The Good Racecraft Guide - ROOZ Racing Ettiquette

The Good Racecraft Guide

This article will cover what the cleanest gentleman drivers here consider to be good racecraft, etiquette/manners, & general sportsmanship. ...
The following is based on .. many experiences of gentlemanly racing with some the cleanest forum members out there online over the last few years, ...in GT5 Prologue...GT5 [and iRacing].

[This article reflects what is considered proper race etiquette at ROOZ and is intended to supplement the existing ROOZ Rules & Regulations - http://raceonoz.com/forums/index.php?threads/racing-rules-regulations.70/.] [VBR from GTPlanet is acknowledged as the original author of this guide.]


Defending Your Position:

An experienced racer will take whatever line he feels necessary into any given corner in order to defend & maintain his place, he is entitled to do so as he has track position over the pursuing driver, remember that the fastest line is not always the winning one. It is the other chaps job to force him into an error, whilst still driving cleanly of course, or wait for one to occur naturally & then take advantage of it, albeit in the proper fashion.

An inexperienced racer will, in his endless optimism, tend to stuff it up the inside at every unavailable opportunity when trying to pass, imagining he is driving well but making far too much contact & causing many unnecessary incidents. Also, some lacking in good racecraft tend to drive right up to & into the driver in front, as they do not have the common sense to adjust their throttle & braking to account for following in the slipstream of another. You will notice that drivers who have good racecraft make very little contact when following & passing others on track.


Overtaking & Being Overtaken:

When being overtaken up the inside, on the run up to a tight high speed corner like 130R on Suzuka for instance, the competitive driver with good racecraft recognises when the battle is lost & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so that both cars can make the apex of the corner at pretty much full racing speed. The aggressive driver will carry on round the outside at full throttle in a dangerous attempt to defend his position, which is clearly already lost, this kind of optimism can lead to a catastrophic & entirely unnecessary incident.

If both cars do somehow manage to make it through the corner side by side, which obviously results in lower cornering speeds, the bad driver has now let the rest of the field catch up some, let the the drivers ahead increase their lead or sometimes both. Not only is it counter productive, it is also bad manners, you will not see top class racers executing such mindlessly aggressive do or die maneuvers.

When attempting to overtake up the inside, on the run up to a tight high speed corner like 130R on Suzuka for instance, sometimes you are not close enough to pull it off. The discerning driver knows when this is the case & will yield by coming off the throttle or even braking a little if necessary, so as to not cause an incident, there is after all only 1 racing line through 130R. The aggressive or overly optimistic driver goes for it regardless, stuffs it up the inside, causes an incident, & puts his poor racecraft on display for all to see.

You will not see mature racers out on track performing in this way, they get their overtaking done well before the apex of such corners. However, a possible exception to these scenarios might be when two intelligent drivers are equally alongside each other & battling for position on the final lap, where driving slower & side by side through 130R to keep track position would lead to a win, or higher finishing position.

When the driver of the car in front has made an error & gone wide into a corner, the well mannered driver behind will go for the overtake but leaves just enough room for him as he accelerates out, this is because he knows that the other car is still going round on the outside of the track. An inexperienced driver, or one with bad manners, will also go for the overtake but accelerates out of the corner at full speed using all of the proper racing line as if he is the only one on track. This leads to contact, pushing the other driver off track, or even an incident involving multiple cars if battling in a pack. You will not see gentlemanly racers causing this kind of unnecessary incident through such a lack of manners.

The correct or optimal racing line in certain corners, like the last 2 turns at Fuji for instance, can look very wide to the untrained eye. The undiscerning racer cannot tell the difference between a driver taking the correct racing line, & one going wide into these corners, he thinks the chap in front has made an error & stuffs it up the inside in a futile effort to overtake. When the driver in front accelerates towards the apex, the driver behind now finds he has placed his car in the wrong position, & there is contact. Once again by slowing both cars up, the bad driver has let the chaps in front pull away some & the those behind catch up. The intelligent racer knows there is usually no real advantage to this, & does his overtaking on the following straight, or when he sees someone has actually gone wide in these types of corners.

When an experienced & thoughtful racer is being overtaken in slower/wider corners, he knows where the other driver is on track & leaves him just enough room so that they can drive around together side by side, he takes a different line while still maintaining a reasonable amount of speed. The aggressive or unthoughtful racer sticks to his line, turns into the other driver & causes unnecessary contact, as he is not discerning enough to make the correct adjustment to his line. Drivers with good racecraft have the ability to adapt quickly to various situations, to make better judgements, & tend to avoid & not cause as many incidents.


Drafting

It is considered extremely unsporting to weave about left & right all over the track trying to stop your opponent from drafting you, it is also quite undignified, & not at all gentlemanly (do not confuse this with blocking by weaving to stop another driver from passing you, which as you already know, is against the OLR). A well mannered & intelligent racer may choose to take a variety of different lines through corners to try to minimise the amount of draft his opponent gets, he is entitled to take any line he wishes being the driver in front. Also, when coming onto the straight, he may continue turning past the track out point, & take a different line down it. From then on however, manners dictate that he only has 1 move either left or right to choose his line into the next turn, this should be done early & slowly enough to give other drivers following behind a fair chance to react, lest there be an otherwise avoidable incident.

When drafting in a pack down the straight heading for a turn, the experienced driver near the back knows he is drafting a car that is drafting other cars, & is thus travelling significantly faster than everyone else. He also knows that he will need to brake much earlier than the others to avoid contact by the end of the straight, especially if the chaps in front are going in 3 or 4 abreast & there is no room to pass. The optimistic driver still thinks he can overtake them all & come out in 1st place, he carries on, brakes way too late, & ploughs through those in front causing chaos & ends up off track, in the sand or having to wait for those he hit. Experienced racers hardly ever find themselves in this position, on the rare occasions they do, it's usually just down to braking errors, & certainly not due to wildly optimistic overtaking maneuvers.

When overtaking another car right near the end of a straight, it is good manners to leave the other driver his line, & stick to your own. It is bad manners to quickly swerve in front of the car you have just passed, take his line & brake. This is because you will be travelling much faster due to drafting him, & will have to brake significantly earlier, the other driver will have almost no time to react by changing his line or braking point. This kind of bad racecraft can lead to many unnecessary incidents going into turns at the ends of straights, you will not see the more experienced & well rounded drivers performing this kind of maneuver.

When a thoughtful racer finds himself drafting a different make of car down a straight, that's faster but with less braking power & slower round corners, he pulls out of the draft much earlier than usual. This is so he can out brake him going into the next turn, without running into the back of him. The unthoughtful racer carries on oblivious to the fact that he is just about to cause a major incident. Good racecraft also involves taking into account the diverse range of vehicles, tunes & personalities on track & how this can dynamically alter the way the race pans out, through the various & ever changing situations as they unfold.

Firstly you can't just break in a straight line if you want to drive fast... me trying to learn trail breaking would be null and void then...
Secondly, there is a fine line between the car in front leaving the door open and the driver behind dive bombing... discussion on this will go on until the end of time...

Personally - I know drivers who I expressly keep any sniff of a door shut because they will try the late break push me out option every time and ones whom I'm more relaxed with...

Braking in a straight line, and braking in a line parallel to the track limits are not strictly the same thing and an attacking driver must understand the difference to anticipate when a lead drivers normal straight line braking line i.e. wheel centred, is actually targeting and converging on an apex moving across the track from outside on a legitimate and predictable racing line. There will never be room for a move up the inside in this scenario unless you have at least a 3/4 overlap (nose along side opponent front wheels) BEFORE the braking zone.

Video 1 and 2 just a racing incident IMO. Inside driver did a good job of threshold braking to maintain an overlap until the turn in lock up but ultimately judged the entry speed wheel as able to maintain a tight line through the corner.

Video 3 IMO constitutes a judgement error. Inside driver carried too much speed as was not clearly not able to make corner the exit.

Video 4 another racing incident IMO. Lead driver lockup into the corner pushes the car wide unexpectedly into the path of the trailing driver who was fully committed to a wide line seeing the lead driver commit to an inside line.

Thanks for pointing me to this post KoAStR! Very good read and almost a must to for all newbies... even as a refresh for seasoned racers (I'm purely implying myself here)

1 & 2 agree. Yes arguably if there was no lockup there would have been no contact. Correlation doesn't equal causation, root cause doesn't equal blame and IMO that's racing. It was far from a rookie move and without calculated risk moves like that it's just a parade.

Vid 4. I don't see conclusive proof the trailing car would have gone off track if not for the contact. So to use your argument in the other scenario, if the lead car hadn't made the first error and locked up there would have been no contact. Again this doesn't constitute blame just unfortunate occurance in time of the unpredictable despite best efforts.

Are these legitimately frustrating scenarios to be in. Yep you bet ya! But isn't that the nature of competing as opposed to conceding?

Definitely! Have had some exciting side-by-side times with drivers I trust like @marty through some interesting spots around the likes of Nordschleife. After all it is racing, not a parade, that we are all here and get excited for!