combinations from RaceRoom below.

Make sure to let us know your favourites in the comments at the bottom of this article.

Lynk & Co 03 TCR at Macau

The FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) series was born out of the ailing World Touring Car Championship in 2018. 

Designed purely for TCR touring cars, which by that point had become ubiquitous thanks to several successful national championships around the globe, WTCR featured patronage from the likes of Audi, Hyundai and Honda, among others.

One of these was Lynk & Co, a Chinese-Swedish collaboration between Volvo and parent company Geely. Headquartered in Gothenburg, the manufacturer uses a Tesla-style direct-to-customer sales model, but you’d be forgiven for being unable to identify a single Lynk & Co model, such is their rarity in Europe, especially considering their rather unimaginative nomenclature.

The ‘01’ is a crossover, the ‘02’ is a hatchback and the ‘03’, as used in WTCR, is a saloon. Run by Cyan Racing, the car won 20 WTCR races up to 2022, after which the manufacturer withdrew from the championship, citing safety concerns with the spec Goodyear tyres.

The car was almost certainly the ultimate WTCR machine; remaining competitive despite being lumbered with ballast throughout its tenure, running 80 Kg heavier than its championship-leading Hyundai rivals in 2022.

Macau, on the other hand, has been a fixture at the top level of touring car racing since the ‘70s, with the street circuit providing some incredible action over the years.

The Guia Circuit is an incredible blend of high-speed and low-speed corners, most of which are blind. Highlights include the ridiculously tight Melco Hairpin, where there is a permanent yellow flag flying to prevent overtaking, and the fearsome Mandarin Corner – the fastest on the track, where a small mistake can be very costly.

RaceRoom has several seasons of WTCR and WTCC to choose from, incorporating Super 2000, TC1 and TCR regulations, making it the sim of choice for touring car fans.

BMW M4 DTM 2016 at Hockenheim

The DTM is well-represented in RaceRoom, with 10 distinct officially licensed seasons available to buy.

However, for many motorsport aficionados, the 2016-era DTM cars represent the peak of the series, featuring space-age machinery from BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz. The cars produced around 500 bhp and created a ton of downforce, making them the fastest tin tops on the planet, and by some margin.

My pick of the bunch in RaceRoom is the BMW M4: not only did it win the Drivers’ championship in 2016, but it also has the coolest livery – the #100 BMW Team Schnitzer car of Martin Tomczyk.

Although the BMW wasn’t the quickest car of the season, Marco Wittman took the title by claiming three of the marque’s four wins that year, with RaceRoom showcasing period-correct details like DRS and a spiky-sounding V8 engine.

Hockenheim is in some ways the home of the DTM, having held more championship races than any other track, so it seems a fitting place to test the Beemer’s capabilities.

Although the modern layout has long since eschewed the iconic straights of the forest section (a version of which is available in RaceRoom), the track is a stern test of an aero-dependent DTM car. 

Turn 1 is a tricky, 90-degree right-hander that demands commitment, seeing as it leads straight to the track’s first overtaking opportunity, with the stadium section providing more ballsy turns and car-hugging cambers.

Sadly, BMW switched to a four-cylinder turbo engine in 2019 as the DTM edged towards a new Class 1 ruleset, but this proved to be too expensive for the Bavarian manufacturer (and later Audi), leading to the widespread adoption of GT3 regulations.

A sad day indeed, but thanks to RaceRoom, these awesome cars have been preserved for future generations.

Opel Vectra Super Tourer at Charade

Perhaps the jewel in the crown of RaceRoom’s historic content, Super Tourers made their surprising bow late last year. And being Super Touring aficionados, we at Traxion loved them to bits, satisfied with their accurate physics and uncanny valley sounds.

Recently, the Opel Vectra and Alfa Romeo 156 bolstered the game’s Super Tourer lineup. Both have a two-litre, normally-aspirated engine producing around 300 bhp, and both are front-wheel-drive, with our favourite, the Vectra, reproduced in RaceRoom with several authentic STW liveries.

To be honest, any of the Super Tourers could’ve made the cut here, with the likes of the Volvo 850, Volvo S40, Honda Accord, BMW E36 and Audi A4 all hitting us with all the nostalgia feels, one of RaceRoom’s big strengths.

Another of the game’s plus points is how it reproduces little-known circuits into virtual form, and this very much applies to Charade. Used in the Championnat de France de Supertourisme, Charade is an old-school circuit with plenty of elevation changes and scant run-off: mistakes will be punished.

Charade hosted four Formula 1 Grand Prix in the ‘60s and ‘70s (using a longer version of the current track), and is home to French sports car manufacturer Crosslé, with the Tour de France even visiting the Clermont-Ferrand venue this year.

Originally made up of public roads, Charade was made a permanent track in 2000 and still hosts classic events and track days now, although only 10 days of internal combustion-engined activities can take place in 2025 as the track shifts towards a more sustainable future.

This makes RaceRoom’s virtual representation of Charade even more vital.

Opel Calibra 4×4 at Avus

RaceRoom’s classic DTM content is genre-leading, with the 1995 field present and correct since the addition of the Opel Calibra 4×4 and Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 V6 TI in 2024.

In an era where the DTM had by far the fastest and most technologically advanced touring cars in the world, it’s difficult to pick a favourite, but for me, the Calibra kicks the Alfa and the AMG-Mercedes C-Klasse to the kerb.

Thanks to Vauxhall-Opel’s worldwide motorsport branding, the ‘95 Joest Calibras featured the same attractive yellow on white livery as its global touring car and rallying cousins, featuring the driving talents of JJ Lehto and Manuel Reuter (ex-Formula 1 world champion Keke Rosberg drove an Opel for the Team Rosberg outfit, too).

With four-wheel-drive, a V6 engine which revved to 12,000 rpm, and over 500 bhp on tap, the Calibra was peak DTM: completely bonkers, basically.

Equally crazy was the Avus street circuit. RaceRoom now has several obscure but period-correct DTM tracks (including Diepholz and Singen), which makes it the sim of choice for classic DTM enthusiasts.

Avus had huge kerbs, a tight hairpin and was steeped in history. It was home to the German Grand Prix in 1926 and 1959 and was in regular use until 1998, when local bureaucracy and environmental concerns made it difficult to hold street races.

Although RaceRoom’s version doesn’t have the old track’s vertiginous 43-degree banking, Avus retains the crazy character of the era.

Group 5 Fabcar 935 at Nurburgring Nordschleife

The fourth generation of Group 5 racing is sadly overlooked in motorsport history. The “Special Production Car” category was used in the World Endurance Championship but is perhaps best-known from the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft (DRM) series.

Division 1 cars included the Nissan Skyline 2000RS, Chevrolet Dekon Monza, Nissan Silvia Turbo, Zakspeed Capri and BMW 320 Turbo, all of which are available in the Group 5 Masters Pack for RaceRoom.

However, our pick of the bunch is the Fabcar 935. Ostensibly a Porsche 935 underneath, the Fabcar version was built in 1983 as a final attempt to make the 935 as good as it could be, featuring improved aerodynamics and reliability.

The 935/84 has a Porsche-derived flat-six engine, producing around 800 bhp, making it a beast to control. So, where better to drive it than the Nurburgring Nordschleife? 

Although the Bob Akin Motor Racing machine raced solely in America, the Porsche 935 was synonymous with the DRM, so it feels appropriate to powerslide this rear-engined monster around the longest – and one of the most dangerous – permanent race tracks in the world.

Are you tempted to try any of the above car and track combinations in RaceRoom? What’s your favourite? Tell us in the comments below.