When we spoke to Kazunori Yamauchi in Salzburg last year, he confirmed that the team was always looking at ways to improve the flagship FIA experience. Since then we’ve seen regions split and reunited, and a more open entry mechanism, all to make the events smoother and friendlier for players.
The latest change makes its debut in this weekend’s races, in the 2019 Exhibition Series 1, Round 8. Before now, each of the two different events — Nations Cup and Manufacturer Series — have had five open time slots. Players could compete on the hour for one, and at ten past for the other.
Sometimes this would means making a choice to focus on one event or the other. From Round 8 onwards this changes to three, staggered time slots in each series — allowing players the time to compete in all slots in both series.
For players in Europe this means that the Nations Cup races get underway at 17:00, 19:00, and 21:00 UTC, with the Manufacturer Series at 18:00, 20:00, and 22:00 UTC.
The schedule is similar in other regions, with the first race in Asia at 20:00 JST, and the first Americas race at 14:00 PST, continuing in the same staggered format.
One exception is when there is a Superstars Race. Instead of occupying an entire hour’s time slot, as before, it now sits as a separate race in what would be the middle slot for each region. Non-superstar players can then participate in a race ten minutes later. The first time this applies is on Saturday, March 2.
As before, if you compete in multiple races for the same round only your most recent points score will count.
This change becomes effective from today’s events.
Featured image courtesy of Rivanov.
