RDVSC2 2014 - Round 4 - Red Flag Incident Audit
Prelude:
Given the concern by some participants about the handling of the scoring issues, and their concerns over the impartiality of the leagues directors, myself and
@Andrew James have been asked to audit and ratify the decisions made on race day.
We are both outsiders to the league and it's processors. We are involved neither directly or indirectly in the preparation, planning, or running of the series and are therefore impartial in judging the events at face value.
We have read through the rules for the first time and interpreted them as we see them, which hopefully is somewhere close to how a competitor would on first reading too. I have also read through the thread to see the thoughts of the entrants.
After doing this I formulated my opinion of what I would expect to happen in the event of a server issue, followed by quizzing the race directors on what took place, what they did, and any grey areas I felt there where in the process.
Below is included that information as much to get it clear in my own mind than to reiterate what the drivers likely already know. Feel free to skip directly to the Summary/Conclusion section.
Relevant Facts:
1) The league operates a team license system. The TOLA (
Team Owner License Agreement) in which the team owner in return for his car(s) starting position agrees that he and his fellow team mates agree to and will respect the rules as set out in the same thread (
Driver Conduct /
Livescoring & Software Documentation - Start and restarts section).
2) The rules clearly state that in the event of a server or scoring system crash a restart will be effected.
3) This is further expanded in the software documentation, starts & restarts section to say that the restart order will be the result of the saved game-state. More specifically laps driven.
4) Races are run in an rF2 practice session and timing, rankings, and results functions are deferred entirely to the leagues accompanying software. As a result a race can only take place with this software and any issue with the software ranks along with a server crash in it's impact on the race outcome.
5) All forms of motorsport suffer in the event of force majeure/act of god. Some are common to sim racing and real motorsport, others are not. No sim race will bump into unplanned monsoon weather for instance, nor will the next round of the F1 season suffer a server crash which disconnects drivers or insta-dumps them to the pits. In either case, it's just a situation that has to be dealt with within the boundaries set out by the physical world of sim software.
Events:
During the race an issue occurred with the timing software which crashed, and as a result stopped collecting data.
There was a delay of approximately 10 minutes between the crash and the race directors becoming fully aware of the situation.
Given that the event relies on the software the race directors red flagged the race in order to deal with the situation.
The last output logged output was secured from the timing software and used to build the starting order for the restart (attached below).
The restart procedure as detailed in the rules was put into effect using the running order from the file. The lap count continued from those in the file.
A remaining race time was calculated to be 1 hour and forty minutes. This was based on the time remaining in the race, minus the time taken to resolve the server issues and effect the required gridding process for the restart. A further few minutes were then removed from that calculation to arrive at a round number and ensure that all cars could comfortably achieve reaching the end with two stints, and therefore avoid the chance of someone needed to stop a few laps from the end and be severely disadvantaged unnecessarily.
Summary:
I think given the above that the race directors operated in accordance with the the series rules and that their actions fall in line with would I would reasonably expect to happen based on reading them. I don't believe that they chose a course of action to gain an advantage for themselves.
It is unfotunate that there was some time between the software crash and the red flag. This and the fact that the start finish line intersects the pits means some people who are effectively bumper to bumper on track but pit together can end up being one lap ahead or behind of each other based on the location of their pitbox. This led to some drivers (including Red Shift) to lose some race progress, but in almost all race series real or virtual a red flag results in a count back, the side effect being that positions may change.
This can be addressed to some extent by moving the timing line to a point after the pit exit though in this instance it would not have made any changes to the required course of action, as this system relies on catching the error before anyone completes a lap and allowing everyone or no one to complete a lap before returning to the pits to level the standings before the restart. In this instance 3-4 laps of live racing took place between the software crash and the red flag so the only viable action in my opinion is a count-back.
The software writes a log file as the leader completes each lap. This file contains the data as it stood in the millisecond prior to actually crossing the line which means it acurrately portrays any completed laps of all drivers since he last crossed the line, ie if the leader is about to cross the line to start lap 20 his last completed lap at the log time was lap 19. Anyone else starting lap 19 before he begins lap 20 are accurately shown as being on the lead lap. Anyone who started lap 18 before he begins lap 20 are 1 lap down and so on. This data from the last recorded lap was used as the countback point.
With regard to issuing a red flag or a full course yellow and simply relaunching the timeing software (if this is indeed possible without a restart of the server), I feel that because the internal state of the data cannot be easily proved to be fit and healthy beyond the last recorded full lap, any race results based on that potential fouled data could never be deemed reliable, meaning a countback to the last recorded point is required and a full course yellow would not be viable.
Conclusion
In my opinion no adjustment of the race result should take place, The race directors dealt with the situation in the fairest available way and within the series rules. Some people get unlucky in these situations, others the oposite. This is the nature of racing. Most people seem happy overall with the results and the handling of the restart. There's no perfect way to handle these things but what this does do if offer up an oppertunity to strengthen the procedures that are in place to avoid any confusion in future seasons.
I'd also like to add my congratulations to all drivers for completing a great season. I enjoyed the streams I saw and the action on offer and look forward to you all going wheel to wheel again next season!