And in-depth explanation on racing etiquette

[Ian Fairbanks]

http://trackdays.ie/track-day-etiquette-overtaking-rules/
Famine ok’d posting this.
I thought some here might pick up some nice tips from this article. If you have any tips yourself, please feel free to add them here.

I’ll say this, when I first started learning to pass another car in grab turismo (15yrs ago) I didn’t do so well. It wasn’t online, so I had zero remorse for ramming the computer. Then I went to my first auto cross in real life. It was fun, I did that for five years and became very fast, transferring my skills honed in from GT.

But then one day I decided, “let’s do a track day!” I took my trusty s13 out to PIR, and MAN, did I get an eye opener! Passing was SCARY!

My instructor chuckled at my “this is my first time, but I’ve done this a bunch on gran turismo.” Comment. And since passing generally seems to be the difficult part for most people to do cleanly, I thought I would make this thread. It’s thrust being toward clean passing, and etiquette on track. Now granted the link above is for track days, but a large part of the info goes toward a race day too.

For instance, we regularly see folks getting bumped in the braking zone. Why does this happen? Two things could be contributing from BOTH sides. The driver behind is likely not adjusting his braking zone to accommodate a car in front of him. When you have traffic in front of you, your braking zone IS NOT where it usually is. It’s further back, because you have to create a buffer zone for the driver in front of you. You might say “well, then how the heck do I pass people?!?” The answer is this: if you and the guy in front are running the SAME pace, you’ll never pass him. Because, you are both running the SAMe pace. If you really deserve 1st place, and not 2nd, you’ll earn it through faster driving. You get to pass when you make up more time than your forward rival, or when he slips up and makes a mistake.

This leads to our second reason why we see so many wrecks in the braking zone: the guy behind you is WAY faster! Remember the SAME pace we talked about? Now imagine the guy who qualified 1st, is lapping up on the guy that qualified last. Don’t you think their pace would be different? The answer is, absolutely! This means that if you are in front of somebody that is closing the gap very quickly, you are the person responsible for letting them go by you.

To quote the link above: “As a rule of thumb, if a car is behind you for 3 or 4 corners, he’s quicker and you need to let him past. This means you need to keep a very close eye on your mirrors and be fully aware of what’s around you at all times. For newcomers in particular this can be quite difficult as they are generally focusing extremely hard on the road ahead.”

Well, there you have it. That is my experience from the real life. It’s also some info I found handy. Even veterans need brush ups. I look forward to hearing everyone’s learned skills also!

 

[VFOURMAX1]

http://trackdays.ie/track-day-etiquette-overtaking-rules/
Famine ok’d posting this.
I thought some here might pick up some nice tips from this article. If you have any tips yourself, please feel free to add them here.


This leads to our second reason why we see so many wrecks in the braking zone: the guy behind you is WAY faster! Remember the SAME pace we talked about? Now imagine the guy who qualified 1st, is lapping up on the guy that qualified last. Don’t you think their pace would be different? The answer is, absolutely! This means that if you are in front of somebody that is closing the gap very quickly, you are the person responsible for letting them go by you.

To quote the link above: “As a rule of thumb, if a car is behind you for 3 or 4 corners, he’s quicker and you need to let him past. This means you need to keep a very close eye on your mirrors and be fully aware of what’s around you at all times. For newcomers in particular this can be quite difficult as they are generally focusing extremely hard on the road ahead.”

Well, there you have it. That is my experience from the real life. It’s also some info I found handy. Even veterans need brush ups. I look forward to hearing everyone’s learned skills also!

The main difference is what I was taught within taking some racing schools at the track in real life is that as far as a faster driver overtaking or lapping you that you should just continue to proceed and hold your normal racing line and the fast guys will work around you without issue as they are faster.

You actually pose more of a problem to the fast racers by trying to "get out of the way" as they have no clue as to which way you may move or the direction you may go when you change off of your current racing line.

How many times in the real world have you seen the leaders split a lapper at the same time with one going around the left and the other going around the right side?

If that car being lapped had not just have held his line then there would have been twisted sheet metal on one side or the other.

As a vehicle being lapped hold your racing line, you should of coarse not be trying to block but it is still the faster overtaking vehicles responsibility to get around you cleanly.

 

[Ian Fairbanks]

Whenever I encounter a leader lapping me I pull to the outside of the straight, maintain my speed, and maintain my outside line so they can take the inside of the corner coming up to get around me. Half the time, if IM being lapped, the race leader has incredible momentum and has no problem passing. The times in GT where I’ve held my line, the leader has a tendency to bump me. Likely because he views me as an idiot with no racing experience and figures I’ll try to wreck him like the other toads do.

 

[Johnnypenso]

The main difference is what I was taught within taking some racing schools at the track in real life is that as far as a faster driver overtaking or lapping you that you should just continue to proceed and hold your normal racing line and the fast guys will work around you without issue as they are faster.

You actually pose more of a problem to the fast racers by trying to "get out of the way" as they have no clue as to which way you may move or the direction you may go when you change off of your current racing line.

How many times in the real world have you seen the leaders split a lapper at the same time with one going around the left and the other going around the right side?

If that car being lapped had not just have held his line then there would have been twisted sheet metal on one side or the other.

As a vehicle being lapped hold your racing line, you should of coarse not be trying to block but it is still the faster overtaking vehicles responsibility to get around you cleanly.

I disagree. A lapped driver needs to be hyper aware of his surroundings and should move off the racing line well in advance of the leaders passing by. We're not racing for money here and in the short sprint races if you're being lapped you're miles from being a factor in the race. Watch your mirrors and get out of the way.

 

[KungFury]

Move aside and hold a steady line 👍

 

[mattvieri]

Latest example of this is the Interlagos race, most people including myself are coming away from this with a red SR. The first corner is a minefield, I do exactly what you speak about, adjust my braking to compensate and get round the corner clean, but every time there is some clown screaming up the inside causing chaos to whomever is unlucky enough to be caught up in the destruction, normally they are slow so end up holding you and others up which puts you out of contention for a decent place. On the 3 lapper ****s the complete race and this SR A rating. Just a game but jesus sometimes a frustrating one!

 

[Ian Fairbanks]

Latest example of this is the Interlagos race, most people including myself are coming away from this with a red SR. The first corner is a minefield, I do exactly what you speak about, adjust my braking to compensate and get round the corner clean, but every time there is some clown screaming up the inside causing chaos to whomever is unlucky enough to be caught up in the destruction, normally they are slow so end up holding you and others up which puts you out of contention for a decent place. On the 3 lapper ****s the complete race and this SR A rating. Just a game but jesus sometimes a frustrating one!

I have found that sandbagging the first corner usually helps because I can gain three or four maybe even five places just by letting the idiots go off track or wreck.

 

[Foxis]

Two things from my RL experience as a comment on the OP and subsequent posts:

1. There is a difference between track day etiquette and racing etiquette.
During track days, the "let the faster car by" definitely applies. Most track day organisers/clubs will attempt to avoid and discourage any battles on the track (at least in my country).
However, during proper racing you are not responsible for letting a faster competitor pass. On the contrary you can and should pick lines that will make it harder for them to pass (while still observing rules, such as no blocking).

2. The etiquette is very different regarding passing when battling for a position, and when getting lapped. If you are getting lapped you should absolutely yield the line at the first opportunity. Only exception is if you are already engaged in a legitimate battle and are committed to a corner. Even then though, both contenders should ideally move aside to let the lapping car pass.

 

[JockeP22]

How many times in the real world have you seen the leaders split a lapper at the same time with one going around the left and the other going around the right side?

 

[VFOURMAX1]

That video illustrates exactly what I was describing, if the lapper had of unexpectedly veered from his racing line left or right then he would have made contact with one of the leaders probably causing a crash. By maintaining that racing line both leaders negotiated their way by him without incident or loss of pace.

I disagree. A lapped driver needs to be hyper aware of his surroundings and should move off the racing line well in advance of the leaders passing by. We're not racing for money here and in the short sprint races if you're being lapped you're miles from being a factor in the race. Watch your mirrors and get out of the way.

Whether you agree or disagree this is what was taught in real world racing schools that I attended in the interest of safety. The reasoning is that neither the vehicle about to be lapped nor the vehicle overtaking the slower vehicle has a crystal ball or knows what moves the other driver may or may not make in advance of them doing it.

Therefore maintaining the racing line is determined to be the most predictable and the safest action to take.

Also in most racing orgs the blue flag is just notifying the slower traffic of the approaching leaders and faster traffic, not an order to give way.

True that most racers in the idea of sportsmanship will if possible and can be done safely and in advance will move off the racing line to not affect the outcome of the race for the leaders.

 

[RotorHed]

This page sums up most things pretty well and points out some remaining grey areas

https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/the-rules-of-racing/amp/

PD should have included this instead of the stupid videos about not looking bad

 

[RotorHed]

Edit: Double post.

 

[Never2fast1]

I actually have some experience in RL also, raced at a small local paved circle track in a stock 4 cylinder class. I would say the field was very diverse and some cars/drivers were 10 times faster than others. I tended to be one of the slow ones (I was driving a Saturn for the love of god, not fast at all) Anyways every drivers meeting they told us that the slower guy is suppose to hold his line, if the leaders are catching you it is there job to go around you. I seen some wrecks happen because the lapped car would try to move as the leader was coming by. We were able to run 30 cars at once on the track without incident most nights. It was crazy when you consider the varying speeds.

Now as far as the game goes, I was lapped at Blue Moon (Stupid accident ruined my race) as the leaders came up to me I noticed they had a three way battle going, so I just ducked to the inside on the straight and let them by, I had a nice front row seat to a great battle the final lap as I followed them.

 

[TeWheke]

This page sums up most things pretty well and points out some remaining grey areas

https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/the-rules-of-racing/amp/

PD should have included this instead of the stupid videos about not looking bad

That's brilliant, if everyone read it we would hopefully see the end of being putting people claiming sticking your nose inside someone's read wheel arch on the entry to a corner entitles them to space.

 

[Johnnypenso]

IMO the definitive book on online racing etiquette has already been written and it originates right here on GTP. Many real world etiquette principles transfer well but some don't. The biggest difference between online and real racing is the lack of spatial awareness available to real drivers combined with the lack of sensory input. As such, in order to foster clean racing you need to come up with some rules for behaviour that reflect the specific needs of racing on a rectangular screen. IMO again, I haven't seen anything better than the GTP OLR for fostering clean and fair racing online. It's quite specific and seems to cover most conceivable situations.

 

[PJTierney]

http://trackdays.ie/track-day-etiquette-overtaking-rules/
Famine ok’d posting this.
I thought some here might pick up some nice tips from this article. If you have any tips yourself, please feel free to add them here.

I’ll say this, when I first started learning to pass another car in grab turismo (15yrs ago) I didn’t do so well. It wasn’t online, so I had zero remorse for ramming the computer. Then I went to my first auto cross in real life. It was fun, I did that for five years and became very fast, transferring my skills honed in from GT.

But then one day I decided, “let’s do a track day!” I took my trusty s13 out to PIR, and MAN, did I get an eye opener! Passing was SCARY!

My instructor chuckled at my “this is my first time, but I’ve done this a bunch on gran turismo.” Comment. And since passing generally seems to be the difficult part for most people to do cleanly, I thought I would make this thread. It’s thrust being toward clean passing, and etiquette on track. Now granted the link above is for track days, but a large part of the info goes toward a race day too.

For instance, we regularly see folks getting bumped in the braking zone. Why does this happen? Two things could be contributing from BOTH sides. The driver behind is likely not adjusting his braking zone to accommodate a car in front of him. When you have traffic in front of you, your braking zone IS NOT where it usually is. It’s further back, because you have to create a buffer zone for the driver in front of you. You might say “well, then how the heck do I pass people?!?” The answer is this: if you and the guy in front are running the SAME pace, you’ll never pass him. Because, you are both running the SAMe pace. If you really deserve 1st place, and not 2nd, you’ll earn it through faster driving. You get to pass when you make up more time than your forward rival, or when he slips up and makes a mistake.

This leads to our second reason why we see so many wrecks in the braking zone: the guy behind you is WAY faster! Remember the SAME pace we talked about? Now imagine the guy who qualified 1st, is lapping up on the guy that qualified last. Don’t you think their pace would be different? The answer is, absolutely! This means that if you are in front of somebody that is closing the gap very quickly, you are the person responsible for letting them go by you.

To quote the link above: “As a rule of thumb, if a car is behind you for 3 or 4 corners, he’s quicker and you need to let him past. This means you need to keep a very close eye on your mirrors and be fully aware of what’s around you at all times. For newcomers in particular this can be quite difficult as they are generally focusing extremely hard on the road ahead.”

Well, there you have it. That is my experience from the real life. It’s also some info I found handy. Even veterans need brush ups. I look forward to hearing everyone’s learned skills also!

Got nothing much else to add, that's a good post describing why so many people get rear-ended under normal racing conditions.

 

[Ian Fairbanks]

Got nothing much else to add, that's a good post describing why so many people get rear-ended under normal racing conditions.

Ya know, I made that image my avatar so it would remind me tonsecond guess my thoughts before typing. So far it’s worked.

 

[TeWheke]

IMO the definitive book on online racing etiquette has already been written and it originates right here on GTP. Many real world etiquette principles transfer well but some don't. The biggest difference between online and real racing is the lack of spatial awareness available to real drivers combined with the lack of sensory input. As such, in order to foster clean racing you need to come up with some rules for behaviour that reflect the specific needs of racing on a rectangular screen. IMO again, I haven't seen anything better than the GTP OLR for fostering clean and fair racing online. It's quite specific and seems to cover most conceivable situations.

Plus in video games there are really no actual consequences to a collision, whereas in real life people aren't going to initiate a pass where barring some sort of superhuman reflex reaction from the defender, the only possible outcome is a collision.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

IMO the definitive book on online racing etiquette has already been written and it originates right here on GTP. Many real world etiquette principles transfer well but some don't. The biggest difference between online and real racing is the lack of spatial awareness available to real drivers combined with the lack of sensory input. As such, in order to foster clean racing you need to come up with some rules for behaviour that reflect the specific needs of racing on a rectangular screen. IMO again, I haven't seen anything better than the GTP OLR for fostering clean and fair racing online. It's quite specific and seems to cover most conceivable situations.

That should be a sticky on the top of the GTS forum page

 

[Ian Fairbanks]

That should be a sticky on the top of the GTS forum page

Eww.... that thread is terrible. “You must not...” “you shall not pass...” “if mother says clean room, you must stay and play...”
just gross.
This thread is informative and educational, the above link is an abomination of someone’s authoritative stance.
In this thread we are TEACHING. Not brow beating with some type of tyrannical reign.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Eww.... that thread is terrible. “You must not...” “you shall not pass...” “if mother says clean room, you must stay and play...”
just gross.
This thread is informative and educational, the above link is an abomination of someone’s authoritative stance.
In this thread we are TEACHING. Not brow beating with some type of tyrannical reign.

We get it, you don't like certain words therefore throw everything out the window. Is there any specific principle you object to or just a general condemnation because you don't like the choice of words? By the way, the above link as you call it has been successfully used in dozens and dozens of GT based racing series and similar versions of it countless other times.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Eww.... that thread is terrible. “You must not...” “you shall not pass...” “if mother says clean room, you must stay and play...”
just gross.
This thread is informative and educational, the above link is an abomination of someone’s authoritative stance.
In this thread we are TEACHING. Not brow beating with some type of tyrannical reign.

For any rules package to have a distinctive control on how something is administered then that rules package needs to be written using black and white terminology to try to eliminate grey areas that those subjected to those rules will try to exploit to gain a competitive advantage. The ORG that writes the rules package and enforces them is just like a drill seargent in the military he is your mother and your father and you will only breathe when he tells you it is alright to do so.

If you do not accept an orgs rules as such then you need to race with a different org with different rules.

 

[Tristan Jones]

This page sums up most things pretty well and points out some remaining grey areas

https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/the-rules-of-racing/amp/

PD should have included this instead of the stupid videos about not looking bad

Thats a very good link, great example of why we need to leave space and when - to stop collisions!

Having said that, one of my few track days included a V8 Supercar hot lap at QLD raceway (clockwise track, back when the VT's had just been retired, those wings are huge irl!), where I was told to pull over to the left to allow a faster driver to pass.

These links would suggest passing on the left is safer - and I fully agree.

I now think my scenerio was actually situational, more about moving off the racing line to allow unimpeded passing, but at the time I heard this as let people pass you on the right, and considered this as normal, as that is what we (in Australia) would do on the road.

Being on a track passing and being passed is quite the experience, for all my Gran Turismo experience almost everyone else was faster for some reason...very humbling.

 

[Seikenfreak]

Everyone should go out and participate in some real life track day and instructional events, regardless of what kind of car you drive. I see people out there in rusted out beaters and Toyota Camrys chasing M3s. It gives you a new perspective on things. Etiquette and more.

If you're in the United States, I recommend SCCA's "Track Night In America" as a great entry level event. Very casual. $150 for three 20 min sessions. And it's usually once per month. Some basic classroom instruction for the Novice group. Takes place in the afternoon/evening on weekdays so you can take a half day off work. And all the times I've been, there is at least one professional driver (usually younger than me ) who would be happy to answer questions.

 

[Tekku]

Found myself in the situations mentioned in the OP tonight during the manufacturers race. Had problems with a Mitsubishi driver who constantly pushed people and made som unpredictable calls. Sadly he didn't get any time penalties and I ended up losing two positions because of him. I'm thinking now that I might've been at fault.

First incident: We are traveling at roughly the same pace towards the last corner, and he brakes late and hits me hard. I wasn't expecting this. I either expected him to move to the right and make a sloppy move OR brake earlier than me to avoid what now happened. This is what it looked like from my view (and sorry for the fast switches to rear view, it's just a part of my playstyle):



Second incident: At this moment I had put some real pressure to the Mitsubishi player. After he pushed me off the track I quickly closed the gap again and tried to go for an overtake during his biggest mistake. I expected him to move to the left to get into the racing line, and to make way for my car, which had a much greater speed. But instead he kind of panicked and quickly turned to the right line in order to block me. I hit him quite hard and got a penalty for it:

 

[RotorHed]

Found myself in the situations mentioned in the OP tonight during the manufacturers race. Had problems with a Mitsubishi driver who constantly pushed people and made som unpredictable calls. Sadly he didn't get any time penalties and I ended up losing two positions because of him. I'm thinking now that I might've been at fault.

First incident: We are traveling at roughly the same pace towards the last corner, and he brakes late and hits me hard. I wasn't expecting this. I either expected him to move to the right and make a sloppy move OR brake earlier than me to avoid what now happened. This is what it looked like from my view (and sorry for the fast switches to rear view, it's just a part of my playstyle):



Second incident: At this moment I had put some real pressure to the Mitsubishi player. After he pushed me off the track I quickly closed the gap again and tried to go for an overtake during his biggest mistake. I expected him to move to the left to get into the racing line, and to make way for my car, which had a much greater speed. But instead he kind of panicked and quickly turned to the right line in order to block me. I hit him quite hard and got a penalty for it:

Well the first is kind of a 50/50. Personally I don’t brake as hard as you did in that corner but the guy behind should have also considered that and braked offline or earlier himself.


For the second incident it seemed to me like he was leaving room to pass on the left but you just drove into him for which you got the SR degrade. After that you got a small time penalty for the track cut which was cleared almost straight away.

 

[TeWheke]

First incident you did nothing wrong and are completely blameless.

Conversely the second incident is completely on you - he left you plenty of space on the left but you went right and then tried to pass him where there was just no room to ever get past cleanly. He didn't swerve to block you, you committed to making a move on the right and then instead of realising you'd chosen the wrong side to pass him on and backing off you tried to go through with it anyway and crashed into the back of him.

 

[Tekku]

Well the first is kind of a 50/50. Personally I don’t brake as hard as you did in that corner but the guy behind should have also considered that and braked offline or earlier himself.


For the second incident it seemed to me like he was leaving room to pass on the left but you just drove into him for which you got the SR degrade. After that you got a small time penalty for the track cut which was cleared almost straight away.

First incident you did nothing wrong and are completely blameless.

Conversely the second incident is completely on you - he left you plenty of space on the left but you went right and then tried to pass him where there was just no room to ever get past cleanly. He didn't swerve to block you, you committed to making a move on the right and then instead of realising you'd chosen the wrong side to pass him on and backing off you tried to go through with it anyway and crashed into the back of him.

Yeah, thanks guys. This is probably the case. I just didn't react quick enough on that second situation. As I said I thought that he was going to move to the left and I was so surprised when he didn't that I didn't even think of hitting the brakes and change my line. I just assumed that he blocked me like this intentionally because he had acted like an ass the whole race. The red M4 in front of him had lots of troubles with him as well.

 

[8l23ub]

The leader, even if slower should basically be able to put his car anywhere he wants, as seen below;


And again

 

[InebriHATED]

OP, beautifully writtin first post. People need to understand these things. I personally dont care where I finish as long as we are all having a good, clean, respectable race.