Can you clarify for what is and what's isn't acceptable defensive driving then?
We've established that we're not going to just pull over to let a faster driver through, but that we'll carry on racing.
And established that weaving in the braking zone and out braking ourselves to cause contact is a no-no.
But... Regardless of what strategy everyone is on, and how much faster the person is behind, the guy ahead sure has a prerogative to defend, right?! I.e. try and break the slip stream early on a straight. Take a defensive inside line and park in on the apex? At the end of the day you're fighting for position and whether or not you think you should be further up the road is kinda mute.
If you've got serious speed/tyre advantage then the onus is on you to get a good run through Senna/that last corner to get a good run on the straights and use it. Because no matter the strength of defence (unless it isn't kosher) you get in right, you'll make the pass. But you have to get it right. You cant get annoyed at someone for defending if you haven't driven well enough to make the pass plausible. Faster or not.
Like Suzuka earlier in the week. I was leading in clean air from L2 onwards and a guy who was clearly faster than me caught up. I defended fairly and well and he couldn't pass, despite clearly being quicker. In the end got frustrated and dived through Degner 2 and pushed me off. He got a penalty and we finished 4&5. As frustrating for him as it must have been, knowing he was quicker than me, all he had to do was wait until Spoon and nail it. No matter how good my defensive driving was if he'd nailed it and any time I'd have been a sitting duck into 130R and there would have been no complaints anywhere.
The problem are the physics and internet connection/lag. These cars, as we know, don't stop on a dime. If a player defends, they still need to leave room. Yes, the car attacking or just behind, has to make a judgement when to attack, hold station. There is inadvertent contact, when cars are extremely close. SOme of it, is due to the car on worn tyres vs the car on fresher tyres. By the time these cars in GT try to gain traction on worn tyres, the car on fresh tyres is already on a trajectory that doesn't easily allow a quick change of direction, like real life race cars. We see this time and again with the bump bump bump of a car that is loose, trying not to go off the outside of a corner and the car slightly behind up the inside, not dive bombing, but trying not to off the other player. It's almost as if the car behind makes things worse by actually using the brakes to shave more speed, but induces a very low speed slide.
We've all been in a situation where, "If only the player behind, waited until the next straight....". Thing is, players need to watch real racing and learn. Supercars is good to watch the effect of worn tyres, narrow track limits , yielding and knowing when to defend and who you are racing. We race to for some time of result. Those of us that don't win on a daily bases, usually want a clean race as a reward. Just don't hit me on the first lap or at all or I'll let you pass if you're patient. We don't get a lot of time, during a race, to work these scenarios out.
In the highlights below, the GTS etiquette videos for mainly tin top cars, is similar to what we experience in SPort MOde:
WHen you know someone has fresher tyres, it may be better to just let them go, than to slow you both up for others to catch up and make things worse.
Strange things going on there at that course. Second time it happend to me.
. A win is a win though!
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