When I get blue flagged I try to let them past with the minimum loss of time for both of us. I won't just jam on the brakes and let him fly by, I'll wait until he's within passing distance and do something depending on the exact situation so we can both keep racing (not each other). I always however move offline, as the leader has, in my book, a right to the racing line over a backmarker.

One time in Vixen I was being lapped after a 1st lap disaster, and the guys in 1st and 2nd were very close, and I was catching someone for position. The leader drafted me, and I let him nip down the inside into the turn without a challenge. The guy in 2nd caught me as I was about to pass the guy in front of me.
I went down the inside of the last turn at Aston Club, the 2nd place (a Frenchman with dubious hotlapping history) guy tried to go in between us. I had the inside line round the corner, and he started hooting his horn. So, because he hooted his horn at me after doing a stupid attempt at lapping me, I decided to race him. I kept him alongside me down to T1, then braked as late as I could to keep him behind.

But being the obnoxious type he tried to turn in on me anyway, and spun. I was fine and drove off. Eventually he caught me again though, and this time he was much more sensible about lapping - he had dropped his whole 'I own the road and if you don't get out of my way I'll hax you' attitude. So I let him pass without a fight.

I know it was technically wrong, but this particular chap is not very nice, so I'm not very nice back. I din't wreck him - his own inability to lap safely led to his accident.

Quote from Vain :

I actually found it quite uninteresting. A very long read that says merely more than "use common sense".

Vain

There are some that really need this explanation to start using common sense, believe me...

I was on a server recently, and I was the fastest by far there (doesn't happen to me very often )... Anyway, the other guys seemed to have a weird understanding of being lapped: When they saw you approaching (on the map), they let of the throttle and wait for you, just to stomp on throttle again just to either block the way (this particular driver obviously found that funny illepall) or to attempt to drive side-by-side with a much faster car...

This is taken from the SCORE GT-Challenge rules. It has proven to work out fairly well so far.

About general overtaking:

Quote :

§04 - Overtaking
§04A - Overtaking is the responsibility of the overtaking car. Pushing cars out of the way is not tolerated and if deemed deliberate, it will result in a lifetime ban from SCORE.
§04B - Overtaking during Yellow Flag is prohibited. If the Yellow Flag appears you must stay in line. Even if you're about to lap a slower opponent and even if you think it's safe to overtake.

About the blue flag:

Quote :

§07 - Blue flags
The blue flag must be respected. Failure to respect the blue flag will result in one warning and if repeated, a ban. The blue flag does not mean you have to come to a complete stop. You should however let a lapping car by at the first available spot. Generally this is done by going wide in a turn and leave room on the inside, or keeping to one side of the track at straight's.

IMO it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

Quote from BlackEye :

Press "T" and write: BLUE FLAG BLUE FLAG!!!

I was playing demo, and someone had ****BLUE FLAG GET THE F*CK OUT OF MY WAY**** and they kept on spamming it! Bah, they got vote-kicked.

Quote from Gunn :

I suggest that there are two main types of drivers when it comes to lapping back-markers or slower cars and this stands for real racing as well as sim racing.
- One type of driver expects the slower car to move over immediately and leave the normal racing line clear for his approach.
- The second type of driver expects the slower car to stay close to the normal racing line, avoiding any sudden moves and allowing a safe and easy pass to occur. Able to predict where the flagged car will be allows the driver to overtake safely and without incident.

You missed me

I don't expect the car i'm about to lap to do anything at all, i'm not surprised if someone lets me pass, but i'm not surprised or really bothered if someone doesn't. If i'm given a blue flag, i'll ease off throttle on a good bit of road.

Quote from Vykos69 :

You are lapped, so:

- stay on your line on straight, dont brake or lift as long as other is behind you. Why? Cause this way your behaviour is most predictable, and lapping driver can adjust to that.
- take outside line in turns and let faster pass inside easily.

DONT CHANGE YOUR LINE ON STRAIGHT IF OTHER CAR APPROACHES YOU FROM BEHIND!! THIS WILL CAUSE A MESS!

Gunn, I appreciate your c&p effort But it is actually really really simple.

I totally agree. Actually really simple if everyone would do it like this in LFS

About the "move over and let by" and "hold your line" debate... Here's my thoughts.

Normal race situation, I'm in the back and the leader's are catching up to me. I see "Blue Flag" staring at me in the middle of my screen. I will pay a little extra attention in my mirror in anticipation of the leader coming up behind me. When he does, I hold the racing line and wait to see his overtake move. When I see his move, then I will let up on the throttle to allow him by easily. You must remember, it is possible that the leader may want to use you to his advantage by getting a little bit of draft before making the pass. Therefore, even lifting at this point can be disastrous.

In LFS, blue flag only means someone is close behind you but ahead in position. It doesn't mean he is faster, just that he is a predetermined distance behind you. It may well be you are receiving the blue flag because you spun, touched the grass and are slow at the time, pitted, etc, but you can actually be faster than the one giving the blue flag. This is why you should just wait until they catch up and make a move to pass before easily letting them go. If you do happen to be faster, then you will outrun the blue flag situation after a few corners.

If I am the lead car and I give you the blue flag... I fully expect you to do the same and hold the normal racing line. When I make a move to go by, only then do I expect you to allow me an easy time by lifting the throttle. I have been in several NAL races where the guy in front of me was an orange dot on the map, but we were running the same times. I couldn't catch up any further to make a passing attempt and did not expect him to slow down because he saw "blue flag". I remember running for several laps at Westhill like this. He must have pitted and reentered up ahead of me as I came around.

In the situation that you join an already race in progress, then my thoughts are the same as B2B@300 and others in that you have absolutely no business being mixed in with any of the racers and interrupting the session. Sit on pit-road before entering and wait for them to pass by or pull off as soon as you see the blue flag to let them by. And by off, I mean OFF the racing surface. One or 2 cars you can pull way off the line, but if the entire pack is coming, just pull over off the track or shift-s back to the pits. You are not involved and have no business being on the track amongst a pack of racers. I usually always try to time my pit-road drive so that I will pull into a large gap between 2 separate packs of cars (I mean large gap as in they are not in the same section of track to be battling) or behind all the racers if they are all very close. Nothing drives me crazier than to be trying to catch the position in front of me and have someone who just joined zoom out between us causing me missed opportunities to make any headway to the guy in front of me. I yell at them and usually get "I didn't wreck you or mess you up!" Ah, yes you did, you interupted my trying to catch the guy in front and caused me to hold back so you don't wreck me.

Quote from mrodgers :

You must remember, it is possible that the leader may want to use you to his advantage by getting a little bit of draft before making the pass.

This, imho, isn't a good idea at all, for either the lapped car or the passing car to consider. Passing car should remember no two drivers treats a blue flag situation in the exact same way, and lapped car shouldn't be stressed, unless he's obviously blocking the pass. Both drivers should - imo - interfere as little as possible with each others race, staying as far away from each other as possible.

I'm thinking normal road circuits, oval might be different.

Tristancliffe wrote: I know it was technically wrong, but this particular chap is not very nice, so I'm not very nice back. I din't wreck him - his own inability to lap safely led to his accident.

amen

Good post. Take note that every quite inteligent driver will come to conclusion "don not disturb those who are in race" pretty quick. So you ll get that rules even without reading it.

To everyone else use BAN ( sorry i just hate when ppl dont THINK ! )

Quote from Dupson :

sorry i just hate when ppl dont THINK !

And you have been a demo racer since early 2004 you must be going crazy by now then illepall

Quote from Vain :

I think what helps a lot is to spare two buttons to the indicators. I have a switch-key on my MOMO Racing and switch+paddles enables/disables the indicators. So when someone comes up from behind in a corner I set the indicator f.e. left and stick with the left side of the road after the corner. That way the one behind me can plan his line early and neither me nor him loose much time.
This also works pretty well with pitting... Far better than "PIT IN!".


Vain

I fully agree with you Vain , and I also use this method (I have wired a gamepad to extra buttons on my momo red) . it clearly indicates to the following car/s what your intentions are and is more like real life IMO.

good dissusion here I think whoever said "common sense" was spot on the money also

SD.

Quote from B2B@300 :

And you have been a demo racer since early 2004 you must be going crazy by now then illepall

i play from time to time - demo fully suits me. I dont mind racing on the same track. Not everybody is a hardcore racer try to understand that.

Quote from Dupson :

i play from time to time - demo fully suits me. I dont mind racing on the same track. Not everybody is a hardcore racer try to understand that.

I din't mean anything nasty was just having a laugh

I race demo fairly often too, and was just making a humorous comment about the difference between S2 servers and demo servers i.e. the number of people that don't think when they join the server mid race and drive out amoungst the race leaders

That's not to say you can't find good racing on demo servers, you can but there is generally less people that just drive out on the track and mess up a perfectly good race in S2 servers I guess my humour was just lost in translation sorry about that...

np bud peace

In my limited experience on the DEMO ( soon to become S2 ) license , then i have found that , if blue flagged before or during a a chicane or series of sharp , close turns , then i reall dont do anything different to be honest. I just concentrate loads on getting to the straight the fastest my car will take me round the track , then of course on the straight way , i just hold the line , and keep going as fast as i can.

I think this is quite a fair way ? surely in real world if a cars going to be blue flagged at the chicane , then they cant do much differently , just wait till the end of it.



Calum

Renault F1 tm

When you're new to LfS, you surely don't got the experience to both keep your car on the track and let someone through... Granted, it is harder to let someone pass in a chicane... But you'd want to be lapped in a sharp turn, as you don't lose much speed and time when you go wide, letting the lapper through on the inside... It's also a matter of experience to be able to estimate, where it would be a safe spot to let someone pass...

But that's a prefect example actually
If I see the blue flag first time shortly before the righthander into the chicane at Blackwood, I keep my line trought the chicane and then go as fast as I can on the straight. Chances are that the lapping car behind me will use me to slipstream down the straight, and by going just a little wide in the right hand turn, I let the faster car by without losing so much as a second.
That's how it should be done, but sadly, there are much to many impatient fast guys and much to many nervous new guys on the same tracks.

The important thing I reckon is too often forgotten about being blue flagged is that it doesn't mean the other guy demands right of way over you. It means that it isn't worth racing the guy - let him go, it's not worth the lost time to race somebody on a different lap.

In terms of being blue flagged spelling it out clear and simple isn't the problem. It's not that people dont know how to move over/let a faster car through - the accidents happens because:

A) Sometimes, **** happens.
B) They don't want to let you through.

In case of B, i've never found any benefit to getting out of my pram about it. If a driver wont move over (this is more in karts than in LFS because i'm not that competetive in LFS yet) for me I just bide my time and get on with it - i've tried hand signals to marshalls and i've tried nerfing ... both of those result in a flag we dont see in LFS ... the black and white diagonal. (which is a caution, naughty naughty flag ).

There are times when blue flags are had to obey straight away, an example of this when i first started playin iw as no where near competitve and at time i wuld b be cuaht mid corner as i was traveling slower and its hard to move then. But the easiest is to just go offline and not stay full throttle. You dont loose too mch time and its easy for the lappers to pass.

I still race demo, for the fact i reli like the xfg on blackwood and no one plays it on s2 really. In those servers if sumone spams blue flag im not wuite so the gentleman in letting them past, i wont fight i just wont make as easy as it can be.
Thr thign i hate is when people wont let you past at all, I udnerstand a complete noob not knowin what a blue falg is and blocking, but when people force u off the track.(usually in demo servers again) This normally results in me turning into the rear end of their car and spinnig them. I no its wrong to do so but when ive been blocked for too laps under blue falg i get annoyed. Also means they dont do it again lol.

Even though there are many rules on blue flag, its simple - Be a gentleman (or lady if im being politically correct) Dont ruin your race but do everything possible to get out the way.

Edit : Sorry about the spelling mistakes and typos, not got time to correct them now.

Quote from Calum :

In my limited experience on the DEMO ( soon to become S2 ) license , then i have found that , if blue flagged before or during a a chicane or series of sharp , close turns , then i reall dont do anything different to be honest. I just concentrate loads on getting to the straight the fastest my car will take me round the track , then of course on the straight way , i just hold the line , and keep going as fast as i can.

I think this is quite a fair way ? surely in real world if a cars going to be blue flagged at the chicane , then they cant do much differently , just wait till the end of it.



Calum

Renault F1 tm

Sorry bud , but for me you re typical example od ar*ehole.

Explanation.

Race is in progress and two drivers have been having a close battle for 1st place since 4 laps. Then some prick gets on their way and literally "reall dont do anything different to be honest" and he ruines race of both of them cause usually one of them is blocked/bumped/crashed and second wins without any fight. You propably never had a good battle that lasts for all the race. So.. heres a recipe :

1.Go to a dark room
2. get some ear plugs
3. focus really hard
4 think about above situation "wouldnt be fair to get off the way and let them have fun??? would be??"

hope you ll get to proper conclusion .. or you re just another prick.. so a good person for a ban.

Quote from Dupson :

Sorry bud , but for me you re typical example od ar*ehole.

Explanation.

Race is in progress and two drivers have been having a close battle for 1st place since 4 laps. Then some prick gets on their way and literally "reall dont do anything different to be honest" and he ruines race of both of them cause usually one of them is blocked/bumped/crashed and second wins without any fight. You propably never had a good battle that lasts for all the race. So.. heres a recipe :

1.Go to a dark room
2. get some ear plugs
3. focus really hard
4 think about above situation "wouldnt be fair to get off the way and let them have fun??? would be??"

hope you ll get to proper conclusion .. or you re just another prick.. so a good person for a ban.

Part of good close racing is knowing how to deal with lapping people, and how to avoid losing time or being hit. It is just as much the obligation of the leaders to avoid any accidents as it is for the lappee. Throwing your toys away because someone slower than you (and therefore almost certain less skilled or practiced) hit you by accident just means you have more to learn...
Blue flag is a hint to the slower car not a right for the faster car.

Oh, and calling someone an arsehole after a clear well argued post isn't going to win you friends. But I guess speaking against you fairly makes me an a-hole too.

In a narrow section the only sensable thing to do when being blue flagged is to drive on normally and try to leave the section as soon as possible to make space in a safer space. Exactly like Calum said.
So please, Dupson, rethink your interpretation of the blue flag.

Vain

I will handle the blue flag differently based on if I'm in a long race and being lapped, or I joined mid-race. If I join mid-race, I will if necessary pit, run myself off the track, anything to prevent interfering with the person(s) lapping me.

If I'm being lapped in a long race, I won't fight them for it. If they're a lot faster than me I will go wide at the first opportunity and let them by, if I'm close to their pace I will wait for them to be close enough to safely lap without me loosing much time, and without them loosing any. Blue flag to me does not mean screw your own race for them, it means let them by without a fight when the time comes. In part of the track - 1st chicane at BL GP for instance, you end up slowing them down more if you change your line halfway through, than if you just go through normal and let them by when its safe to.

Just my opinion, I agree it all comes down to common sense really.

Thanks to the two posts above for backing me up ,

Dupson , thats your opinion , i dont mind what you think , i really dont think / didnt mean to write my post in a way that makes you think i am the cause of this type of situation for every server , you write it as if you are telling the person who always gets in the way , perhaps i am one of the decent ones who you always pass without any problem ?

Like i say , in real racing , i am pretty sure just cause the leader or a lapping driver is coming past , like many have said in this post , doesnt make him special , sure , he is a concern to me now that i realise the blue flag , but hey , if he is truly faster , then he should be able to get past very well if i drive normally , and just keep my line during a straight. If he/she is not faster but still a lap ahead , then i like to think these drivers that have the skills , also have the sense , and just hold off for one or two seconds while i take the series of turns , or the chicane , or whatever it is. I am positive drivers are fine with being 1 or 2 seconds off of there lap time just for 1 lap , while they wait for me to get out of the way / onto a safe place to let them pass. Then for all the other laps , ( chances are they wont lap me again , or if they do , its doubtful it will be at another difficult place for me to let them past ) then they can continue getting those fast lap times.

If someone is trying to overtake in an obviously difficult place to pass safely , then i admit a little bit of respect from me to them dissapears , and i just concentrate on myself getting through , and driving normally.

If you are " fighting for 1st and 2nd by racing someone for 4 laps " , which i am sure you always are , then maybe its the RIGHT decision to slow down just a touch while i get onto a safe place to move over. If the " cowboy " goes ahead and tries to overtake , and ends up wiping me and him/her out , then all the better for you , you end up being first because of decent racing sense ! and that is just as good as being fast , kudos to you.

See how it works ?

In fact , i would even go as far to say that , in SOME situations , if it is difficult for me to get out the way , and its a blue flag i am getting , and i end up getting wiped by some " ar*ehole " who thinks he owns the track just cause he is near the front of the race pack , then my opinion would be that it was NOT my fault , they should not have been trying to overtake in that difficult area.

Thanks again to the two posts for seeing the same sense as i do , but to all guys and gals , is it not just common sense reading these posts ?



Calum

Renault F1 tm

EDIT : looks like another person above just posted with the same sense i write about , ...

"1st chicane at BL GP for instance, you end up slowing them down more if you change your line halfway through, than if you just go through normal and let them by when its safe to."

thanks RtsBasic as well