As of December 14th 2024
Disclaimer
This rulebook has been developed with the permission of IVRA. Significant portions of the content are based on IVRA’s official rulebook and have been adopted with their approval.
Preface
This series simulates the European Le Mans Series as close as possible. According to our organisations guidelines, the General Sporting Regulations are in action.
This series is aimed at both experienced simracers and iRacing newbies. Nevertheless, in order to offer the best possible experience to all participants, we do require a basic understanding of simracing standards. Therefor our ranked system is in action.
§1 Organisation
§1.1 Promoter
All official sessions are hosted through SimRacing Republic (SR). Any session not hosted according to the briefing document is not listed as official.
§1.2 Cars & Grid
The maximum gridsize is set to 55.
LMP2: Dallara P217
LMP3: Ligier JS320
GT3 PRO & GT3 PRO/AM: Mercedes AMG GT3, BMW M4 GT3, Porsche 992 GT3R, Ferrari 296 GT3, Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO, Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, Ford Mustang GT3, McLaren 720S GT3, Acura NSX GT3 EVO 22
§1.3 Classes rating
LMP2: Minimum Silver ranked drivers (min. 3000 iRating & B-class Saftey Rating or above)
LMP3: Minimum Bronze ranked drivers. (min. 2000 iRating & C-class Saftey Rating or above)
GT3 PRO: Minimum Silver ranked drivers. (min. 3000 iRating & B-class Saftey Rating or above)
GT3 AM: Minimum one Bronze ranked, no more than one Gold or Platin ranked driver. Diamond & Iridium is not allowed in this class. Qualification & race start has to be done by a Bronze or Silver ranked driver. (min. 2000 iRating, max. 6000 iRating & B-class Saftey Rating or above)
§1.4 Entry Fee
A. The entry fee for this season is 15 € per car excl. vat.
Main seat of the organisation is Germany, therefore we have to accomondate 19% vat. This sums up to 17,85 €. per car per season.
B. Once registration is closed, SimRacing Republic is sending over invoices via paypal. Those are due within 48 hrs. If a team fails to pay within that deadline, it’s moved to the end of the reserve list. Teams follow up according to the reserve list order.
C. In case a team missed the 48hrs mark to pay the entry fee, the runner ups according to the reserve list apply to yet another 48 hrs window to pay.
§2 Championship
§2.1 Definition Champion
The champion is going to be the team of each class, who scored the most points throughout the season. If there is a due at the end of the season, the higher individual results account for the championship outcome.
§2.2 Events
Each of the 3 events is going to endure 4 hours.
§2.3 Championship points
| Class Pos. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| Points | 100 | 90 | 81 | 73 | 66 | 59 | 53 | 47 | 42 | 37 | 33 | 29 | 25 |
| Class Pos. | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | |
| Points | 22 | 19 | 16 | 13 | 11 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
§3 Race Events
§3.1 Schedule
Thursday
18:00 GMT – 21:00 GMT Free practice 1
Friday
18:00 GMT – 21:00 GMT Free practice 2
Saturday
8:00 GMT – 10:00 GMT Free practice 3 (seperate server)
10:00 GMT – 10:45 GMT Free practice 4 (45 minutes)
10:45 GMT – 11:05 GMT Drivers Briefing (mandatory to all drivers)
11:15 GMT – 12:25 GMT Qualification (~70 minutes)
– 11:15 GMT Pitlane opens GT3 AM (session start)
– 11:30 GMT Checkered Flag GT3 AM
– 11:32 GMT Pitlane opens GT3 PRO
– 11:47 GMT Checkered Flag GT3 PRO
– 11:49 GMT Pitlane opens LMP3
– 12:04 GMT Checkered Flag LMP3
– 12:06 GMT Pitlane opens LMP2
– 12:21 GMT Checkered Flag LMP2
12:25 GMT – 12:35 GMT Warm Up
12:35 GMT – 12:40 GMT Gridding
12:40 GMT – Race
§3.2 Event Hosted Sessions
A. All sessions will be password protected hosted sessions on EU servers.
B. Entries must register with the correct car, car number and TeamID to official sessions.
C. All races will have rolling starts.
D. All sessions will have dynamic weather.
E. Sun acceleration multiplier will be set to 1x (real time).
F. Starting track state will be set at 0% at the launch of the race session and at 50% at the launch of the Free Practice sessions. During the race session the track state will be carried over from the previous session with marbles and dust cleaned between each session.
G. Autoclutch will be the only assist allowed.
§3.3 Practice
Practice sessions are to be treated with the same quality of procedure as a race. To that effect, drivers will be expected to follow the rules and regulations in practice as though it was a race session. Race Control reserves the right to penalise drivers who are disruptive or unsportsmanlike in practice sessions. Explicitly: “Trying a move” that results in a crash which could have been avoided may be considered for penalty, as it is a) disruptive to the other drivers session for any testing being done and b) promotes poor passing behaviours that are strongly discouraged in this league. Penalties that are issued by Race Control for incidents during a practice session, will be applied to the race that the practice session pertains to.
§3.4 Qualification
A. The driver who qualifies the car must start the race.
B. Unless the car has not yet left pit lane (defined by the cones placed by iRacing) during its session, a car’s qualifying session will be concluded if a car has been towed back to the pits for any reason, including towing in the pit lane. Cars are allowed to be driven back to the pits and to take service. Cars may be reset if they are in their pit box.
C. GT3 PRO/AM Qualification and Start driver has to be ranked silver or gold.
D. Each class will be announced green & checkered flag via in-game text-chat.
E. With each classes checkered flag announcement, the next class according to the Q-order is allowed to line up at the end of pit road.
§3.5 Race Start
A. All races will have a rolling start.
B. The GT3 PRO and AM classes will start as one group, separate from the LMP2 and LMP3, who will start in another group together. The GT3 groups’ pole sitter will leave roughly a five second gap to the last car of the LMP starting group (4 to 8 sec). If the GT group pole sitter is outside of this window, they may be penalised.
C. If the GT group pole sitter is gridded on the wrong side, Race Control will inform drivers in the class over the @RACECONTROL channel to switch sides on the pace lap.
D. Once the pace car pulls into the pit lane, the pole sitter for each group will control their group until the start of the race for their group. Pole sitters must maintain a consistent pace car speed until starting the race for their group. Increasing speed before the start to spread the grid or overly slowing while the grid is approaching the start zone can be cause for investigation by Race Control; advantage gained or incidents resulting from these actions may be penalised.
E. An “acceleration zone” for the start of each race is defined in each Drivers Briefing Document. Each groups pole sitter will ignore the iRacing green flag and must accelerate within the area of this zone.
F. Cars starting from pit lane will be released by Race Control over the @RACECONTROL channel. Jump starts, defined for this circumstance by crossing the cones at the end of pit lane with any part of the vehicle at any speed, will result in a penalty.
§3.6 Classification
To be classified in a race, a car must have:
A. no less than 2 and no more than 4 drivers.
B. completed 75% of the laps completed by the winning car in their class.
C. abided by the class driver restrictions.
D. abided into iRacing fair share rule.
§4 On Track Conduct
§4.1 Rejoining Track surface
A. Drivers must use the F3 black box throughout the race or have a spotter available, especially when rejoining the racing surface from a spin, off track, or coming out of the pits. Unsafe rejoins can and will be penalised. A general guideline to a safe rejoin is to make sure your car is parallel to the racing surface prior to rejoining the racing surface. Cars that rejoin the track safely should not attempt to impede the progress of another car, and should maintain a predictable track position until they are up to race pace. It is the driver’s responsibility to control their car when re-entering the racing surface: losing control of the car in the attempt, if it causes an incident, will be considered the fault of the driver attempting to rejoin. Do not cut across the track. Remember you do have a reverse gear!
B. A car which is at race pace but is not fully within track limits must yield to cars on the racing surface when reentering the racing surface.
§4.2 Passing
A. It is the responsibility of both drivers to ensure safe passing.
B. When two cars are reasonably alongside each other, each must permit the other adequate racing room.
C. Under normal racing conditions drivers are not allowed to exceed the racing surface to complete a pass.
D. Drivers who are shown blue flags do not have to yield immediately. Once the passing driver has initiated the pass, the driver being passed must aid in facilitating the pass. The rules above still apply.
E. Flashing headlights while within 1 second of a car will be considered a sign of intention to pass (intra-class). It is prohibited to use headlights as a distraction to other drivers. Faster classes that flash their lights to any class below them will be considered as communicating the intention to pass in the coming corner (or on a straightaway, where this applies) and will be expected to perform the manoeuvre shortly thereafter. Flashing lights outside of these contexts is prohibited. Abuse of flashing lights can result in a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
§4.3 Pitlane
A. It is illegal to circumvent in any way the pit lane speed limit, including but not limited to not using the pit speed limiter and manipulating gears while travelling down pit lane. Any driver found at fault will be issued a 60 second Stop & Hold penalty for Unsportsmanlike Conduct.
B. When entering and exiting their pit stall, drivers have five seconds to travel to and from the fast lane.
§5 Race Control
§5.1 General
A. All race sessions will have live RC, consisting of multiple stewards monitoring on track activity.
B. RC will hand out penalties to drivers who fail to drive in a clean, fair manner, who act recklessly, or otherwise affect the spirit of competition within the series.
C. RC may remove drivers from the track if they feel that their speed/lap times are too slow, or if they pose a risk to other drivers due to their driving, car condition, internet connection or equipment condition. In this case, a driver will first be warned and given time to correct this. In the event the issue persists, the driver shall be ordered to pit the car until the issues are resolved (repairs, driver swap for a bad connection, etc.). If the issues persist, the car will be black flagged for the remainder of the race.
D. Barring exceptions, RC will not reverse automatic penalties issued by iRacing. These penalties must be served according to the set procedure by iRacing.
§5.2 Reporting an incident
A. A team can only report an incident if their car was directly involved in the incident. RC may also report incidents. If a driver is abusing track limits, driving overly aggressive, etc. lap after lap, teams can still inform RC of the issue so it can be monitored.
B. Reports must be made within 30 minutes of the incident.
C. All reports must be made using the /protest tag from the Racecontrol Bot on the Discord Server. Incidents reported in any other form are ignored.
E. Post-race incident reports must be submitted within one hour after the finish of the race. Only incidents that occurred during the last 30 minutes of the race can be submitted post-race.
§5.3 Review of incidents
A. When RC is actively reviewing an incident, the Live Race Control Decisions Sheet will show it as “Under Review”. During this time, teams may come to RC and discuss their entry’s side of the incident for consideration.
B. RC will inform a team of a penalty in the team’s Discord channel. Penalties will also be posted to the Live Race Control Decisions Sheet. Teams must confirm receipt of the penalty in the Discord channel.
C. Once a decision has been made by RC and a penalty has been issued, a penalty may only be appealed if a team presents new information previously unknown to RC and relevant to the investigation. If the penalty was incorrectly issued (for example, to the wrong car) teams must notify RC ASAP and the penalty will be cleared. Race Control has no method of undoing a penalty once it has been served by a team; please keep this in mind.
D. Any penalty not served during a race because the car was retired before the penalty could be served, may be assessed post-race or in the following race.
E. If any filed incident reports are left unresolved by RC by the end of the race or if any post-race incident reports are filed, the penalties will be converted to equivalent post-race time penalties.
§5.4 Serving of penalties
A. Penalties are spoken out immediatley and have to be served within the iRacing given standards.
B. A time penalty may be served with a Pitstop. In this case, iRacing is going to add an additional time to the spoken out penalty, according to the pitlane time.
§6 Penalty Matrix
§6.1 General
The following is a non-exhaustive list of penalties and reasons for penalties that RC may issue. The penalty amounts and number of PP listed are suggestions; RC may decide to award a different penalty amount or number of PP for any reason. Adjustments to penalty values or PP may be a reflection of: the safety or awareness demonstrated by a driver; mitigating actions taken by a driver to resolve errors; the severity of the outcome of an incident; the sportsmanship demonstrated. Race Control may also issue orders to give back a position or warnings for any of the penalty categories.
| Category | Description | Example | Penalty Guideline | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Incorrect Car in session | DSQ | 0 | |
| 1.2 | Incorrect TeamID/Number in Session | 120s | 0 | |
| 1.3 | Non-Registered Driver | DSQ | 0 | |
| 1.4 | Irrelevant Protest | 60s | 1 | |
| 2.1 | Qualifying infringement | Impeding, leaving pits after tow | 20s | 1 |
| 2.2 | Start infringement | Jump start, failed to maintain speed | 20s | 1 |
| 2.3 | Pitlane infringement | Failing to adhere to 5s rule | 20s | 1 |
| 3.1 | Minor contact responsibility | 10s – 20s | 1 | |
| 3.2 | Moderate contact responsibility | 20s – 60s | 2 | |
| 3.3 | Major contact responsibility | 60s – 120s | 3 | |
| 3.4 | Blocking | 20s – 40s | 3 | |
| 3.5 | Not respecting track limits | 60s | 0 | |
| 3.6 | Overtaking outside of track limits | 60s | 1 | |
| 3.7 | Unsafe rejoin | 120s | 3 | |
| 3.8 | Agressive Driving | 5s – 20s | 2 | |
| 4.1 | Unsportsmanlike Conduct | Failing to respect blue flags | 30s – DSQ | 3 |
§6.2 Penalty Points
A. Every penalty given to a car will be accompanied by Penalty Points (PP). During every race PP will be tracked for every car.
B. Any car that exceeds a total of 12 PP during a single race will be disqualified from that race.
C. When an entry both scores championship points and did not receive any PP in a race, the entry’s total PP will reduce by three. Entries cannot go below zero PP.
D. Once an entry exceeds a total of 12 PP, the entry will be suspended for one race. If/when the entry gets back onto the grid, they will start the next race with 6 penalty points.
E. Any driver who exceeds a total of 9 PP during a single race will be disqualified from that race.