Matt McMurry's Le Mans diary: Sim sensations

We've been following the escapades of 16-year-old Matt McMurry, who is on the cusp of becoming the youngest person to ever participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Having taken part in this past weekend's test day, he has been officially accepted into the Greaves Motorsport team with Chris Dyson and Tom Kimber-Smith. But before that, he had to put in some official sim time. We'll let Matt explain. -Ed.

A new regulation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans is mandatory simulator training for rookies like me and anyone who hasn't been in the race in the last five years. Each day, two drivers are scheduled for a nine-hour session at AO Tech in Saint Pierre du Perray, near Paris.

I didn't realize it going in, but I was paired with Jon Lancaster who I met at Paul Ricard when he drove the second Greaves Motorsport entry at the April test. Jon is with Michel Frey and Frank Mallieux as part of the LMP2 squad from Race Performance at Le Mans.

1) You drove in F1? It doesn't matter. Yeah, even Mark Webber of 200+ grand prix races had to go through the training. No, really! Usually simulator work is familiarization with tracks or chassis development, which clearly someone like Webber doesn't need. In this case, though, the simulator is also about some unique new caution period rules.

2) Staying Green. In hopes of not having full-course yellow (which is a real problem on an 8-mile course where corralling the strung-out field is nearly impossible) safety car periods, a new "slow zone" procedure has been adopted. The "slow zone" encapsulates an incident area. In essence, the entire track stays green and at speed, except when you arrive at a slow zone. In these zones you have to drop your speed to 60kph.

3) Ouch, that hurts! I'm told that the penalty for speeding in a slow zone is five seconds of stop-and-go for every one kph in excess. That's a BIG penalty! But it will hopefully help drivers be mindful, because flying into a zone at speed with cars ahead going 60kph could be a disaster! I'm guessing some podiums will be determined by avoiding this penalty. Think about it: Missing one zone and entering it at a common Le Mans speed of 250kph would net you a 15+ minute (or about a 4-lap) penalty!

4) Unique Conditions. After familiarizing ourselves with the simulator sensations through two free practice sessions of 30 minutes each, next were sessions unique to Le Mans: night driving, full wet, and mixed conditions where it's dry on one side of the circuit and wet elsewhere. I like driving at night and think this will be a good period for our entry.

5) SIM vs Reality. I've never been in a SIM that mimics reality just perfectly, so I'll be able to compare and contrast soon! Here's a video of Webber doing the SIM:

-Matt