With the addition of Team Principals for Season 5, driver/team allocation will undergo a bit of a change. Read on to learn about the changes coming in Season 5.

Team Principals

Starting with Season 5, the league will have five Team Principals (with each Principal covering two teams). Each Principal will be responsible for managing the roster of his two teams and setting driver lineups for his two teams for each race. The team pairings will be as follows:

Team 1	Team 2
Alfa Romeo	Ferrari
AlphaTauri	Red Bull
Alpine	Aston Martin
Haas	McLaren
Mercedes	Williams

Driver Categories

Similar to previous seasons, drivers can be full-time or reserves. A full-time driver will be eligible to earn points in the Constructor Championship for whichever team he is a member of, but will only be allowed to be a member of one team at once, and will be subject to In-Season Driver Movement as explained below. Reserve roles are intended for drivers who can only attend an occasional race, will be assigned on the day of a race, and reserve drivers will not be eligible to earn points in the Constructor Championship.

Initial Driver Assignment

At the beginning of a season, each Team Principal will be able to sign whomever he/she wants from the available pool of full-time drivers.

In-Season Driver Movement and Waiver Order

Full-time drivers will only be allowed to be a member of and race for one team at a time. Drivers can move from team to team via releases and signings.

FAQ

Q: Can Team Principals also race?
A: Yes, Team Principals can also race for either of the teams in their team pairings (e.g. the Team Principal of Alpine / Aston Martin is allowed to be a driver for either Alpine or Aston Martin).

Q: Can a Driver switch between the two teams in a two-team pairing?
A: Yes, Team Principals can move drivers between their two teams freely, not subject to the above swap and waiver rules.

Q: Can a full-time driver who is signed to a team serve as a general reserve for a race (i.e. fill another spot on the grid for a race and then return to the original team after)?
A: No, a signed full-time driver can not serve as a general reserve. To race for another team, he would need to be released from his current team and then either sign with another team as a full-time driver or remain a league Reserve, with the ability to race for any team.

Note: this post was originally written in January 2022 in anticipation of F1 Season 4 and F2 Season 1 and is no longer the current selection system in place. Visit Season 5 Driver/Team Allocation to view Season 5’s selection system.

I’ve gotten quite a few questions on how teams will be assigned moving forward, so keep reading to have your questions answered. First I’ll outline the high-level steps of the process, then I’ll go into detail on the steps.

Teammate and Team Selection Process Steps

1. Build Active Driver List
2. F1 Teammate Negotiation/Recruitment
3. F1 Team Selection
4. F2 Teammate Negotiation/Recruitment
5. F2 Team Selection

1. Build Active Driver List

The first step will be to build an active driver list and a reserve driver list. Jeff will solicit responses in the Discord server, asking everyone to confirm whether he wants to be an active driver, reserve, or no driver at all. The exact method will be determined later, but a driver will likely need to simply respond to a message with a specific reaction to let Jeff know whether the driver would prefer to be an active or reserve driver.

All drivers who have responded affirmatively that they would like to be active and reserve drivers for the upcoming season will be collated into separate lists. Note that divisions are not yet assigned at this point in the process.

2. F1 Teammate Negotiation/Recruitment

Starting with the driver with the highest TrueSkill (visible in the Discord server on the #driver-tier-eligibility channel, read this if you don’t know what TrueSkill is) and continuing in descending order of TrueSkill, each F1-eligible driver will have the opportunity to agree to be teammates with any other F1-eligible driver. Note that a driver has the freedom of choice here and is allowed to refuse to be someone’s teammate when approached, if he prefers. Teammate selection will continue in descending order of TrueSkill until all 20 F1 spots are filled.

3. F1 Team Selection

Each teammate pairing will select a team/car, with priority given to the team with the highest individual TrueSkill rating of either driver (note that this is either driver and not both, so the pairing containing the #1 TrueSkill driver will select a team/car first no matter who the second teammate is).

Teammate 1		Teammate 2		Priority
TrueSkill #1		TrueSkill #6		1st
TrueSkill #2		TrueSkill #8		2nd
TrueSkill #3		TrueSkill #4		3rd
TrueSkill #5		TrueSkill #7		4th

4. F2 Teammate Negotiation/Recruitment

F2 teammate pairing will be assigned/chosen among unassigned/F2-eligible drivers after in the same fashion as F1 teammate pairings in process step #2 after F1 teammate selection has concluded.

5. F2 Team Selection

F2 cars/teams will be assigned/chosen by F2 teammate pairings in the same fashion as F1 car/team selection in process step #3 after F2 teammate selection has concluded.

If you’ve been on the F1CRL Discord server (here is an invite), you’ve likely seen many references to TrueSkill. If you’ve ever wondered what TrueSkill is, you’re in the right place. Note that I am shamelessly taking this info from Microsoft Research’s TrueSkill Ranking System explanation page, while slightly adapting the language to apply directly to our league. Microsoft Research does a great job explaining the system if you want to dig deeper.

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The TrueSkill ranking system is a skill based ranking system developed at Microsoft Research. The TrueSkill ranking system uses the final standings of all drivers in a race in order to update the skill estimates (ranks) of all drivers in the race.

Ranking Drivers

So, what is so special about the TrueSkill ranking system? Compared to the Elo rating system, the biggest difference is that in the TrueSkill ranking system skill is characterized by two numbers:

• The average skill of the driver (μ in the picture).
• The degree of uncertainty in the driver’s skill (σ in the picture).

The ranking system maintains a belief in every driver’s skill using these two numbers. If the uncertainty is still high, the ranking system does not yet know exactly the skill of the driver. In contrast, if the uncertainty is small, the ranking system has a strong belief that the skill of the driver is close to the average skill.

On the side, a belief curve of the TrueSkill ranking system is drawn. For example, the green area is the belief of the TrueSkill ranking system that the driver has a skill between level 15 and 20.

Maintaining an uncertainty allows the system to make big changes to the skill estimates early on but small changes after a series of consistent races has been conducted. As a result, the TrueSkill ranking system can identify the skills of individual drivers from a very small number of races. The following table gives an idea of the minimum number of races per driver that the system needs to identify the skill level:

Race Type	Number of Races per Driver
16-Driver Grid	3
8-Driver Grid	3
4-Driver Grid	5
2-Driver Grid	12

The actual number of races needed per driver can be up to three times higher depending on several factors such as the variation of the performance per game, the availability of well-matched opponents, etc. If you want to learn more about how these numbers are calculated and how the TrueSkill ranking system identifies players’ skills, please read the Detailed Description of the TrueSkill™Ranking Algorithm on Microsoft Research’s TrueSkill Ranking System explanation page.

How TrueSkill is Shown in F1CRL

Using the two parameters μ and σ which characterize a belief in a player’s skill the TrueSkill ranking system ranks drivers using the so-called conservative skill estimate = μ – k*σ (this metric is also called confidence score in the F1CRL Tier Eligibility output). This estimate is called conservative because it is a conservative approximation of the driver’s skill: it is extremely likely the players actual skill is higher than the conservative estimate. The bigger the value of k the more conservative the estimate; a common value of k is 3 (F1CRL uses a k value of 3).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: What is the difference between skill and performance?

A: The TrueSkill ranking system implicitly uses a performance model that represents your (hypothetical) performance in a particular race. Skill is the average performance. The TrueSkill ranking system maintains a belief in your skill and assumes that your performance in a particular race varies around your skill.

Q: The default TrueSkill of a new driver is 25, right?

A: That’s not fully correct. The TrueSkill value that is displayed in the TrueSkill leaderboard is the conservative estimate of a driver’s skill, computed from two hidden parameters that are used to track a driver’s skill: the mean skill μ and the skill uncertainty σ. The TrueSkill value is then μ-3*σ. What is correct is that a new driver is assigned a mean skill of μ=25 and a skill uncertainty of σ=8.333. Thus, the TrueSkill of a new driver is 25-3*8.333 = 0. Note that these two choices for μ and σ effectively mean that a new driver’s skill can be anywhere from 0 to 50, representing a state of complete uncertainty about their skill.

Q: If I understand the TrueSkill update formula correctly then the change in μ is largest for the first few races and decreases over time. Thus, my first few races are most important; if I lose these races, it will take the TrueSkill much longer to converge to my skill. Right?

A: Not exactly right. It is correct, that the change in μ is getting smaller and smaller with every race contested, but regardless if you win or lose them. However, TrueSkill always takes more recent race outcomes more into account than older race outcomes. Hence, when racing against a set of drivers of same skill multiple times, a late win counts more than an early win.

Q: If the skill of every driver is represented by two numbers, how is it possible to rank drivers in a leaderboard?

A: The TrueSkill ranking system uses the so-called conservative skill estimate which is the 1% quantile of the belief distribution: it is extremely likely (to be precise, with a belief of 99%) that the driver’s actual skill is higher than the conservative estimate.

Q: Who is the better driver: Someone with a large μ and a large σ or a small μ and a small σ?

A: The answer to this question is not straightforward. For someone with a large σ the TrueSkill ranking system is still uncertain about the skill. Thus, the driver with the large μ and a large σ may be better. The best way to find out is to ask the driver with the large σ to race more.