Season 9 - Changes to the race format?

It is time to review last season and see if there are any changes we wish to make to the race format. This was last years "setup": (note that all core sessions (all except practice) should take place between 8.00pm and 9:30 pm.)

(7.00pm - 1 hour practice)
8.00pm - Practice start 1
8:03pm - Practice start 2
8:06pm - Practice start 3
8:10pm - 5 min super pole
8.16pm - 5 min warmup
8.22pm - 1h 7min race
9.30pm - end of event

-no pit speed limit/flag rules
-70% damage

Should we just keep it as it is or are there any changes anyone would like? As it is now a 2 stopper is almost always faster than a 1 stopper (not considering traffic).
 
Add me to that list. I'm in favour of some tweaks to our already excellent weather system (thanks Daniel). Should that be a desperate thread? Is Daniel keen to go round again? I'm sure if he is keen a would all love to have him again.

Edit: Just to clarify, ideally I would love to do full length F1 races with full F1 qual, but we don't have time. My priority is for a long race, I quite enjoy the way super pole limits the value of 2 weeks of hot lapping. Therefore, I think with the time were got available our format is ideal.
 
For me the format is fine at all! :)

Just thought about race length a while ago. If I remember right the idea in the past was to stretch race time from ~60 min to ~75 min, right? Later it was minimized a little bit due to the improtant practice starts. Because of asuming the race pace the real length finally varied a lot so we sometimes had only close to 65 minutes race.

That's why I thought the race time could be a fix number of minutes (65, 70 or 75) so it wouldn't matter if we are quicker than expected (I remember Monza) or much slower if it rains.
In addition each driver would have to calculate himself how many laps it could be and therefore he would have to make his own fuel calculation. AND we wouldn't have the old "how many laps are we going to have" question before each event. :)

It's just a thought, nothing big important though... :)
 
It's just a thought, nothing big important though... :)
And an interesting thought it is :) It can be a bit problematic if it is rain the whole event and we run 15 min over time, perhaps it would be a good idea to define race length with minutes instead of laps? And I agree that it does add a little spice not knowing exactly how many laps/how much fuel.

As for weather, we can have a new thread for that. I'm going away for the weekend, but feel free to open the thread and start the discussion :) If nothing else we need to redefine what the system is now, because I am not certain :) I'll be back Sunday night.
 
I'm happy with the format as is, it works well

One thing I have thougth about last season and maybe mentioned it before is the possibility of re-instating the pit speed limit, this would add around 10-20 secs to a stop and add the same to the race time of a two stop stratagy over the one stop option, therfore bringing the two stop-one stop options much closer together, I haven't done the exact maths but I think it may/could bring the one stop option into play more often??

Any sense in this?

Jim
 
Im fine with all that except to maybe introduce less damage or shorter races for league 2 should there be one but we'll see about that.
I think I would prefer a ... min long race over a ... lap long race because there will probably be more different race strategies for the different tracks

Also, what do you all think about a team championship for the new season?
Im thinking it might add a bit to the fun if everybody had a team mate to try to win the team championship together, might even bring up team strategies.
We could just arrange teams or for example draw names by lot, cat choice doesnt have to be influenced by that.
 
I am fine with the race format as it is , but still :

- I believe Reik idea is a very interesting one , it could add some additional fun / challenge to the races and something to kill the usual routine , then add to it some crazy weather from Daniel like the one we had at Barcelona and the races will be just great.. i might suggest to go for the worst case scenario by going the full race length that the minutes allow in all core sessions . ( i mean if a miracle happens and rain falls then we do not run short of minutes :) ) .

- yes to No pit speed limit/flag rules... but if Jims idea proved to be something that adds more fun to the races then why not to consider it !

- why not for a team championship with the driver championship as long as it does not change the concept of being open in the forum with tips / track advice etc...the usual things ..you know what i mean..

- The only thing that i had in mind to adjust that i have mentioned somewhere in other posts regarding the qualy session had nothing to do with the race length or something , what i wished for was to keep the session as it is with the invisible cars but to have it a bit more flexible to give the driver another chance to go back to pit and have another go within the 5 minutes allowed or so [ i guess i suggested to have it for 10 minutes but it is not necessary ] if for any reason he stuffed up his out lap , it could be that he forgot to check his tires or loaded the wrong set up or span his car or hit the wall accidently etc. .. in my case it was that i most of the time needed more than one hot lap to quickly shift my mind between practice start and qualy , but as I said nothing to worry about , that is only me and I can live with it and nothing to do with the rest that needed to be changed... ...
 
About weather. I have one improvement, temperature on dry races. That would limit the tire choices more and might bring harder tires to races. Singapore and Abu Dhabi using track temperatures of over 36 and ambient on 30 would bring more realism, we would have to use larger engine cooling and brake ducts, tires need to be tested in official practice session... Not if it's too much work.

Qualy is hard for me too, i can't switch between "safe" race mode to "banzai" qualy in one outlap. But there probably wouldn't be enough time, the format needs to be compact.

+1 on 70 minutes per race instead of XX laps.

Pit limiter.. either way, if it brings one stops in to the picture then fine but if it means ONLY one stop tactic, then no. The current system is good and two stopper is closer to real life. And i enjoy that extra break ;)
 
I'm happy with the format as is, it works well

One thing I have thougth about last season and maybe mentioned it before is the possibility of re-instating the pit speed limit, this would add around 10-20 secs to a stop and add the same to the race time of a two stop stratagy over the one stop option, therfore bringing the two stop-one stop options much closer together, I haven't done the exact maths but I think it may/could bring the one stop option into play more often??

Any sense in this?

Jim

We tried introducing it in Season 7, but I would not mind trying again.
http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/season-7-small-adjustments-needed.43667/#post-985492

I like the no pit speed limit more than the opposite, but I would still go for pit speed limit if it would bring greater variation in strategy. But that is only my view, this decition is a democratic one ;)
 
Also, what do you all think about a team championship for the new season?
Im thinking it might add a bit to the fun if everybody had a team mate to try to win the team championship together, might even bring up team strategies.
We could just arrange teams or for example draw names by lot, cat choice doesnt have to be influenced by that.

This have been tried a few seasons ago, but there are several "technical" weakness':
-As Anthony mentions, it could cloud members view on being open with league members vs. team members. We want all members to co-operate openly in preparing for the race so that everybody will be learning as well as being prepared for delivering a good race contribution to the league (no incident, even and relative competitive lap times)
-If one are not clouded, then there is little left for the team except to share strategies.
-We do not have a system to display the results of a team championship on www.prestogp.com
-2 cars for each team are a reality in f1 due to reasons that does not apply to PrestoGP and it's filosophy, so it is a bit artificial thing to introduce
-For some members it would feel natural to team up with someone, for others not.

Having said that, I will not resist if someone want's to administer a team championship in the forum. I'll assist with making it sticky etc. But in such an eventuallity I think it should work "trouble free" for the drivers, iow that they get assigned a team and there are no obligations from the driver to the team. Personally I will be happy to share my race strategy with an eventual team member, but all other preperation should be done with everybody/openly.
 
About weather. I have one improvement, temperature on dry races. That would limit the tire choices more and might bring harder tires to races. Singapore and Abu Dhabi using track temperatures of over 36 and ambient on 30 would bring more realism, we would have to use larger engine cooling and brake ducts, tires need to be tested in official practice session... Not if it's too much work.

I do not wish to make people dependend on attending the practice session, only the one and a half hour time slot should be required to reduce stress on members in a long perspective. Therefore (and naturally) the practice servers should have the same temps as the race will have if it is dry (we want members to practice online and be as prepared as possible). This means we need to use custom weather and a weather.txt file for the practice servers, and I know who will not create those files :) If someone else would do that work I would allow the issue to the democracy, and I'll possibly be positive myself :)
 
The only thing that i had in mind to adjust that i have mentioned somewhere in other posts regarding the qualy session had nothing to do with the race length or something , what i wished for was to keep the session as it is with the invisible cars but to have it a bit more flexible to give the driver another chance to go back to pit and have another go within the 5 minutes allowed or so [ i guess i suggested to have it for 10 minutes but it is not necessary ] if for any reason he stuffed up his out lap , it could be that he forgot to check his tires or loaded the wrong set up or span his car or hit the wall accidently etc. .. in my case it was that i most of the time needed more than one hot lap to quickly shift my mind between practice start and qualy , but as I said nothing to worry about , that is only me and I can live with it and nothing to do with the rest that needed to be changed... ...

There are 3 options availeble to me when creating the server:
-Closed qualification
-Timetrial qualification
-Super Pole

I think the top one might be what you are describing Anthony, although I have never tested it, so I do not know. I think with a 6 min qual session one should get a second chance if one made a mistake as you describe without disturbing the rest of the schedule (we'll just tighten the practice start regime/ everybody on track within 1 min ;)

The problems you are describing are well known to me and probably everybody else. I am not able to be perfectly prepared for both qual and race.

Personally I like it the way it is, it gives the qualify session an unique and more realistic feel, and it is kind of a strategic decition how far I should push the safety margins in my qualify lap. And before the lap, my hand is trembling as I check the setup 2 and 3 times before I push that non-forgiving "drive" button :) Also, from time to time we might see a "Nicolas" in the front :)

As implied, this decition is open for "democracy" within the servers limitations
(-Closed qualification-Timetrial qualification-Super Pole). (("democracy"= respons in this thread).
 

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