I wish to remove the blue flag rule :)

Kennett Ylitalo · Aug 2, 2012

I too am 100% sure that this is the best solution. Having a faster car that i'm not allowed to race on my tail for 3-4 corners starts to really heat my ass, i want it to be over and soon. communicating on track has been problematic, usually the top 3 are the easiest to let pass, after that comes people who are not so use to it or i have no experience with and simple things become huge.

It's very hard to say on track "i'll take this long sweeper, take entry tight and let you pass" and then the guy starts drafting. And while drafting i change lanes and so does the lapper, i start to slow down with a second blue flag and cause a hazard. These things happened on track, first one was in China ( i think it was china, just before the last straight and in Silverstone was he second hazard where the lapper didn't understand my intentions. Both situations in hindsight would've been totally safe without blue flag, first one: i would've kept the racing line, pass on straight. The second, stay on racing line, pass maybe have to be made in the next corner since the short straight out of club really was too short...

I started to change protocol in the last four races season, didn't care about the first flag so much, on the second flag i let pass at the first possible moment, third flag, i'll go off track if that's needed. But while the situation was between the first and the second, there was so much more room to work the situation safely. But often the possibility of third flag starts to intervene driving and concentration, after that the lapping became dangerous. With the new rule i can spend more time in between flag one and two and never get the third flag. All passes that was made between those two conditions worked out really well, in all cases i could stick to the rear of the lapper for few corners/straights. Most passes were in the straights too, earlier they sometimes were forced to happen on corners.

Victor Ivanov · Aug 2, 2012

Actually the most safe lapping happen on straights. Opening the corner for a lapping car is rather dangerous for you and for the lapping car too. Both cars can go wide and that can cause a collision which nobody really wants to happen. Sorry but I kind of misunderstood the whole thread here. You were talking about the flag rule in the game only not for the lapping at all. I thought people would have to race with backmarkers just to lap them which is really impossible on tracks like Monaco or Hungary. Sorry again, now I realize this is a very good idea.

Kennett Ylitalo · Aug 2, 2012

It will inevitably cause situations where the lapper will loose significantly more time than with the previous rule (street tracks, long combinations of corners, esses etc.). I'm expecting that to be rare occurrences, smaller timeloss is going to happen more often and is about the same as with the old one... Once we get from theory to practice (this time, no pun intended) it'll all come clear. First race, 1/3 of the way and we should start to see it happen...

Why can it be 29th and i have finished my practice schedule in time, bottle of cold water close by, double espresso half way finished, ( second half scheduled for both pitstops ), race tactic calculated.. pit stop presets activated and organized.. pressure check on pedals done.. Last cigarette stumped... 30 sec until start... Pitty human needs taken care off aka Biological pitstop done, face washed, fan turned on, tuck the racing socks back up and GO!

Reik Major · Aug 2, 2012

I completely trust in Nicos idea, because the biggest effect of this procedure would be that the fear end the stress hopefully is taken away from the lapped driver. Sure, he still will have to have an eye on the lapping car behind but mainly he can focus on his race and finally when the lapping car makes the more or less common pass he can just let it happen.

I'm very optimistic that this procedure will reduce lapping missunderstandings and unnecessary big time losses for the lapped guys. I had many situations in the race when lapped cars moved over (or off the track) very early and nearly destroyed their races just to make it as smooth as possible for me. I felt ashamed then and thought: "Oh dear, please don't do that for me. Drive your race! I'll find my way through and I don't care about loosing few seconds or a position"

PS: I had some similar moments at Watkins yesterday like David describes but I would rate the general skill here higher.

Juan Lopez · Aug 3, 2012

"However, I will be stricter than I used to be when it comes to drivers preperations for a race. I can tell when a p.b. lap time is the result of limited practice. Amost half the grid on yesterdays Watkins race would not have been allowed to start a presto gp race."

Confused by this part of your post, what do you mean by "Stricter than I used to be when it comes to drivers preparations"?

Anthony Ishak · Aug 3, 2012

Then It should be very clear by now that the slower driver must strictly stay on the racing lane with his normal race speed and should not suddenly slow down or block , change or take a defensive lane or any other unexpected behaviour as the faster car at this stage will be trying to work out the right place and moment to pull the clean pass , and when the faster car has pulled the pass then the slower car shall slightly lift of to get the pass done as quickly as possible.

Things can get a bit more advanced when 2 fast drivers are lapping 2 slower drivers that both are fighting for positions , we might learn as we go but in my opinion the faster guys should lap one slow driver at a time as the first slow driver will be busy fighting with the car behind and will have so little time to react that there is another 2 faster cars are trying to lap both of them ...

Nicolai Nicholson · Aug 3, 2012

Juan Lopez said:
Confused by this part of your post, what do you mean by "Stricter than I used to be when it comes to drivers preparations"?

It is two-folded, I want to avoid drivers signing up and joining a race or two and then disappear, and I want to avoid having drivers who have not learned the track properly (dangerous) in the race.

I cannot tell the future, but the preperation and communication new members do before season start paints a picture of what we can expect. You see, in season 5 we were 31 people starting for race 1 (forcing two divisions), 5 rounds later we had to merge the two divisions because so many had left during season. This season I will not create 2 divisions if I am not confident we'll be enough throughut the season.

From a race to race basis I follow the members preperation. From time to time I see drivers that obviously do not prepare at all until the day before race or so, and then they know they have to post a time to join the race, so they do some laps, but in reallity they are poorly prepared and chances are they will be lapped many times and probably dnf and possibly create incidents.

There are more than 30 drivers signed up, but I go by this list where there are only 20 accepted times: http://prestogp.com/index.php?view=...&vehicle=MMGF107&Update=Update&leaguefilter=1