Lasse Sørensen Invites Jimmy Broadbent for a TCR Test Drive

With the exception of one photo, all photos in this article are courtesy of Jimmy Broadbent’s vlog video regarding his experience with Dream Concept.

Last week, just days after his mighty impressive NASCAR Whelen Euro Series debut at Franciacorta where he scored an unlikely victory in his very first NASCAR Whelen Euro Series race, Lasse Sørensen returns to his home country Denmark to become a racing instructor in an event hosted by Denmark’s Dream Concept, in which famous YouTube sim racing driver Jimmy Broadbent was invited to the event to have a test drive on the Audi RS3 LMS TCR cars that the Dream Concept provided for its guests.

Dream Concept, founded by Alexander Christiansen in 2011, is an event company that hosts track day events for random people who hasn’t experienced the taste of driving a supercar or a race car. For the event that Dream Concept hosted last week, Dream Concept provides guests with the opportunity to drive supercars from makes such as Ferrari and Mercedes, as well as the opportunity to drive the Audi RS3 LMS TCR and the Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO. The event itself features one “High Speed” course and one “Handling” course for the guests to drive the cars provided by Dream Concept.

Dream Concept features three young racing drivers as their instructors: Lasse Sørensen, 2017 F4 Danish Champion Daniel Lundgaard, and current F4 Danish Championship driver Mikkel Grundtvig. Sørensen himself was the one who invited Broadbent to the event, with Sørensen having meeting and becoming friends with Broadbent thanks to sim racing.

As for Jimmy Broadbent, Broadbent himself is a YouTube sim racer that became famous for his sim racing commentaries and videos such as his iRacing endurance race live streams and his Nurburgring lap time challenges. With more than 250,000 subscribers on his channel, Broadbent is considered by many as the “go-to” reference when it comes to sim racing. In addition to his excellent commentary, another part of his charm comes from his personality and how he lives his everyday life, such as the “shed” that has become synonymous with his channel.

Jimmer, as he was called by his community, has experienced a huge surge of popularity recently. Within the last year alone, his channel has reached the 100k, 200k, and 250k subscriber milestones. In December 2018, he had the honors of racing together with Max Verstappen and Lando Norris in iRacing. He also has been given the opportunity by Gran Turismo to commentate on the FIA Gran Turismo Championship, as well as receiving several opportunities to try out actual race cars, such as the case in the Dream Concept event that Jimmer took part last week.

During the first day of Jimmer’s Dream Concept experience, when Broadbent went in to the track for the first time in the Audi TCR car, he was supposed to just cruise around to get an idea of both the car and the course. As Broadbent said in his video, however, he ended up getting a bit carried away by the sensation of driving the TCR car, prompting Sørensen to admit that he was a bit scared by Broadbent’s driving as he wasn’t wearing his seatbelts on that run.

“To be honest with you, it was quite impressive,” said Sørensen. “Jimmy is very fast on the race track. I was sitting beside him without seatbelts, so I was a bit scared as because he was on the limit, and he’s told me that he was just gonna go for a cruise. I don’t want to race him, because if this was cruising, I don’t know how fast he is (on proper race conditions),” admits Sørensen in Broadbent’s vlog video.

When Broadbent finally got to the track on his own later in the day, he once again shows his excellent commentary skills as he was able to maintain enough concentration to be able to both drive and commentate during his test runs. However, he would then begin to experience some gearbox issues, forcing him to stop his initial test run. After Sørensen and Lundgaard tested the car to see what went wrong, it is ultimately determined that the Audi TCR car would require some repairs, thus ending Jimmer’s first day on a low note.

The next day, after the gearbox issues were sorted out, Sørensen took Broadbent for a drive to show Broadbent on how to improve his lap times. In the video itself, Broadbent would remark that Sørensen’s drive taught him that he could go faster “pretty much everywhere” and that it’s a case of “having a lot more confidence in a car”.

Broadbent also remarks that getting used to the grip of the slick tires (which the Audi RS3 LMS TCR car have) in real life condition is “more difficult than you think,” because the levels of grip that the slick tire provides would prompt your body to think that you can’t possibly make the corner stick with the level of speed that you have, “but it does and usually you’re quite away under the limit,” said Broadbent.

After Sørensen’s test drive, Broadbent would hit the track with the goal of improving the times that he set in the first day. Unfortunately, his second day would end up in the same way as the first one did: Mechanical issue with the gearbox would, once again, end his day prematurely. Broadbent himself weren’t sure what was causing the gearbox issues, remarking that it could be the case of a lingering clutch issue or a driver error in the form of shifting too late or too aggressively.

Despite this, however, Broadbent was glad and thankful about the opportunity that Sørensen and Dream Concept had given to him. “I feel incredibly fortunate to be in the opportunity now where I get invites to these events and get to drive cars that I never thought I’d ever have the opportunity to even go near,” said Broadbent at the end of his video, recorded after he returned back to England. “It makes me feel very happy indeed and it always puts a massive smile on my face saying it out loud and again I am eternally thankful to Lasse and to Dream Concept for making it all happened.”

The full video of Jimmy Broadbent’s experience in Denmark with Lasse Sørensen and Dream Concept can be found in this link. For more information about Dream Concept, you can check it out in the link provided here.