The Best Sim Racing Seats – Buyer’s Guide

Featured image: my sim racing setup with a Motorbase seat

The typical GT-style seat is what you come across most often in sim racing setups, and I’ve used a few different ones. Without knowing what you’re looking for, it’s pretty easy to spend too long looking for the right seat for your simulator. In this guide, I aim to help you with the otherwise lengthy task of choosing a seat that will fit your body shape, match the comfort or sportiness you’re looking for, and fit your budget – and I’ll go over what sort of mounting solutions you’ll need, what you should look for when you’re ready to buy, and the seats I’ve picked that are worth the money. If you’re looking for an actual sim racing rig that includes an integrated seat, frame and base, then be sure to check out my other guide to the best sim rigs on the market, or our F1 cockpits guide, as today I’ll purely be focusing on stand-alone seats to go with a cockpit you’ve purchased without the seat.

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How to choose | Seating positions | Fitting a seat | The seats to buy | Mounting | Final thoughts

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How to choose a sim racing seat

The biggest thing to remember when picking a racing seat is that the process will have a certain amount of personal relevance. There are a few things that I’d consider to be cardinal buying rules, such as something that caters to both comfort and the practical side of sim racing, but otherwise, it all depends on your budget and preferences.

Probably the most important thing you should consider before committing to any particular model is whether or not your seat will fit you. It’s good practice to measure yourself much like you would for new clothing, and have these sizes handy when you’re browsing online for a new seat. All seats have a measurement guide, like this OMP seat size chart.

In my MX-5, I raced in the BRSCC MX-5 championship for a few years, and the car had a proper FIA-approved race seat in it. I honestly can’t remember which seat it was, but basically I liked it because it was a really good snug fit to my waist, without me having to squeeze myself into it. There was little to no lateral movement for my hips, and my lower back was well supported – which, as you may already know, is quite important to me. My Radical SR3 RSX had a composite plastic moulded seat that almost completely surrounds you up to your sides – very comfortable, and similar to a Tillett carbon seat today. And for what it’s worth, the seat that came with my Sim-Lab P1X (there’s a review on the site) matched all of those parameters very well.

So, to recap: good side support, and not being able to move from side to side, so the seat’s got you – you’re not working to hold yourself in position, because that’s an absolute disaster. And comfort, of course, is king. You’re probably going to be sitting in one of these seats for a couple of hours a day, so I think it’s really important to choose carefully. The seat I’ve got now is a Sim Dynamics one, built by Motordrive.

Of course you’re going to enjoy the more motorsport look and feel, with the nice headrest and the holes in the back for the seat belts – not that I wear a seat belt in a sim racing cockpit, but it’s that look. Then there are the bolster cushions and the sides: they call these bucket seats because they enclose you, they wrap around you almost. In the real world that’s to keep you safe in the case of a side impact. In sim racing these seats aren’t a chore to sit in – they’re incredibly comfortable. It’s a real nice-to-have, and quite a privilege, to be able to have an FIA-approved racing seat, because you know you’re paying more for it, but it’s been developed over a very long period of time by people who really have studied driver ergonomics – making sure not only that you’re safe, but that you’re comfortable and able to compete as an athlete for hours at a time. Ventilation is quite important too; we do get pretty hot in these seats. But you don’t have to spend a huge amount of money to get a similar look and feel. You just have to feel comfortable.

When you start your search for a new racing seat, here is a quick checklist of items to keep in mind:

• Frame and shell materials (steel, fibreglass, carbon fibre)
• Upholstery materials
• Ergonomic and adjustable design
• Lumbar support
• Secure mounting system
• Style: F1 / formula, hybrid (LM prototype) or GT?
• Price

A collection of brands that I always consider trusted and worth their salt within the seat market are Sparco, Recaro, and OMP. They all offer a wide variety of products at various price points. Of course, there are a lot more companies out there producing great seats, and I’ll cover a couple of them here, but you can’t go wrong with a seat from one of these three reliable brands.

The seating positions: formula, GT or touring

There are three broad seating positions to know. The Formula position is the most reclined: you sit low, with your legs raised and stretched out in front of you, with the pedal deck sitting above the seat. The GT position is more upright, the backrest somewhere around 90 to 110 degrees, the one that you’ll find attached to most sim racing cockpits. A touring or road-car position is the most upright of the lot, much like sitting in a fast road car.

My own preference is quite upright, with the wheel extension fitted so my arms aren’t over-extended. That way I can relax rather than stretch, and put maximum strength through the wheel. Wherever you land, a backrest a little past 90 degrees supports your lower back. Too upright or too far reclined, and your back will let you know about it long before the session’s over.

Of course, some people are happy to play sim racing games from an office chair, but if you’re looking to step up your immersion levels, you can’t beat a proper bucket seat for the bolstering hip support they can provide, which is especially important if you race for more extended periods. It will pay dividends, in the long run, to invest in a good seat.

Almost any race seat fits your rig

I’ve never met a race seat that doesn’t fit a rig. They nearly all share the same base and mounting dimensions – a 4-point side mount, roughly 290mm between the mounting points on a typical seat like my Motordrive. So if you’re running an 8020 aluminium-profile rig, all you actually need is a pair of decent seat brackets and you’re ready to go.

The brackets are the cheap part. And because the dimensions are shared, you’re not limited to sim-racing brands at all – a genuine motorsport seat, a Sparco or my own Tillett, bolts straight on the same way as anything built for a simulator. That’s a useful thing to know before you assume you need something with “sim” in the name.

The seats I’ve picked that are worth the money

Not everyone wants the reclined formula position. If you mostly race GT or touring cars, or you just prefer sitting more upright, a GT bucket gives you the same support in a stance that’s easier to live in, and it bolts to the rig the same way a formula seat does. I’ve gone for reasonably high-end buckets with good side bolstering and proper support for your back, at a spread of prices.

Extreme Simracing Compact Seat

The Extreme Simracing Compact Seat is $229 (USD). It’s a reclinable seat with a double slider built in, and at that price it gets you the look and feel without spending a huge amount of money. It’s rated to 140kg, and it fits the Extreme Simracing Chassis 3.0 and most other 8020 rigs.

Trak Racer GT Pro

The Trak Racer GT Pro is $349 in fibreglass black, in stock. It’s a fixed-back GT bucket with deep side bolsters to hold you through heavy braking and quick direction changes, and it’s cut for a waist from about 28 to 44 inches. Side-mount fitting, sliders sold separately, so it goes onto an aluminium-profile rig the same way the formula seats do. The shell is a lightweight, ultra-rigid fibreglass with a wear-resistant coating, it’s rated for D-BOX, Sigma Integrale and Qubic motion platforms, and Trak Racer warrant the shell for two years and the upholstery for one.

Fanatec GT Cockpit Seat

The Fanatec GT Cockpit Seat is $349.99, in stock, and it leans towards comfort: a padded, ventilated shell with proper lumbar support rather than a hard racing bucket. It uses the standard 290mm bolt pattern, so it mounts to an 8020 rig like everything else here. Look at this one if you want the upright, road-car feel for long evenings. The shell is fibre-reinforced plastic under a padded, ventilated fabric, it weighs 12.5kg, it’s rated for drivers between 120 and 150kg, and it comes in black or white.

Advanced Bucket Seat

Advanced Sim Racing’s own Bucket Seat is $399.99 CAD, in stock, and like their formula seat it comes with the side brackets in the box. Fibreglass shell, a breathable front, and the seat padding lifts out if you want to drop lower into it. If you’re already running an Advanced rig, it’s the tidy option that just bolts on. It’s sold in Large only: 533mm across the shoulders, 356mm at the lower back and 406mm at the thighs, with an 889mm backrest.

Sparco EVO L QRT

If you’re a larger driver, the Sparco EVO XL QRT is designed for you up to a waist size of 38 inches, which makes it the largest sim racing seat in the Sparco collection. For a slightly smaller waist (up to 36 inches, which would fit me very snugly) the Sparco EVO L QRT is the little brother of the XL, at $949.99 CAD. The EVO QRT series is known for its comfort with the highest level of back angle rake, giving you a comfortable driving position and allowing your body to open up that little bit more, seating you lower and giving you the leverage for better, more immediate and stronger pedal control. Sparco’s QRT technology significantly lightens the whole seat. This seat is intended for sim racers and is not FIA-approved. It’s an ultralight fibreglass composite shell at 9.07kg, 580mm across the shoulders and 435mm across the base, and Sparco give it the most back-angle rake of any seat in their range; there is also an FIA-approved Racing edition of the same seat at $1,139.99 CAD, out of stock as I write. Sparco and OMP, being motorsport manufacturers, make really top-grade seats, and if you’re lucky enough to have the money, go have at it.

If it’s the reclined formula position you want, that’s covered in the F1 sim racing seats and cockpits guide.

How to mount your sim racing seat with sliders and brackets

There are a few different ways you can mount your seat to your rig, and generally it is recommended to buy mounts from the same retailer as the seat to ensure compatibility.

The three most common ways to mount a seat are side mounts (fixed position), runner kits (adjustable), and base plates (fixed position). Depending on the brand of your seat, you may be able to choose between any of the three choices, or you may be forced to choose one. It’ll also be dependent on what type of cockpit you’re using, so before you click to buy, make sure you’ve covered all your bases.

Steel side mounts

These steel side mounts are multi-drilled to provide lots of scope for adjustment, allowing you to position your seat in the most suitable position. A good thing to note is that these mounts will fit most side-mounted seats, including those from Sparco, OMP, Cobra and Corbeau.

Seat runners and sliders

Seat runners are universally designed to give shell seats some adjustability. They sit between the standard steel mount (mentioned above) and will mount on an 8020 style aluminium rig easily.

Final thoughts

Comfort is king. You’ll be sitting in this thing for hours, so choose carefully – and you really don’t have to spend a fortune. If you’re still building the rig, my best sim rigs guide is the place to start, and for single-seaters, the F1 guide. Good luck, and let me know how you get on in the comments!

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Topic: Sim Racing Cockpits