Real-time racing against the real thing

This will fail.

The reason why is that these top drivers will not be responding to your actions because as far as they will be concerned, you won't exist. Also, unless the game stacks the deck in your favor so to speak, pretty much every gamer will be soundly trounced every time.

All I can imagine is that someone wasn't thinking things through.

I wouldnt bet on that as a former rally championship leader I find most video games physics FAR MORE forgiving than real competition, that combined with a lack of consequences for a video gamer really do add up to a huge advantage for the arm chair racer.

A real driver has his life in his hands, living with fear of an incident is an important part of real racing. No amount of safety gear is going to guarantee a lack of harm. Races are rarely won by the guy with "the biggest balls" In real competition there is a saying "to finish first, first you must finish" The armchair racer doesnt have his career and his life in his hands, he can take further risks, and with game physics being so limited compared to real life may well be able to pull off corners or techniques that are impossible for a real life driver.

I am willing to bet that few gamers would be able to set the same lap time in real life as they do in a video game car for car and course for course. Take a competition driver and the reverse may well be true until they spend a long time learning the rules of the video game physics

Im betting its racing a "solid"ghost car, which has no real benefits over a "NPC" Driver based on an arbitary lap time goal or based on historical data. As in you probably cant drive through the Ghost car but it also cant block you as its just following the real drivers course who isnt aware of you or reacting to you.

This would be less of an issue on a "rally" type game where baulking is against the rules and considered poor form and so a pure ghost car target would perhaps add to the fun if you knew it was a "real person" but still the only fair match would be gamer vs gamer in the same game etc

I guess "Live against the pros" is a bragging rights for gamers marketing line. Rather than a game seriously aimed at pitting gamers talents against real world talents in an equal competition. I enjoyed competition, I enjoy racing games, but as yet they arent equal.

No if they really want to pit the gamer against the pro, build a fly by wire remote controlled f1 car (with appropriate ballast) and run the feed back through a games physics engine

I think it's a fun idea. It is probably more of a gimmick and an interesting new way to watch the race, than the next big thing in racing games. If it's implemented half way decently it could make for a fun experience even if it doesn't have the competitive element of some other racing games.

I'm sorry as a former SCCA racer, there is no way that a game will EVER be like the real thing, as DTQ said, there's something missing when there is no responsibility, dying has real consequences

The point was a matter of REAL consequences. Unless you hook yourself up to a force feedback vest capable of collapsing your lung you do not face REAL consequences.