Oh I see - incoming to the server - I thought incoming to the pits!

Could the admins explain the reasoning for the changes to the G2 Starts/Restarts Passing rules?

Allowing the cars to pass upon seeing green (before the S/F):
- Gives cars the opportunity to avoid cars ahead and accordion effect (w.out concerns about their obvious pace)
- Lessens the need for tightly bunched starts (2-car gap)

Removing the ability to race until S/F:
- Will punish the teams mid-pack and further as they have to parade through several turns in places
- Nulify the FZR's NA engine advantage

---------------------------------------------

Truth be told, the restart advantage is one of the main points why our team campaigns the FZR. If the positives of the new rule outweigh the negatives provided, I would hope that the admins would consider lifting the FZR 15kg weight pentalty, or allow teams the opportunity to re-evaluate their car choices.

Thanks,
Stu
S3Racing

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

• Rules G2.1-2.3 have been rewritten. Starting in round 5, passing before the S/F line is forbidden, except in situations where a car has spun or is drastically off the pace.
  

Can I ask the rational behind this change? So on a track like Westhill, upon a restart when the leader crosses the S/F line I will still be either in or approaching the final turn, based on my previous experience and knowing where I will most likely be positioned. Your saying that I have to wait until I get to the S/F line to pass and/or build to race speed, even if I get the drop on the driver in front of me when the light goes green? I think you're are going to see more stupid crashes on restarts from drivers who don't want to violate the rule and subsequently cause an accordion. Additionally, this puts the front of the pack further out ahead.

Am I way off base here? A restarts seems pretty easy to me. The leader crosses the S/F line, the lights go green and everyone starts racing, regardless of there position on the track.

Here's a question related to the new rule about assigning penalties to incoming drivers...if a driver gets a pit lane speeding penalty upon entrance to the pit lane and during the pit stop, another driver takes over, does the pit lane speed DT transfer to the new driver?

Quote from bdshan :

Can I ask the rational behind this change? So on a track like Westhill, upon a restart when the leader crosses the S/F line I will still be either in or approaching the final turn, based on my previous experience and knowing where I will most likely be positioned. Your saying that I have to wait until I get to the S/F line to pass and/or build to race speed, even if I get the drop on the driver in front of me when the light goes green? I think you're are going to see more stupid crashes on restarts from drivers who don't want to violate the rule and subsequently cause an accordion. Additionally, this puts the front of the pack further out ahead.

Am I way off base here? A restarts seems pretty easy to me. The leader crosses the S/F line, the lights go green and everyone starts racing, regardless of there position on the track.

And then you get cases like last round were we were penalized for doing exactly that

The changes to G2-2.3 are in response to the restart issue with the Pernix/Sonicrealms/TDRT cars last round. In that instance, we saw a team lag back (intentionally or not, it's hard to say) and then accelerate to catch the cars ahead. The end result was that at the moment of green, this car and the cars behind it had a 50+mph speed advantage on the cars ahead. While Pernix and TDRT got caught up in a crash (at least in part due to this speed advantage), Sonicrealms got through and went from 6th to (briefly) 1st by the time the field got to the footbridge on the Aston straight. This was clearly unacceptable to us.

We had considered not implementing the no-pass-before-green rule and relying on the no-lagging-back-and-jumping-the-green rule, but in general our thinking was that two safety measures were better than one. However, if you all think that the no-lag/no-jump rule is enough to cover the situation we'll be glad to try it for this round at least.

Quote from banshee56 :

Here's a question related to the new rule about assigning penalties to incoming drivers...if a driver gets a pit lane speeding penalty upon entrance to the pit lane and during the pit stop, another driver takes over, does the pit lane speed DT transfer to the new driver?

I believe it does, but I'd have to test to make sure.

A speeding DT received on pit entry doesn't have to be served before the pitstop, correct?

Cool. Leaving a gap/lag is unnacceptable as it not only disadvantages the teams ahead, it punishes the teams behind in line, and it is also incredibly dangerous in leading to the accordion crashes.

+1 for No Lagging / Gapping Rule. It should cover the problem if everyone follows this. Start handing out DT's for not maintaining steady speed and steady gap.

+1 for "Green Means Go" and race when the message flies.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

We had considered not implementing the no-pass-before-green rule and relying on the no-lagging-back-and-jumping-the-green rule, but in general our thinking was that two safety measures were better than one. However, if you all think that the no-lag/no-jump rule is enough to cover the situation we'll be glad to try it for this round at least.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I believe it does, but I'd have to test to make sure.

A speeding DT received on pit entry doesn't have to be served before the pitstop, correct?

No, if you get a DT on pit entry, you can still complete your pit, because that was the purpose of entering the pit. You have to complete the drive through on a subsequent entry to pit lane, and then it won't let you do anything else.

I say it that way because if you complete the pit after getting a DT, and then come back in, you get the message "{driver} entered pit lane to serve drive through penalty", or something like that. And if you complete a pit stop and enter the pit lane after having left post-stop, you get the message "{driver} entered pit lane for no purpose".

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

We had considered not implementing the no-pass-before-green rule and relying on the no-lagging-back-and-jumping-the-green rule, but in general our thinking was that two safety measures were better than one. However, if you all think that the no-lag/no-jump rule is enough to cover the situation we'll be glad to try it for this round at least.

I think only using the no-lag/no-jump rule is the way to go. If you implement no passing before the green too there are going to be a ton of crashes in the back of the pack due to cars bunching up because they see the green but can't go anywhere until they cross the start finish line.

+1

No lag/jump rule is good, but don't implement no passing before green.

Quote from banshee56 :

No, if you get a DT on pit entry, you can still complete your pit, because that was the purpose of entering the pit. You have to complete the drive through on a subsequent entry to pit lane, and then it won't let you do anything else.

Do note that this is only applicable if you're already IN the pitlane (LFS provides you with a message such as 'Entered pitlane for {DT/SG/Pitstop}. Admins just have to ensure that they won't be giving out a penalty before the pit entrance.

Well, you won't get the penalty until you are already in pit lane...but yeah, admins will need to make sure penalties aren't given out either while in pit lane, or while a penalty is already being displayed because of how penalties don't stack.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

We had considered not implementing the no-pass-before-green rule and relying on the no-lagging-back-and-jumping-the-green rule, but in general our thinking was that two safety measures were better than one. However, if you all think that the no-lag/no-jump rule is enough to cover the situation we'll be glad to try it for this round at least.

I believe they would have been more than enough - we had the no passing rule early on in first season, that later got changed because we were having loads of incidents and confusions. The starts have been fine since then, but the recent start related issue doesn't mean it's the start procedure that needs to be looked at. Drivers shouldn't be lagging behind of jump starting no matter what - which btw - drivers would still be able/"allowed" to do.

I should clarify the 10 minute rule for penalties. That's 10 minutes to complete the penalty, not 10 minutes to enter pit lane.

Rules updated, again.

Quote :

2) When the SC enters the final sector, it will quickly accelerate away from the field and enter the pit lane. At this point the lead car should begin to gradually accelerate. The lead car should not brake (except in the case of natural braking points) once it has begun to accelerate. Once the lead car has entered the designated green flag zone, the green flag may be displayed.

2.1) Once the green flag has been displayed, drivers are free to overtake.

2.2) Drivers judged to have jumped the start, to have lagged back and subsequently gained a significant speed advantage on a restart, or to have begun an overtaking maneuver before the green flag is shown will be punished with a DT penalty, or a C1 penalty if protested post-race.

That looks very good on the list. See, if it'll works on track.

Hmm, and what will happen if a car in front lags back, and therefore all the cars behind that one gain an advantage? It's still a grey area now...

Obviously only the car intentionally lagging will get a penalty. Thats just hair splitting.

No it's not just hair splitting, I just don't want another penalty for a restart

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Rules updated, again.

Looks good! Now just to make everyone read and understands the rules. IIRC, the last 2 races have had severly botched starts, obviously indicating a lack in rule understanding.

Any thoughts on adding a provision to penalize these behaviors?

- Could we reconsider the pentalty for the blue flag in Qualifying? After seeing the pentalty for Kovalininianainin in the GP this past weekend. Their rule is a 5-spot penalty for impeding someone's progress on a hot lap. This seems to be a fair pentalty for the IGTC in that:
1) GP's are much shorter and therefore starting spots are that much more important
2) Our Qualifying is 30 minutes, whereas in F1 the session is either 20, 15 or 10 minutes long. Obviously much more time to get more possible attempts.

Just my $.02

Quote from Gil07 :

No it's not just hair splitting, I just don't want another penalty for a restart

Scott has it right. In this situation, we'd penalize the "lead" car in the lagging-back train, the one responsible for it.

I realize that this wouldn't have covered your car's maneuver last race, since you were second in line in that particular train. All I can say is that I hope teams will drive fairly and not use an advantage gotten via the "lead" car's mistake to grab ill-gotten spots. This is why we had the no-pass-before-green clause in there initially, but as people rightly pointed out, it causes (potentially) more trouble than it's worth as an anti-trouble tool.

We have to rely on you, the drivers, to make wise decisions in this particular case.

Thanks for clarifying, Ben

You know what could be very useful:

"Pace Car Exits" as a message to the drivers.

When you are back in the pack you have little to No visual idea when this is happening, and thus whenever the car ahead accelerates you have to act as if the pack is preparing to go green, smoothly accelerating (the pitfall of the lead car controlling the pack). Which of course leads to the Nasty accordion crashes.

I'll look into that idea, thanks.

Happy 2000th post.