Season 9 - Changes to the race format?

[Kennett Ylitalo]

I could do the temperature changes but there should be only one weather god... And if Daniel still wants to do them, that is of course the best solution. One can make default weather.txt with all temps , it doesn't even have to match the session length since there is only one kind of condition. If that the solution, i'll be happy to provide them

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

Personally I prefer SuperPole is pure adrenalin push or not big question.
I understand Anthony when say that a little fault or wrong set is a disaster in Quali but I do like Nico look 3 time my setup in garage look monitor for see the track conditions and when jump out of box Im always at time limit but this stuff are the essence of superpole(4me) and 5minutes more for Quali cost us time in race? between 2 chance in quali and 5 more for race I vote race .A problem is switch practice start and Quali hard take rigth hand but we are strong guys ( I fight every race for pole Reik know this very well) and no one second of race will be wasted for an eventual repractice

 

[Anthony Ishak]

You are absolutely right Vale about the superpole and I never thought the opposite, it actually strengthened my race pace as I was concentrating more on race stints rather than pure hot lapping, it is a nerve breaker for 3 minutes for sure with the high adrenaline and gives the session a more realistic feel as you said Nico , even if I was not able to put together a single good lap for the whole season [except for Barcelona ]which was the main concerns for me to suggest something for next season but I can’t deny that I was enjoying the moment as part of the whole session.

After all I never hesitate to say what I have in mind, It is never wrong to be open and rise a point to be discussed regardless how good or silly the point could be…

 

[Tim McIver]

I enjoyed having variable temperatures in the racing back in the Formula Pro days. It adds some variation to tire degradation and just mixes things up. The trouble with it, is that it just demands heaps more practice to establish correct duct settings and tire choice. It's also very difficult to practice stints in the correct conditions.

The other big issue is that when someone makes an error on engine ducts, they pour smoke all over the circuit. In a gentlemen's league like ours, they would really have to retire from the race at that point. The last thing we want is people retiring from races for such a silly reason. The other choice is that you just play it safe and always err on the side of caution. That's not the way it works in F1, and for those of us trying to close down the gap to the champ, we have to take everything we can get!

Although I'm a big fan of being as realistic as possible, I think variable temperature provides many more problems than advantages. That's part of the reason I'm such a big fan or more rain (sorry I slept through...). Rain adds variation and strategy, but has no disadvantages. It's still all about driving the car.

Tim.

 

[Bob Luneski]

After all I never hesitate to say what I have in mind, It is never wrong to be open and rise a point to be discussed regardless how good or silly the point could be…

Bravo Anthony. I'll follow your fine example by being open and saying that I hate Superpole. I always choke and turn in a time often seconds slower than what I was running a few minutes before. I would prefer an Open Qual period or any option with more than 1 lap. That being said, this is my problem and I need to learn to run better superpole laps. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

 

[Reik Major]

I agree 100% with Tim.

But if the majority likes changing temps I'll of course accept and like the challenge.

 

[David Turnbull]

+1 for tims explanation.

 

[Sean Greenlaw]

+2 for Tims

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

Fascinating, the 4 people who have agreed with Tim, namely Reik, Sean, David and Tim himself, happens to be the 4 fastest drivers (raw pace) in the league.

But I to found Tim's words wize and agree. This unfortunatley brakes the magic spell because i am not the 5th fastest in the league

To add to Tim's words

 

[Valerio Vinassa]

......

After all I never hesitate to say what I have in mind, It is never wrong to be open and rise a point to be discussed regardless how good or silly the point could be…

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Very good points, Tim. Best not to change temperatures, too much trouble for small effect.

 

[Peter Marshall]

With respect to the rain events, are we to:
- increase the percentage chance of rain.
- know with [some] certainty that at least X number of races in the season will be rain affected; or visa-a-versa x number of races will be dry.
- keep to the same theme/ formula as the previous two seasons.

I'd go with keeping the same as the previous two seasons; but I wonder about any "Weather of Demand " threads popping up during the season. Edit: But again this is not a concern for me if things change.

Add me to the list of no temp changes that may cause the smoking engine effect..

Edit: I think Marko may be in that Raw Pace Team too...

 

[Tim McIver]

While my suggestions seem to be making sense...

I would like to simplify the weather system a little, whilst choosing option 1 in Peters post.

My suggestion is that instead of pretending that qual is on the Saturday, we just have weather that consistently develops starting with 1 hour of practice, 5 min of qual then the race. If its raining at the end of practice, then the track will be wet at the start of Q. However things finish at the end of Q is how the race begins.

I see two advantages with this system. Firstly, it means that the practice session is actually helpful practice for what is about to come and gives everyone a chance to acclimatize to conditions. Secondly, it means that we can simplify the percentage chance of rain and how that percentage relates to each session.

I just wrote another paragraph with some suggested numbers and equations but it got messy and ugly! So I'll just summarize and we can discuss the details.

I would like to see the chances of rain having some effect on the event increased to something in the order of 1 in 2. Half the events rain effected. Perhaps only half of that half would have the race itself effected enough that a tire change was required. That would bring us to our current desire of 2 or 3 rain effected races and would add a little bit of interest in the a few other races.

I'm certainly in favour of the whole thing being governed by probabilities. The weather from the previous events shouldn't effect the chances of rain in future events.

Tim.

 

[Bob Luneski]

First, I am a BIG fan of rain events. It has always been my experience that rain somewhat evens the field since the aliens can't go all out all the time. Second, I'd like to make an observation from my experience last year that hopefully may influence people's thinking:

If we are going to have variable probability rain events then I believe we need to have rain practice servers and dry practice servers. The only event we had a rain practice server was for the one event pre-announced "This will be a rain event". Yet there was rain during some session of at least 3 other events this year for which there was no rain practice server available.

For safety, I think it's in everyone's best interest to have both kinds of servers available if there is a chance of rain during any session. I do understand this puts some additional burden on the Race Director.

I have a hard enough time as it is with Superpole guys, but put me in the rain without letting me practice in the rain is hopeless..... Gee this being all open is so liberating

 

[David Turnbull]

i dont agree with tims last suggestion of having half the races rain affected, in real life its never 10 from 20 races thats rain affected and its never been 5 in 10 races either, this will probably end up like last season where people will want to choose particular weather for a particular event, im not happy with that at all.

if daniel is keen on doing the weather for yet another season then just let him get on with it without too much "asking" for how weather will affect us, lets deal with it like they do in real life.

when you mention "currant desire" tim, my currant desire is to have random weather, not something we choose and agree on before the season or events, daniel should be left alone to deal with this without any interference from us or its just not random at all.

peters suggestion + 1, keep the same format of the last 2 season, NO weather on demand, let it be random.

 

[Tim McIver]

Just clarify David...

I definitely saying it should all be random. Like you I don't want the weather to be determined prior to a race. But if Daniel is going to randomly generate weather, there still needs to be parameters for the randomness.

I don't think we should or would have 5 out of 10 wet races using my rough proposed system. It's worth noting that the last 2 real GP's have been weather effected events even though Canada wasn't a weather effected race.

I want to have races that could be wet but aren't, races that should be dry but then it rains, races where we expect some rain and we get some, some where we expect a little and get a lot.

For that to be true, we need to have more races that MAY have rain.

All that said, if people don't want to race in those conditions then I'm certainly only one vote.

What my one vote is arguing for is RANDOMLY GENERATED weather which would, on the balance of probabilities, provide 2-3 races that require a change in tire strategy, and perhaps another 2-3 that give us a scare and maybe a little sprinkle. But this should all be randomly generated and give the possibility of 10 dry races or indeed 10 wet though I would hope we would set the probabilities such that both of those options would be quite unlikely.

 

[David Turnbull]

i understand what your saying tim, but by dicussing this yet again its taken the randomness away as daniel will be on a set path to provide at least 2-3 wet races or more per season, daniel knows how most of us feel regards weather, we'd like it totally random, in my opinion daniels forecasts could even be slightly misguiding if he so feels that could keep it random i.e daniel says theres a 20% chance of rain in any session but actually sets the server to say 50-60% as we all know forecasts from any weather station/site/channel are never 100% accurate so why should daniels forecast be any more accurate than real life, i still think though that the best bet is just to let daniel get on with it without any influence from us, give him free license to create what he will or wont.

 

[Reik Major]

...i still think though that the best bet is just to let daniel get on with it without any influence from us...

I still think the same and if we talk about randomness I also think that Tim thinks the same. But when we look at Daniels great "weather service" (which is very, very, very well appreciated) I also have the feeling, that we had too less rain affected events and races compared to real life (not proved by statistics but a big feeling). So I understand that some guys wonder how the parameters Daniel uses may look like and how they could be tweaked (ony by Daniel!) to make the probabilities for rain feel more realistic.

If the discussion would cause Daniel to make any changes to his parameters, it would still have the same randomness for us I think as only Daniel knows what he changed.

 

[Nicolai Nicholson]

I get your logic Tim, but maybe not with your definition of wet race (as I understood to be "when it causes you to change tyres")

I cannot remember exactly, but I think the slick/inter threshold is around 35% wetness?! 30% on slicks is quite a handful and should in my view be regarded as a wet race.

So my point is that I would define a wet race as, (shooting from the hip) let's say conditions above 15% wetness.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Sounds like we are reaching an agreement between FOTA and FIA for new Concorde agreement for season 9.. I'm at least happy about all the stuff that's been said, gives a lot more perspective to hear multiple sides to any particular subject. It's not a coincidence that there isn't a lot to be done with the league format, it's so near perfetto now. That can not be said about many leagues out there... Good job guys.