Beginners Guide to Assetto Corsa Competizione in 2026

Assetto Corsa Competizione has been the best GT racing simulator on the market for many years, and it still pulls punches in 2026. It’s also one of the most overwhelming to get started with.

Between the physics, the ratings system, the car setups, and the unspoken rules of online racing, new drivers can get lost before they’ve even left the pit lane.

This guide walks you through everything you need to know to go from installing the game to racing competitively online. It’s broken into six chapters, so if you’ve already got a head start, skip to the section you need.

Throughout the guide, you’ll find links to deeper articles on specific topics. Bookmark this page and come back to it as you progress. It will help you be a more complete driver from the very beginning.

1. Before You Begin

What ACC Actually Is

ACC is not a racing game; it’s a racing simulation. It replicates the SRO-licensed GT World Challenge series with laser-scanned tracks, real teams and liveries, and physics that demand you treat the car like a real race car on a real circuit. If you’ve come from the F1 games or Forza, the jump in realism will be significant. That’s what makes it rewarding.

ACC focuses exclusively on GT racing. What you will find is the deepest, most accurate GT3, GT4, and GT2 racing experience available in any sim, and a competitive online community to race against.

If you’re weighing up ACC against the original Assetto Corsa, there are in-depth differences worth understanding before you decide.

What Content You Get (And What You Need to Buy)

ACC’s base game includes all circuits from the 2018 and 2019 GT World Challenge seasons, along with every GT3 car from those years. That’s enough to race online immediately, and most servers use these tracks and the base GT3 roster.

However, ACC also has multiple DLC packs that add tracks, cars, and entire new classes. Some of these are essential if you want the full experience. Here’s the complete list:

Our recommendation for new players: Start with the base game. If you enjoy it, the Intercontinental GT Pack and 2023 GT World Challenge pack should be your first purchases, as they give you the most-used tracks and the current-spec GT3 cars that competitive servers run. Add the rest as your budget allows.

You can purchase setups for every car and track combination through Coach Dave Academy’s ACC setups with a Delta subscription.

Hardware: What You Need

A steering wheel and pedals: This isn’t really optional unless you are on console. ACC is playable with a controller, but you’ll lose the force feedback that tells you what the car is doing. Without that feedback, you can’t feel the grip, can’t catch slides, and can’t improve beyond a basic level. A Logitech G29/G920 or Thrustmaster T300 is the minimum we’d recommend. 

For the more serious setups, Moza and Fanatec offer excellent mid-range direct drive options, while Simagic, Asetek, and Simucube sit at the top end. You don’t need to start there, but know that upgrading your wheel and pedals is the single biggest performance improvement you can make outside of practice.

A PC that can handle it: ACC is more resource-hungry than most racing sims, particularly with full grids and wet weather. For a solid experience in 2026, you’ll want at minimum an NVIDIA RTX 3060 or AMD RX 6700 XT, paired with a modern CPU like an Intel 12th-gen i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and above. If you’re running VR, aim higher as ACC in VR is demanding but incredibly immersive.

The key rule: prioritise frame rate over visual quality. Consistent frames make you a faster, more consistent driver. A locked 60fps on medium settings is better than a stuttery 45fps on epic.

2. Initial Start-Up

Graphics Settings

Don’t start on epic settings, even with a strong PC, as ACC will punish you with inconsistent frame rates when the grid is full. Start with the medium preset, then adjust from there. A few specific recommendations:

• Lower mirror quality and mirror distance, as these eat frames for minimal benefit
• Set visible opponents to 16/2,0 as you rarely need to render a full grid
• Turn on HLOD for better performance at a distance
• Use V-sync if your frame rate is fluctuating, but test with it off first, since it adds input delay

For the full breakdown, read our ACC graphics optimisation guide. Test your settings with a practice race against AI (20+ cars), the AI is CPU-intensive, so if it runs smoothly there, online will be fine.

Force Feedback Setup

Force feedback is how the sim communicates with you through the wheel. Getting it right is crucial, too weak and you can’t feel the car sliding, too strong and it’s exhausting and masks the subtle feedback you need.

Start with these settings: Gain as high as you can comfortably control, Minimum Force at 0%, Dynamic Dampening at 100% (drop this if you have a high-end direct drive wheel), Road Effects at 0%, and frequency at 333Hz for mid to high-end wheels.

Make sure you map “Cycle HUD MFD Up” to an easily accessible button on your wheel – this controls the Multi-Functional Display, which lets you change car settings, traction control, engine maps, and pit strategy during races. You’ll use it constantly.

For a detailed walkthrough, check our force feedback setup guide and steering rotation guide.

Field of View

Getting your FOV right makes a bigger difference than most beginners realise. A correct FOV helps you judge speed, braking points, and your position on track. An incorrect FOV makes everything feel wrong without you being able to pinpoint why.

Use a FOV calculator to get the right number for your screen size and viewing distance, then adjust the camera height, lateral position, distance, and pitch to reflect your seated position. The goal is a natural perspective that matches what you’d see sitting in a real cockpit.

For more details, read our in-depth FOV guide for ACC.

3. Achieving Your Ratings

Before you can race online competitively, you need to build your ACC Ratings. These are Kunos’ way of measuring your competence as a driver, and server owners use them to set minimum entry requirements. The two biggest hurdles are Track Rating and Safety Rating.

Track Rating (TR)

Track Ratings confirm you know your way around a circuit. You earn them by completing clean laps at a reasonable pace:

• One clean lap = one star
• Two consecutive clean laps = two stars
• Four consecutive clean laps = three stars

This sounds simple, but you need to maintain a reasonable pace for the laps to count. You can’t crawl around at half speed. Pick a car you’re comfortable with (the BMW M4 GT3 or Aston Martin V8 are forgiving starter choices), choose an approachable track like Monza or Misano, and focus on stringing together clean, consistent laps.

Safety Rating (SA)

Safety Rating measures how safely you drive around other cars. To start building SA, you first need minimum values for Consistency (CN) and Car Control (CC), which come from putting in clean, consistent laps.

SA itself is earned by driving close to other cars without hitting them. You need to get within 0.7 seconds of a car (and stay within 1.2 seconds) to earn Trust points. Hit another car, and you earn penalty points instead. You also get bonus Trust for finishing races.

The best way to build SA from zero is to run 20-30 minute races against AI. Set the AI skill to a level similar to your own so you can sit close behind them without crashing into them. Once your SA reaches around 30, you can start joining online servers, but we’d recommend pushing to at least 60 before diving into competitive lobbies. The lower-rated servers can be chaotic, and a higher SA lets you skip the worst of it.

4. Your First Setup

When you’re starting out, car setups can feel like a foreign language. Don’t worry about understanding every parameter right now; that comes with time. ACC’s default presets (Safe and Aggressive) are good for beginners. Pick one and focus on driving.

That said, there are a few things you need to get right from the start:

Fuel

You need enough fuel to finish the race. A quick estimate: multiply the race duration in minutes by 2.2 to get a ballpark fuel load in litres. For a more precise calculation, use the formula:

Fuel Required = ((Race Time in minutes × 60) / Lap Time in seconds) × Fuel Per Lap + (2 × Fuel Per Lap)

Or just use a fuel calculator, as there are plenty available, and our fuel management strategy guide covers this in detail. Running out of fuel on the last lap is one of the most common beginner mistakes, and one of the easiest to avoid.

Tyre Pressures

Tyre pressures change with ambient temperature, and getting them wrong costs real lap time. The target is approximately 27.0-27.2 PSI – anything between 26.5 and 27.2 is workable, but you want to be as close to 27.2 as possible without going over.

Go out for three laps and check your pressures. As a rule of thumb, adjust by 0.1 PSI for every 1°C change in ambient temperature. For the full picture, read our tyre pressure guide.

If you’re a Delta subscriber, tyre pressures are automatically adjusted for the conditions when your setup is loaded, which is one less thing to think about while you’re learning everything else.

Traction Control

This is important: use traction control. GT3 cars are designed to run with TC just like they use it in real life. The power delivery is not intended to be managed without it. If you’ve come from F1 games where driving without TC is a badge of honour, leave that mindset at the door. In ACC, using TC properly is a skill, not a crutch. But you can find more speed running it a little lower.

Engine Modes

ACC’s cars have multiple engine maps – typically a qualifying mode (maximum power, highest fuel consumption), a race mode (balanced), and lower modes for fuel saving. Some cars, like the Mercedes, require you to switch from qualifying to race mode before a long race to avoid running out of fuel.

Mode 1 generally gives the most power. Experiment with the different modes during practice to understand how they affect power delivery and fuel consumption.

Going Deeper with Setups

Understanding setup changes takes time. Most competitive drivers have spent years across multiple sims building that knowledge.

If you’d rather skip the trial and error and race with setups developed by these same professional drivers and engineers, a Delta subscription gives you access to the entire Coach Dave Academy setup library for every car and track in ACC. That’s all GT3, GT4, GT2 and single make cars in the game.

Setups are installed automatically when you load into a session – no file management, no downloading, no guesswork. Each setup comes with qualifying, race, and wet variants, and automatic tyre pressures to match the server temps, plus telemetry data and reference laps from some of the fastest drivers in ACC esports.

Beyond setups, Delta’s Auto Insights AI coaching analyses your driving corner by corner and tells you exactly where you’re losing time – whether you’re braking too early, missing the apex, or getting on the throttle too late. 

For a beginner trying to understand where to focus practice time, that targeted feedback is worth hours of guesswork, and you now get access to Video Analysis on top of all this, bringing your telemetry data to life.

5. Racing Etiquette

You’ve built your ratings, set up your car, and you’re ready to race online. Before you hit the grid, here’s what you need to know about how racing actually works in ACC.

Free Practice

Use practice sessions to learn the track and settle into a rhythm. You can race against other drivers in free practice, but don’t excessively block people on flying laps.

A smart use of practice time: do a few laps on low fuel to find your qualifying pace, then fill the tank to race fuel and run several laps to feel how the car changes with a full load. This time is for learning and making mistakes, so use it.

Qualifying

Show your best over a single lap and earn your grid position. A few things to remember:

• Build up gradually: Your best lap should come towards the end of the session when the track is most rubbered in, and your confidence is highest. Don’t push for a hero lap on your first flying lap.
• Leave a gap: Keep 2-3 seconds between you and the car ahead when starting a flying lap. Sitting in someone’s dirty air or having them in yours ruins both your laps.
• Respect blue flags: In qualifying, a blue flag means someone on a timed lap is approaching you. Let them pass cleanly, you’d want the same courtesy.
• Use your mini-map: Check it when exiting the pits to see if anyone on a fast lap is approaching.

The Race

The Start

There are two start procedures in ACC: a short formation where all cars are released simultaneously in a double-file formation, and a full warm-up lap where cars are released individually before forming up. Follow the on-screen instructions – cars are ghosted during the formation, so you can’t collide.

A useful tip: holding your brakes generates more tyre and brake heat than weaving. Use this on the formation lap.

Turn 1

This is where races are most commonly lost. The field funnels from two or three wide into a corner that fits one or two cars. The accordion effect means the cars ahead will brake far earlier than you expect.

The golden rule: lift and brake early on lap 1. You will not win the race in Turn 1, but you can absolutely lose it there. Survival is the objective. Let the chaos happen ahead of you and drive through it.

Lap 1

The entire first lap is a continuation of small accordion effects as the field stretches into a single line. Groups of drivers will be fighting for position, and someone will crash. Be prepared for it and slow down when you see it happening. A clean first lap is the foundation for a good race.

Racing Wheel to Wheel

Once the field settles, you’ll start either catching the car ahead or defending from the car behind. The driver behind has the responsibility to make a clean pass. Rubbing is part of racing, but crashing isn’t.

Only make a move if you genuinely believe you can make it stick. Don’t lunge into an unrealistic gap and blame the other driver when it goes wrong. And remember: every crash doesn’t just end your race – it can end several other people’s races too. Be respectful. The result matters less than you think. Finishing the race is always better than a DNF from a desperate move.

Blue Flags

Unlike F1, backmarkers in GT racing are not required to move aside under blue flags. Blue flags are simply a notification that a faster car is approaching. The faster car must make a clean overtake. The slower car must not actively block.

If you want to let a faster car through, get off the racing line first, then lift. Don’t brake suddenly – that causes more accidents than it prevents. On the relative MFD page, orange names are a lap ahead of you, and blue names are a lap down.

Penalties

ACC has an automated penalty system for track limits. It measures whether you gained time after putting four wheels over the white line. If you did, you would get a warning. Four warnings equal a Drive-Through penalty, which must be served within three laps or you’ll be disqualified.

The system needs a few laps to calibrate at the start of a race, so be careful about pushing track limits in the opening laps. And when serving a drive-through, watch your speed as exceeding the pit lane speed limit triggers a 30-second Stop & Go penalty. Make sure “Serve Penalty” is checked on the MFD pitstop page.

For the full breakdown, read our guide to understanding penalties in ACC.

Finishing the Race

If you’ve crashed, received a penalty, or ended up at the back, resist the temptation to quit and join another server. Use the remaining time to practice clean laps without pressure. Someone ahead might spin and give you a battle. You earn bonus Trust points for finishing, which offsets any penalty points from earlier incidents. And finishing races makes you a better driver – quitting doesn’t.

6. Where to Race Online

ACC’s built-in online servers are fine for getting started, but if you want organised, competitive racing with proper league structures, SimGrid is where you can find an ACC community. SimGrid offers beginner-friendly moderated races, structured championships, and a rating system that puts you in lobbies with drivers of a similar level. 

It’s trusted by some of the biggest names in sim racing, such as Ferrari Esports and SRO Esports, who have both used SimGrid’s technology to run their official competitions on ACC. Whether you want a quick 30-minute sprint race or a full endurance championship with a team, SimGrid has it.

Your SimGrid Grid Rating starts fresh, so now is the perfect time to jump in and build your reputation from the ground up. There are hundreds of active communities on SimGrid, and many of them would love for you to join them and their championships. 

Start Racing, Start Improving

ACC has a steep learning curve, and the first few weeks can be frustrating. That’s normal. Every fast driver you see online started exactly where you are now – overwhelmed, spinning in Turn 1, and wondering why the car won’t do what they want.

The path forward is simple: pick one car and stick with it. Learn its strengths and weaknesses. Don’t switch cars every race – that builds bad habits and resets your learning every time. The BMW M4 GT3 and Aston Martin V8 Vantage GT3 are both forgiving starter choices that will teach you good fundamentals.

Once you’re comfortable and ready to chase lap time, Coach Dave Delta will accelerate your improvement. Professionally developed setups installed automatically, Auto Insights AI coaching that tells you exactly where to brake later, carry more speed, or get on the throttle earlier and Video Analysis that anybody can use.

And if you want structured guidance on the fundamentals of fast, consistent driving, the Never Lift course covers everything from braking technique to throttle control across 11 detailed lessons, all included with your Delta subscription.

ACC Beginner Guide FAQ: