Round 6 Zolder - Thu Dec 10, 2020

Spot on @Matteo Santini. We've finished today another series in rF2 (Historic F3) where @Jens Roos took the championship in the end. My congratulations to Jens for the overall win and let's make clear that I'm not challenging this result at all. The scoring system was clear at the beginning of the series and he fully deserved the overall win. I just think this result is a good example of what Matteo is suggesting here and, as we have a full table of results, it adds to the point being made. The current overall scoring is rewarding drivers for joining all the events, not for winning races or ending in podium positions and I think this, whilst it encourages participation which is good, completely undermines the meaning of winning a championship/series. Here I leave the results table and you can make your own mind about what's good and wrong about the current scoring:

 

If we blow this up proportionally and multiply everything by 3 for example we get 18 races with Jens participating in all 18 and scoring 1044 points and Jos participating in 12 races scoring 612 points.

Shrink it back down and to one of the old F1 scoring systems: 9,6,4,3,2 and 1 point for first six positions. Jens gets 15 points in 6 races, Jos gets 31 points in 4 races.

What is sad to me is that only 2 drivers out of 15 there managed to show up for 6 out of 6 races. That's a mini-season with a barely moderate sized grid. But that's another story. However, one of those two drivers won the championship.

So on another hand, how do you expect to win a championship with 2/3 participation? I've never ever seen such an example in racing. Races in the older days were filled with incidents and reliability issues. In simracing, you have virtually unlimited seat time compared to real life and suffer less than half of those real life issues. No one ever wanted to miss on a chance to score points or wins.

 

And good for Jens, Mark. I said it already.
I understand the reasons (I've said it before) to reward participation in online events but it could be argued that the current system could also discourage participation in a different way. For example, someone that would be interested in winning championships and that misses a race for unforeseeable circumstances might just give up entirely on the championship as it would be almost impossible to win with the current system and thus drop from the remaining of the races...
The point here is that a reward system crafted to encourage participation might just do the opposite in some cases and contribute to the drop-off rate that we see in many series.
So maybe an open discussion about it is not a bad thing.
It's all about having the right balance. We all want populated series with all drivers joining all events. The scoring system plays a role in this. I think it is excessively biased towards plain participation rather than merit or competition.

 

I understand this as a rhetoric question Filip, but just in case it wasn't, I wasn't expecting to win the championship. I didn't pay attention to the championship points until this issue has been raised. I can honestly say now that I don't care much about winning championships. I am delighted to have options to win races from time to time and that together with the competition in a nice field of competitive drivers is what gives me the thrill but, as per my message to Mark above, what it's been pointed out here is that the current system might not always encourage participation and it is obviously intended to do so... So worth considering it.

 

Happy with that Mark. I think those raising this point only have a positive intention to contribute to the growth and fun in SRO. But hey, you have your system and your reasons to set it up the way you like. I've got the message. I appreciate your consideration and elaborated response more than Nigel's assertive intervention. I will shut up on this topic now as it is not really what motivates me about simracing. All the best.

 

Now, if we want to solve this issue (thanks Jos for reporting an actual example of this), I prepared an excel file with 6 different proposals, that would surely go in the way I described in my post in the other thread, and will at the same time solve a bit the DNFs getting too many points without completing a race.

Now, I briefly describe my 6 proposals that you can check on the excel file. They're all based on a 6 races championship. With any of these proposals, the DNFs drivers will be rewarded with less points than the actual SRO scoring system, and the victory will be always rewarded more than SRO actual scoring system. Then there will be a couple of proposals to keep the field a little bit closer for mid champ positions. The column that really matters and that on which you should focus is that "POINTS % TO THE LEADER". Alongside each proposal I have proposed some hypotheses of countings for a champ battle.

I'm not a native English speaker, so I hope you'll forgive me if you don't understand something. In that case just ask, and I'll try to be more clear

PROPOSAL 1: ACTUAL F1 SCORING SYSTEM (This system would be a bit too unbalanced towards the leader for shorter champ than actual F1)
I would actually discard this in reality, cause it works well for a championship with more races like real F1, but not for a 6 race champ. However, if people like it... why not.

PROPOSAL 2: MODIFIED F1 SCORING SYSTEM (position from 2 to 9 would take 2 points more than actual F1. 10 pos only 1 point more)
If you want that only top 10 scores points, this would actually work a bit better than proposal 1 for a shorter amount of champ races.

PROPOSAL 3: ACTUAL MOTOGP SCORING SYSTEM (more balanced than the F1 scoring system for use in shorter champs)
I retain this a good scoring system for an SRO champ. It will reward a largest number of drivers, but has the advantage to keep competition a bit more close then the first 2 proposals.

PROPOSAL 4: MODIFIED MOTO GP SCORING SYSTEM (1 point more for 2nd-3rd-4th-5th pos. = more balanced for podium champ positions)
This is a bit more odd by my side, cause you will have a couple of situations in which: 1) a driver that win 5 races + 1 no joined, would lose the championship against a 6 time finisher in 2nd position. I retain this less fair than what would happen with the actual MotoGP scoring system. Evenmore, a driver that wins 4 races + 2 no joined races, would be beaten by a driver that will collect 5 2nd places + 1 no joined race. Better check the excel sheet I guess

PROPOSAL 5: 20 DRIVERS WILL GET POINTS
With this proposal, in case of larger grid, almost every driver would score at least one point, like SRO actual scoring system. Howerver, the highest positions would be rewarded more and the mid-back positions would be rewarded with less points than SRO scorings. We could think even on enlarging the range to include 25 drivers that will get point. That's not really a matter.

PROPOSAL 6: 20 DRIVERS GET POINTS MODIFIED (1 point less for 2nd position + Position from 4 to 14 will obtain more points than proposal 5 = more balanced for mid pack position)
As said in the description, that would render the fight for mid pack positions a bit more balanced. There is just a slight difference of possible combinations of events for the fight for championship, if compared to the previous proposal.

That said, you can download the excel by the following link =>

Enjoy the reading

 

Hahhah yes it was just a rhetoric question, don't worry! I've just taken those numbers out of that results page and put different numbers to show an extreme situation. Of course, if there is more will here for any discussion such as to make some reasonable changes to the points system, I won't mind at all. Like something in between which Matteo posted earlier. The current points system rewards participation but also finishing consistently. Closer to NASCAR style racing. Maybe the points system could be based on type of race cars used in the series.

Anyway, I'll be posting any further stuff about this on the new thread John has created.

 

@Matteo Santini Post it there Matteo, it's good stuff
https://simracingonline.co.uk/threads/thread-for-discussing-a-new-point-system.10529/

 

Thanks Filip, didn't noticed I picked the wrong thread

Just did it

(I hope it has not been a waste of time indeed )

 

I'd like just to explain my disagree Mark. Nothing personal obviously. So I encourage you to read pros and cons of my proposal in this thread.

My proposals (at least that would give points to a larger number of drivers) won't be an issue on the matters of drivers that show up regularly at SRO events. I guess that people like Gert Jan van Osch and Jens Roos are both regular drivers from what I see, but I can just guess that Gert has missed 1 round for some good reason, but he is still to be considered a regular. It's just a matter of rewarding a bit more the regular drivers that obtain good results. At the same time is a matter of rewarding less people who sometimes makes bullxxits... like me for example
I am almost going against my interest on this subject, cause I collected a lot of DNFs here on SRO, but I still retain that a regular driver that shows up for at least 4 event on 6 (so say 66,66%) of the events, in case of him winning all that 4 event on 6, he would still be to be considered the "real" champion. I hope that Jens would not be offended in any way by this, cause I didn't know this situation and is not my intention to harm anyone really.
I guess everyone of us has a life and a work, so real life commitments sometimes can come into your way and penalize you in an online champ. But I guess that you shouldn't be penalized that much if you miss just a race or 2 for a good reason, and you show up regularly during the champ. I see it as a way to keep competition more fair, and to be honest, I wouldn't like to win a champ just because I showed up in every event, even if the poor Gert kicked my axx in the previous 5 rounds. But I repeat, that is just my vision of fairness and that involve that you must be a regular driver in that champ.
No bad feelings by my side for sure. Mine is just an attempt to improve a place in which I love to simrace.

 

My luck played a role, but the main reasons were my mistakes and my inconsistancy. The results of new car + new tracks (most of them) and little practice didn't worked well for me. We were very close in the quali, but I had no chance against @Dennis Matzies and you guys in the race.
On Zolder I was so happy for taking the 1st corner without accident... and a split second after that a red flash has crossed my path

Anyway, very well done to the winners of both classes and to all the guys who started and finished all the races in this championship! These cars didn't make it easy for us.
I hope that I will have a bit more time and fun in the next series.
Cheers all and stay healthy!