Best Racing Games on Ubuntu in 2026 – Sim, Rally & Kart

The new Assetto Corsa, built around real tracks measured down to the last bump, with driving that rewards patience over bravery.

EVO is the one to watch if you care about how a car feels rather than how many cars there are. The front of the car talks to you constantly, and once you stop fighting it, laps get quicker on their own. Parts of it are unfinished and the car list is smaller than the old game. What is there already drives better than almost anything else on this page. Proton runs it at Gold, and it asks a lot of a graphics card.

Note: This one is still in early access, so expect missing features and regular changes.

The official World Endurance Championship game, where a race can run for hours and the car has to survive as well as go fast.

Endurance racing is a different sport to sprint racing, and this is the only game here that really gets that. You manage fuel, watch tyres go off, hand the car over in a driver swap, and pass slower traffic that is having its own race. Nights at Le Mans are worth the price on their own. Proton rates it Silver rather than Gold, so it runs but not always cleanly, which is exactly the case where streaming saves you a bad evening.

One class of car done properly: the heavy, powerful sports cars you see in most big endurance series, with full weather and night races.

Competizione does one thing and does it better than anything else: heavy sports cars, on real circuits, in changing weather. Rain here is not a filter over the screen, it moves the grip around and makes you rethink your braking points lap by lap. It is seven years old and still gets updates and still fills online lobbies. Proton runs it at Gold, and it is heavy enough that older machines will struggle.

A wide ranging sim covering everything from old single seater racers to modern endurance cars, with a Linux build you install straight from Steam.

This is the quiet favourite. It has a proper Linux version, so there is no Proton layer and nothing to configure, and it still gets new cars and tracks years after release. The variety is the draw: you can run a 1970s single seater around Bathurst in the morning and a modern endurance car at Spa in the evening. The way the tyres behave has improved a lot since launch and it now stands next to the better known sims rather than behind them.

The official MotoGP game, with the full 2026 line up of riders and teams, and handling that makes you think about weight rather than just steering.

Bikes are their own thing. You do not turn a MotoGP bike so much as lean it and hope you judged the entry right, and the game does a good job of teaching that without lecturing you. The tutorial system is unusually patient for a licensed sports game. This is the newest release on the whole page, so the number of Linux reports is still small, but the early ones are positive and it streams cleanly.

Note: Released in April 2026, so Linux reports are still few. Early results look good.

The official Formula 1 game, with the full season, a story mode and a career that runs across multiple years.

If you watch Formula 1 on Sunday, this is the game that lets you argue with the strategy yourself. The driving sits between arcade and sim, and the driving aids let you move it either way. My Team, where you run your own outfit as well as drive, is still the mode that holds people the longest. The catch on Linux is real: Proton rates it Silver, mostly around the online side, and no cloud service carries this edition, so there is no easy way around it.

Note: Rated Silver on ProtonDB and not carried by any cloud service we checked. Try it through Steam’s refund window first.

A dedicated rally game from the Assetto Corsa team, with long stages that start in one place and finish in another, on loose surfaces that shift under you.

This is the newest serious rally game on Linux and it already feels right. Gravel behaves like gravel, the car floats a little on the crest of a hill, and the stages are long enough that concentration becomes part of the challenge. The stage list is still short, so treat it as a promising start rather than a finished game. Proton runs it at Gold and recent reports lean towards Platinum.

Note: Early access. The stage and car list is still short.

The rally game most people mean when they say rally game, with blind stages and a co-driver reading the road ahead.

Nothing else makes you trust a stranger’s voice the way this does. You cannot see the corner, so you drive the words, and the first few hours are humbling. Then it clicks, and a clean stage feels better than a win in almost any other racing game. It is seven years old, it is often cheap, and it is still the one to start with if you want to know whether rally is for you. Proton runs it at Gold.

Rally seen from above, covering the sport’s history, with stages built for rhythm rather than realism.

The overhead camera sounds like a compromise until you play it. You can see the whole corner coming, so the game becomes about timing a slide rather than reacting to a surprise, and it is oddly relaxing for something this fast. It is a real Linux build, it looks lovely, and it runs on hardware that would refuse everything else here. If you own an older laptop and want one racing game on it, make it this one.

The official World Rally Championship game, with the real teams, the real routes and stages that run far longer than most.

On paper this should top the section. It has the licence, the longest stages in any rally game, and a career mode where you build your own car from scratch. In practice Linux has had a rough time with it. ProtonDB has it at Silver overall, and recent reports have trended worse rather than better, mostly around the anti-cheat software, the kind that checks your system before letting you race, and the launcher. We are listing it because it is the official WRC game and people will look for it, not because we can promise it will behave.

Note: Recent Linux reports for this game have been poor. If you want rally that just works today, start with DiRT Rally 2.0 or Assetto Corsa Rally instead.

An open world driving festival set across Japan, where you drive between events instead of picking them off a menu.

Horizon is the racing game for people who do not play racing games, and that is meant as praise. The handling flatters you, the map is a pleasure to drive around with no goal at all, and the events range from a street race to jumping a car through a barn. The Japan setting gives it mountain roads and neon city streets in the same drive. It is also the heaviest game on this page, which is exactly why streaming is a real answer here rather than a fallback.

A driving sandbox built on crash physics, where every panel of the car bends and breaks on its own.

Calling this a racing game is a stretch and it belongs here anyway. Nothing else models a car coming apart like it does, and half the fun is not racing at all: it is finding out what happens to a van at speed on a mountain road. There are proper time trials and a career mode underneath, and a huge amount of community made content on top. It has been going for over a decade and still gets big updates.

An open world racer set on a version of Hawaii, built around themed playlists rather than one long career.

Motorfest is best understood as a series of short themed collections: Japanese tuners in one, vintage racers in another, each with its own set of events and a few minutes of introduction. It suits people who want to be handed something to do rather than pick from a map full of icons. The island is genuinely nice to drive across and it moves between cars, boats and planes without making a fuss about it.

Note: Needs an internet connection at all times, even on your own.

Highway duels on the Tokyo expressway, where you win by draining a rival’s confidence rather than crossing a line first.

This is the odd one on the page and it is a lot of fun. There is no lap counter. You pull alongside somebody, flash your lights, and then both of you run a health bar down by pulling ahead through traffic. Losing ground drains it. Traffic at that speed is genuinely frightening. Underneath sits a deep tuning system and a whole ladder of rival gangs to work through. It runs at Platinum on Proton and does not need much of a machine.

Pure time trial racing on stunt tracks, where you restart instantly and chase hundredths of a second off your own best run.

There is no contact, no opponents on track and nothing to unlock in your way. There is just a track, a clock, and the knowledge that somebody has gone faster. Restarts are instant, so a bad run costs you a second rather than a race. The free tier gives you a rotating set of tracks and a full campaign, which is more than enough to find out if you love it. It runs at Platinum on Proton and will work on almost anything.

Circuit racing that sits happily between arcade and sim, with touring cars, trucks, drift events and a story mode.

GRID is the one to pick when you want close, scrappy racing without a two hour setup session. Cars slide a little more than they should and races are decided by contact as often as by pace, which sounds like a criticism and is actually the appeal. The variety is unusual: you can run a touring car race, then a truck race, then a drift event, and none of them feel like an afterthought. Proton runs it at Gold with recent reports at Platinum.

Top down racing with real depth underneath, covering everything from single seaters to desert rally trucks.

It looks like a toy and it is not one. Tyres wear, fuel runs down, pit stops matter, and you can lose a race by not looking after the car. Seeing the whole track from above turns reading a race into something you can actually do, which makes it a surprisingly good way to learn the habits the bigger sims expect. Races are short enough to fit into a lunch break.

A free and open source kart racer with power ups, split screen and a full campaign, installed straight from the Ubuntu archive.

SuperTuxKart is the easiest recommendation on this page. It costs nothing, it installs with one command, it runs on a laptop with no graphics card, and it has proper split screen so four people can play on one machine. The tracks have real character and the newer ones look genuinely good. It is not trying to be a commercial kart racer and it does not need to be: it is a complete game that has been improved steadily for years.

Toy cars on orange track that loops through living rooms and skate parks, with a track editor and split screen.

The joke lands and then the driving keeps you there. Cars have real weight, the boost system asks you to spend it in the right place, and the loops and jumps are laid out like a proper circuit rather than a stunt reel. The track builder is the part people stay for, and there is a good supply of tracks made by other people. It is the best pick here for racing with a child in the room.

Racing with cars that crumple, where finishing a race in one piece is an achievement on its own.

The crash physics are the point. Panels fold, wheels come off, and a race is as much about surviving the first corner as it is about pace. Demolition derby modes turn it into something you can play with friends who do not like racing games. The content list is still thin compared to the original, but what is there already feels better to drive. Recent Linux reports are strong.

Note: Early access. The original Wreckfest is finished, cheaper and also runs well if you want more content today.

Street racing at night with police chases, a cartoon art style layered over the cars and a heat system that raises the stakes.

Unbound is the most stylish game on this page. Cars are photoreal, the effects around them are hand drawn, and it should not work as well as it does. The night loop is the good part: you race to build money, the police get more interested the longer you stay out, and you have to decide when to go home. Losing everything to a roadblock at four in the morning stings in the right way. It is often heavily discounted.

A neon survival racer where the car flies, drives on walls, and the road comes apart underneath you.

Distance takes the arcade racer apart and puts it back together as something closer to a platform game. Your car has wings, boost and the ability to stick to walls, and the road ahead breaks up as you reach it. It is a native Linux build, it has a level editor with years of community tracks behind it, and it runs on very little. Nothing else here feels like it.