GTA 6: Real Race Car Drivers Built Its Handling
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In a new exclusive feature, Dazed spoke to Rockstar North developers about how vehicle handling in GTA 6 actually gets built — and the most striking detail isn’t about technology at all: the team responsible for vehicle handling physics is made up of real professional race-car drivers. It’s the first detailed, on-the-record explanation of where that much-discussed sense of a car’s weight, seen in the Extended Look footage, actually comes from.
The handling team: not just programmers
According to Dazed, vehicle handling in GTA 6 isn’t handled by a regular team of designers and programmers alone — the group includes real professional race-car drivers. In other words, people who compete on an actual track directly shape how a car in the game responds to steering, braking, and acceleration. That sets Rockstar North’s approach apart from the typical studio practice, where handling physics is usually left entirely to programmers, with real drivers brought in only for occasional motion-capture sessions. Independently of Dazed, the same detail about a team built around real race-car drivers was confirmed by GTAVice.net in its own recap of the same exclusive Dazed feature on GTA 6 — meaning this isn’t a single unverified claim but a fact confirmed by two independent outlets.
“We adjust a lot by feel” — Rob Nelson’s approach
Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson explained in the same feature how the team actually makes decisions about handling mechanics. According to him, a lot of what the team does during GTA 6’s development is iterative: they adjust mechanics by feel, based on what’s working and what isn’t. In other words, this isn’t a single physics formula written once and never revisited, but a constant loop of testing and tweaking, where the deciding factor is how handling feels during actual play rather than numbers in the code alone. Nelson has also explained the studio’s frame-rate decision on consoles — and the same philosophy shows up there too: the game is tuned around the console hardware’s real limits, not the other way around.
Handling built “from scratch” for the current console generation
Tech4Gamers, which also reviewed the Dazed interview, highlights another detail: vehicle handling in GTA 6 was built from scratch for the current console generation and gives players far more control than earlier games in the series — including control over tires, suspension, steering, and how a vehicle behaves across different terrain types. That means grip levels, tire wear, or the state of the road surface can now meaningfully affect how a car handles in a given moment, rather than just the general “slipperiness” of a track. Combined with the detail about the race-car-driver team, this paints a coherent picture: handling wasn’t treated as a cosmetic update to the previous game, but built as its own system.
GTA IV’s weight, GTA V’s accessibility
The most useful practical explanation concerns the balance between the two previous entries in the series. As recounted by Tech4Gamers, Rob Nelson described the studio’s approach to handling weight as an attempt to keep the best parts of GTA IV’s heavy physics while combining them with GTA V’s accessibility. For anyone who remembers both games, that description nails the problem: GTA IV’s handling was loved by many for its realism and sense of a car’s mass, but criticized for being hard to control, while GTA V made handling far more accessible and arcade-like — leading some fans to feel the studio had lost that same weight. Judging by Nelson’s description, GTA 6 is trying to resolve that tension rather than pick a side. The Extended Look footage already conveyed a real sense of a car’s weight, unlike GTA V, where handling felt closer to an arcade game.
Why this matters for players
Vehicle handling is one of those things a player feels literally every minute of playing a GTA game, so any decision here shapes how the whole game is perceived far more than a single story beat does. The fact that the studio brought in real race-car drivers, rather than relying solely on internal designer testing, signals how seriously this specific aspect was treated. Nelson isn’t explaining specific technical decisions to the press for the first time: he has also talked before about why the game launches without a full first-person mode, and in both cases it comes down to a deliberate trade-off rather than a technical limitation the studio was forced to accept. Fans had already tried to spot similar handling details in leaked footage that surfaced long before the official reveal, though confirming details about the actual development team was impossible back then.
Rockstar North hasn’t published official technical specifications for its tire-friction or suspension model — everything known right now is a general description of the approach from the developers themselves, not a parameter table. So for now, judging exactly how different handling will feel is only possible from the studio’s own words and from the gameplay footage already shown.
Frequently asked questions
Who exactly is responsible for vehicle handling physics in GTA 6?
According to Dazed, the team responsible for vehicle handling includes real professional race-car drivers, not just programmers and game designers.
What does Rob Nelson's by-feel approach mean?
Nelson explained that the team adjusts handling mechanics iteratively, based on what actually feels right during play rather than purely on calculations in the code.
Does GTA 6's handling feel closer to GTA IV or GTA V?
According to Nelson, the studio is trying to combine the weight of GTA IV's handling with the accessibility of GTA V, rather than picking one of the two models.
Can tires and suspension be tuned separately?
According to Tech4Gamers, handling was built from scratch and gives control over tires, suspension, steering, and how the vehicle behaves across different terrain types.
Did any other outlet confirm this besides Dazed?
Yes, the detail about a team of real race-car drivers was independently confirmed by GTAVice.net in its own recap of the same interview.
Has Rockstar North published technical specifications for the vehicle physics model?
No, the studio hasn't published official figures for its tire-friction or suspension model — only a general description of the approach from the developers themselves is known.