Logitech G x Suellio Almeida - Drive To Win

You may have heard a version of the classic latin idiom before: “Repetitio est mater studiorum.” Maybe the direct translation, “Repetition is the mother of learning,” or the  succinct “Practice makes perfect.” It’s a sentiment that spans across discipline, time and culture — a seeming universal truth.

Physically, practice builds muscle memory; mentally, it builds neural pathways; experientially, it builds confidence; in everyday life, it builds routine. All this practice leads to dependable reactions — when X happens, you will react with Y. Such is how Suelliio philosophizes his skill. “By practicing correct technique, at some point, it’ll just click.”

HIs journey is marked by its curious forks and his straddling of them. To the 28-year-old, “it all started with video games” but is also inextricably linked to his years of professional pianist training. He played every racing game he could as a hobby besides seriously practicing piano during his youth in Brazil. His desire to improve at piano unhindered led to development of bad habits, as he puts it. He paid for those with his time; the bane of every racer.

While his peers progressed, he felt like he was spinning his wheels, this frustration fanned his competitive fire and this heat found its way onto the virtual racetrack. In his early 20s, hobby became passion with an upgrade from controller to Logitech G Driving Force GT and he started racing more frequently on Assetto Corsa.

He found himself at another fork — to avoid the mistakes he made growing as a pianist, he’d have to start over and pursue what he calls “the smartest path possible for racing technique development.” He wanted a perfect start, so he focused. Not just on improving laps, but on building foundations for the split-second reactions he’d need.

As he progressed, he thought that sharing his methods of development would be useful for the sim racing community. He started giving one-on-one coaching sessions and after 500 or so, he considered coaching as a way to pay for university in Montreal. Eventually, his passion for what paid the bills overtook what he was studying.

Having spent so many hours of his youth with his university piano professors, he had absorbed their teaching methods, how to explain the concepts articulately, not making lessons too complicated, letting students make their own mistakes to learn from them. “I try to give students tools to identify their own choices rather than pointing them out myself.”

With his coaching career well established, his switch to iRacing complete and his love of racing stronger than ever - Suellio upgraded his rig and focused on becoming the best. He got so good that eventually he was given the opportunity to race for Apex V2R, a team solely focused on bringing virtual drivers onto the real track. Racing IRL for the first time, Suellio felt “like Neo leaving the martial arts simulator scene in The Matrix. The sensations were different, but it felt like I had done it a million times before, because I had in the sim.”

“Everything that I do in the car — comes from sim racing. It's just incredible, just unimaginable. I'm in a car driving 200 kph, and I'm like, ‘I'm doing this!’ Three years ago I was doing this at home in a video game.”

Just recently, Suellio landed his very first P1 in a formula car, just months after getting a podium on his very first IRL race ever. “I'm eternally grateful for sim racing. Ninety-nine percent of the reason I got a win in a real life Formula car is because of sim racing.” For Suellio, racing’s next generation of talent will come from video games and he’s blazing the trail.