How so?
You also tend to spend more time on the straight after the corner, than in the corner itself
So you mostly optimise for corner exit speed, especially if the car has particularly slow acceleration and a long straight comes after the corner.
> The effect of taking a too wide racing line though means a large multiple in the distance travelled.
On race strategy it's rare for drivers to be pushing their cars to the limits for entire races because tire wear and the stops required to replace them is a major time sink because you can only drive so fast in pit lane so even the 1-2 second stops F1 cars go through today lose drivers position that then has to be regained using the extra performance fresh tires provides.
Then driver skill can put the better driver in the correct position to take the correct line more often when you include other cars in the mix and they also know better how to deal with suboptimal routes (eg being force to take an inside route by traffic so you have to know how much harder you need to break to not wreck into another car).
On an unrelated side note because I'm just personally annoyed by the 12 pArSecS!? misunderstanding. The 12 parsec run is impressive because Kessel is in a part of space ridiculously dense with hazards so the usual route to it loops through a narrow region where it's relatively safe to travel through. Han's 12 parsec run cut through the dangerous parts through either luck, superior navigation, or he was just lying the commentary is mixed. [0]
[0] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/17/Kesse...
Your car, depending on how much grip it has + other variables, will have a theoretical minimum diameter circle it can drive around at various speeds. The higher the speed the bigger the circle. Finding your racing line is just a matter of fitting the biggest circular arc inside the space available in the corner.
Ideally you want to break in a straight line before the corner and reach the speed your car can drive the circle at at just the moment you enter it.
Theres more nuance when it comes to compound corners, FR vs FF cars, oversteer understeer, hills bumps etc. But the basic theory is simply fitting circles.
But that is a more subtle and advanced concept though (like dealing with elevation changes).. People should understand the big circle first.
Its so common it surprises me racing games have always been so popular.
What I have also noticed is that over time racing games have changed their physics to be totally wacky in order to meet the general public's wacky expectations.. (eg. mario kart or GTA5) I cant play those games cus the physics are so strange.
Racing games are very different. They tend to have adaptive AI - you are more likely to win with the naive approach you describe than the physically perfect route. The physically perfect result will get your through the race several minutes faster, but the AI opponents become impossible to beat. Thus the ideal path is the worst thing you can learn. (I haven't played games in years, but IIRC the games you mention don't pretend to be about racing, I wonder how ones that pretend to be a real race compare)
The circle thing is aimed at most people here. If your average person implemented that they would dramatically improve their times.. All the other stuff (of which of course there is a lot) would result in relatively marginal improvements.