Assists are Back!

For those who didn’t see the recent announcement (though I assume you saw the announcement if you’re deep enough to be reading blog posts on the website), assists (read: ABS and Dynamic Racing Line) are allowed again in F1CRL!

@everyone a very big announcement: assists (e.g., ABS and racing line) are once again allowed in F1CRL. I will be updating the ⁠rules shortly to reflect this change in advance of our next race on Wednesday. If you’re interested in racing, visit ⁠sign-up-instructions to sign up. We have open spots for the rest of the season!

League Admin Jeff in the F1CRL Discord #announcements channel on 3/30/24

There was an immediate influx of new/returning drivers that signed up to race, and the two races after the rule change have had larger grids (18 drivers, on average) than the preceding six races of the season (~7, on average). There’s also been a good bit of decent on-track racing, which I love to see, and I’m excited for the future of the league! On that note…

Future Ideas

There are a few ideas I’ve been batting around and thinking about in regards to next and future seasons. I’m always thinking about rule changes that might make the racing better or setting changes that might make this whole league more fun. Not all of those ideas connect, but some of them, in my opinion, do (e.g., I have not, at any point, missed Safety Cars since we removed them from the league). Some thoughts I’ve had, in no particular order:

Car Type

We’re using Realistic Performance F1 cars this season, with cars assigned in reverse order of performance (i.e., the fastest drivers are in the slowest cars and vice versa). While I don’t know that this is having any pronounced effect on results (the Elo model estimates that car performance explains ~8% of results, with driver ability explaining the other ~92%), anecdotally I have been able to battle with drivers I might not have otherwise battled in Equal Performance cars, and I think overall this setting has helped somewhat to bring the field together. I also am very interested in custom teams (via F1 World cars with liveries matching teams’ color schemes) with 22-driver grids. I like the custom team aspect and think it would be cool to have the ability to field 22-driver grids. Of course, Equal Performance F1 cars are always an option (usually a very popular option with those who sign up to race). More to come and I’m sure there will be discussions about which car type makes sense.

Point Structure

We currently employ a point structure where the top 10 classified drivers score points, with points ranging from 25 for 1st place to 1 for 10th place. I have considered adopting a point structure similar to that of MotoGP (points for the top 15 classified drivers, ranging from 25 to 1st to 1 for 15th), which I think would keep the championship battles interesting throughout the season and give drivers incentive to finish every race, even if finishing outside the top 10 looks guaranteed.

Penalties

I’m always striving to eliminate “bad” driving behavior in this league and incentivize drivers to avoid being involved in incidents. Occasional F1CRL racer/commentator WilliamButtlickr once said (typed?) in Discord chat that “If [F1] game players cared less about [whose] fault it was and more about how to avoid [incidents], [F1] might be fun to play online.” While I kind of think F1 is fun to play online, I agree with the gravamen of the statement: racing is more fun when people are more focused on trying to race respectfully than blaming the other driver for incidents (which often have some degree of shared blame). Anyway, I digress. The longer we have raced 50% races with no Safety Cars, the more apparent it has become that a 5-second penalty as the standard penalty for Prohibited Behaviors (that’s a defined term in F1CRL’s rules) often has little to no effect on race results, as a direct result of the field spread that occurs over full race distance (our races are generally 40+ minutes long). To address this, I have considered and am considering moving the standard penalty to 10 seconds or more, with penalties for particularly egregious incidents potentially fetching 20- or 30-second penalties.

Why Did You Post This?

I posted this because I want to keep people updated on what I’m thinking about the league and its future. None of these potential changes are set in stone, but I thought it would be nice to post people on my thinking and potentially incite some healthy and respectful debate. Come join us in the Discord chat if you’d like to participate in the discussion!