As announced recently in F1CRL’s Discord, the upcoming 2024 (Summer) season will feature Custom Teams. I’ve discussed the Custom Teams concept briefly in previous posts and on the Discord as well, but the intent of this post is to summarize how Custom Teams will work and how drivers can submit Custom Teams.

The Grid

The grid for the 2024 (Summer) season will be made up full-time drivers (each assigned to a Custom Team, two drivers per team), who are each guaranteed a seat for every race. Any open spots will be filled by reserve drivers (not assigned to a team), up to a maximum of 22 drivers (an increase from our previous maximum of 20 when using F1 cars).

Team Submission

The goal is for teams to be submitted by full-time drivers, though I (Jeff) will create teams if needed to ensure we have the requisite team spots to support the number of full-time drivers that have signed up. Submitters should strive to be creative and propose teams that are interesting, cool, and attractive to other league members. Low-effort, joke, and/or meme teams will not be accepted. To submit a team, DM me (Jeff) on Discord with the following info for your proposed team (with some guidance/rules provided inline):

• Team Logo: Logo MUST be high-quality (comparable in quality to an IRL F1 team’s logo), must have a transparent background, and can be sourced from anywhere you’d like (online, made yourself, purchased) as long as it’s high quality
• Team Name (Long): Your team’s official name including any title sponsors, likely only referenced on the website or in formal communications. E.g., Oracle Red Bull Racing
• Team Name (Short): The way your team will be referenced most often, such as in race results and standings. E.g., Red Bull
• Primary Color: The only required color submission, this color should have some sort of connection/relation to the team’s logo (e.g., if your logo is red and white, your primary color should not be purple) and should be the dominant color on your car’s livery. Ultimately we will settle on a specific RGB/hex code for this color so you should have a specific color in mind.
• (Optional) Other Colors (Secondary, Tertiary, Quaternary): It’s encouraged to include these so team members know exactly what colors to use for liveries, race wear, helmets, etc. Similar to the primary color, we will use specific RGB/hex codes for these colors, to the extent a team has them.
• (Optional) Suggested Livery/Badge: Not required but could add value if you have something specific in mind.

Using Real Manufacturers/Teams

Real manufacturers are allowed (Audi would be a good Custom Team given they are joining F1 in the future, manufacturers who compete in other racing series would also be good additions). Drivers are allowed to (but discouraged from) using IRL F1 teams in situations where drivers could use an IRL F1 team livery (e.g., Codemasters gave out free Williams liveries for usage on F1 World Cars during the F1 23 lifecycle in conjunction with certain challenges).

Q&A

I will add answers to questions received here to clarify anything that needs to be clarified.

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!

We ended Season 7 with a classic at Spain, in which KENNYHITMANHART did his best Nicolas Latifi Abu Dhabi 2021 impression to ensure sayayines4ever was able to complete his last-to-first challenge (pre-empting what looked to be a certain Bigryeguy98 win and embarrassing the whole league in the process).

Championship Winners

sayayines4ever capped off a dominant season in which he wrapped up the Drivers’ Championship with multiple races remaining. Along with teammate Shawnmcglock, he was able to help carry the Williams crew to an easy Constructors’ Championship. Congratulations to our champions!

F1 Driver Champion		sayayines4ever	Full Standings
F1 Constructor Champion		Williams (sayayinesever + Shawnmcglock)	Full Standings

Who Improved the Most in Season 7?

Continuing on last season’s fresh idea, I once again set out to see who improved the most during the season, and as a lover of Elo I elected to use F1CRL’s Elo ratings (full ratings available on the Discord server) to see who had the largest positive swings during the season. I limited this to drivers who (a) had an existing Elo rating prior to Season 7, i.e. had raced in the league before and (b) improved more than 5 Elo points than during Season 7 (due to the way the model works, some small increases/decreases can occur without a driver racing as the model accounts for new entrants).

To those who have followed the results this season, MMR_Aleix27_ improving more than any other driver in the league in terms of Elo likely isn’t surprising. He achieved his first win this season and was able to post his highest seasonal Points/Race (7.9) despite the strong grid he faced, week in and week out.

Season 8 Plans

The current plan is to start Season 8 in late June 2023 after the release of F1 23, so make sure you’re in the Discord server and stay tuned for details on how to sign up for Season 8 once the new game releases.

While expected lobby/setting changes in F1 23 will likely result in more tweaks to the Rules to adhere to the latest options, one significant change for Season 8 has already been enacted: both Driving Line and ABS are now prohibited assists.