If you're talking real life it depends what series and what corner. For instance at Monza, you're allowed to put all 4 tyres across the white line at the exit of Ascari (M.Schumacher in particular does it every lap there). At Interlagos, drivers were allowed to put all 4 tyres on the large wide kerbs (hence completely not touching the tarmac) without any penalty. It just depends on the agreement with the drivers for the circuit. In our leagues at Sim Racing Australia (nice plug there), we stipulate which kerbs/corners you don't need to adhere to our general rule of '2 tyres inside the white line at all times' if there is such a case which is either difficult to police or is obvious everyone will exploit.
Curbs are beyond the white lines, so two wheels on the curbs is allowed. In real life racing you can go beyond this if you have to, but will be penalised if you do it all the time.
Yes good point. So, it seems (I could be wrong) like It's possible to get four tires on the curbs on chicane at Lime Rock. Is this consistent with the rules there?
FIA sporting code effectively says, at least one tire should be above the track surface (asphalt including white lines, not including curbs) at all times. Any deviations from that in FIA-rules racing are either exceptions agreed with the race director or breaking/bending the rules (which unfortunately is commonplace in F1 for example). Also in some chicanes it may seem that the cars goo all 4 wheels off the track, but if you watch carefully you'll see that, for example, as the outside rear wheel goes off the track, the front outside wheel goes back on, so there's no moment in time when all 4 wheels are off the track simultaneously. I haven't driven at Lime Rock for ages, but I suspect it may be the case there, cause the chicane is very tight.
It comes from FIA Sporting Code. The actual rule says something like "The car is judged to have left the track if no part of the car remains above the surface of the track" (almost exact quote from memory). Obviously judging this by looking if the front wing end-plate is sticking out above the track or not would be quite tricky, especially with limited camera angles, so most of the time they just look at where the wheels are.
All leagues will require you to keep 2 wheels on the black stuff. I have not raced anywhere that this has not been the rule. If you make a mistake, fair enough. But if it is done consistently, you will cop a penalty.
It all depends on where you are racing. Pubbies and offline- whatever the game doesn't call is allowed. Leagues and clubs- they vary, so know the rules. Some say 2 tires on the pavement at all times, some say 1 tire. Some define pavement as the painted area of the curb, some define pavement as the black stuff only.
Why such rule is placed in first place? I would imagine it is because cutting a lot might damage the car or track and also bring dirt etc. to track, but also potentially cause loss of control and danger to other drivers. Keeping those points in mind, I think one should plan his line in such manner that it does not posses any harm to other racers. While thinking of keeping one wheel on track (or two) might lead more of attempts to gain something extra by stretching the rule. This is why I wish to think more of why such rule exists, so I would be able to better respect rule's spirit instead of following rule blindly without understanding why.
Also to disallow gaining an unfair competitive advantage by going off the circuit. It's called circuit racing for a reason!
I just like the fact that I don't have some "silly" computer generated voice 'in my ear' every second telling me, "the race director has given you a warning for cutting the track". Sometimes you have to take evasive action in racing for spun cars etc...
Good point. The biggest challenge for any circuit racing sim is to enforce the usage of track for racing without penalizing for simple driving errors or driving off the road to avoid an accident. Funnily enough, as lenient as rFactor1 is in this, my endurance team once suffered an unfair penalty for 'passing' outside of the track a couple of cars that suddenly crashed and blocked the whole road. It was during the night of a very big 24h event and live stewards couldn't be reached within 3 laps (of Nordschleife no less!) to cancel the erroneous penalty. Someone already suggested an interesting idea of pressing a button to 'protest' the penalty during the race so that it could be reviewed and imposed by the stewards later. That would help.
I use a realistic line, and that (in upper classes) is that the kerbing counts as racing surface. I usually stay on-track for the first right uphill, but then I straightline evrything else.
That is a great idea! it would save allot of issues we are facing now with trying to keep things fair for everyone. Also, white lines beeing the track limit?? There's not many tracks that have white lines all arround a track, especialy old tracks wont have them and others might have them but only on certain parts. We ignore white lines completely and just have either tarmack, curbs or off-track.
