To me, the interesting question is not whether the experience is the same for the driver, because obviously it cannot be. What's interesting is whether the skills transfer. I would assume they do to some degree, but there are probably bits you can't learn except by doing.

The reason why the question is interesting is because I love the notion that you can train in a less expensive context and then perform in a higher stakes one. I'm interested why some domains allow that and others do not. Flight simulators are another interesting case where mechanical skills transfer, but that's only a small part of what real world flying really is. On the other hand, by all accounts, drone racing sims are quite good for learning how to fly the real thing, since it's almost all mechanics.