he wants a real sim like what drivers practise with not games though
Certainly the GP2 teams, and some of the F1 teams use simulators based up Rfactor .... so yes, real sims "like what drivers practice with not games"
You'll also find real drivers racing regularly on iracing (Dale Earnhardt Jr for example is a regular on the oval side)
I've tried one of the GP2 teams simulators and the biggest difference is probably the hardware. A G27 is decent for the money .. but their wheel uses a £2000 motor that is incredibly powerful. A load cell brake pedal is also a big improvement, but you can modify a G27 to take one relatively cheaply.
Software wise, a lot of rfactor mods are terrible in terms of realism (although there are also some good ones) The GP2 simulator used a custom made version that used real world data from the team.
Some of the very flashy commercial simulators are actually quite flawed, for example using projectors with terrible input lag or poorly adapted versions of rfactor etc.
In answer to the OP - forget F1 2011, in fact uninstall it right now! ... sign up to iracing. The combination of accurate cars, laser scanned tracks and a brilliant online racing structure is unbeatable.
The laser scanned tracks in particular are exceptional and make a massive difference - I will be using it to learn new circuits before I race at them.
