To Penalty or Not to Penalty, That is the Question?
As the PITS reporter, I am going to approach both sides of this issue in this article. This past Wednesday's race took place at Spa Francorchamps. Spa poses a few interesting challenges when it comes to discussing the Out Of Bounds issue, OOB. Spa has 3 sections that through shear G-force try to force the car wide off track. These sections are at the top of the hill of Raidillon after Eau Rouge, the high downforce double right hander at Pouhon, and the high speed left hander at Blanchimont. These areas seem to be the most common locations to see drivers repeatedly exceed track limits. But there is another issue that Spa poses in these sections as well. LAP TIME. To obtain a good lap of Spa it is key to nail these sections perfectly. There is almost this double edged sword at play when racing at Spa Francorchamps. To obtain solid lap times the driver will have to allow the car to give in to the G-forces and go slightly wide in these sections, and to not fight it due to the deficit it will cause to the lap time. Now this reporter is by no means condoning shear track cutting, or going off track, coming back on, and hitting someone to defend from a mistake.
With that said, there are usually two schools of thought on how to approach the OOB issue. One, is to keep the game's penalty system disabled and use the honor system. The second, is to utilize the in game penalty system, but that brings its own slew of issues as well. The honor system is what most of us would prefer, including myself. The reason being is it allows drivers to battle and drive hard without fear that if they make a mistake and go wide on one lap, it won't destroy their race with a 5 to 10 second penalty. However, the honor system does come with its own problem, and that is it can be and most likely will be abused by drivers. Let's be honest, we all have abused it to some extent. We all want to win, and we are all driving at the limit to make that happen. Thus, when you are on the limit for 45 minutes odds are some dodgy moves will happen. The other thing about the honor system is, to believe it has anything to do with honor. Yes, most of us will tell on ourselves if we make a repeated infraction or mess up big. However, we are not going to tell on ourselves, if it is a subtle harder to observe infraction. This, does not make us bad cause we don't tell on ourselves, it makes us human. It makes us race car drivers.
The other side of the coin to control OOB incidents is to use Project Car's penalty system. This system is a bit of a mystery on where it will pause a driver and for how long. Thus, this inconsistency can be just as frustrating as a seeing a guy repeatedly go wide at a corner and gaining a tenth or two each lap. The penalty system is designed to punish drivers who put all 4 wheels off track, and could potentially gain a pace advantage from it. If the system is triggered on a driver's car it will shut down throttle for 5 to 10 seconds. The positive side of this system is once triggered it doesn't discriminate. However, there are a few downsides as well. If someone pushes you off at speed, your able to hold the car, and return to track at pace, you will be penalized for 5 to 10 seconds by the game due to all 4 wheels leaving the track and you maintaining speed. Now how does race control handle that situation, a driver has just lost multiple positions for a mistake that they didn't make. If a driver makes a mistake and goes to wide from going to hot into a corner they will get penalized. Not to mention as I stated above some tracks in PCars tries to force the car wide every chance it can, and sometimes it is what is necessary to have a good lap. The last consideration to think about the penalty system is once this has been triggered enough on the same driver they will be DQ'd from the race. This seems harsh especially for drivers who are struggling at that particular track. It forces the affected driver to make a decision, slow down and give up positions and not finish as well as they have to potential to, or keep pushing and risk being DQ'd by PCars. Yes, the system is indiscriminate, and will punish evenly, however, I feel that it will also neuter on track battles and driver personalities.
I felt it was only fair to explore this issue from both sides. Each has its pros and cons, yet neither is really better than the other. Both can cause issues for drivers in the league. Regardless, what ever race control decides, this PITS reporter will continue to be driving as hard and fast as I can.
