As the above selection from a news article indicates – as of the next race in Brazil – the stewards can give a penalty to drivers in which they will start 10 positions behind their actual grid position in the following race. For Example – If Fisichella receives such a penalty in Brazil, at the next race in San Marino – If he clocks a fastest time in qualifying good enough for 8th position – he will have to start that race – 18th on the grid (10 positions back).

This rule greatly affects the way we play GTG.

Currently, Garth calculates the scores based on the qualifying list approved by the FIA at the end of the Qualifying hour. Put simply, any disqualifications or penalties that effect the grid after the Saturday Qulifying hour or on Sunday morning are not included.. For example, in the USA last year Mika Hakkinen was pushed back from 2nd to 4th on Sunday morning for going through a red light. Such an occurrence did not affected our GTG scoring as Garth calculated the score based on Mika being 2nd and NOT 4th.

However, this new rule presents the problem that the grid adjustments (-10 positions) will be made at the end of qualifying and thus affecting GTG scoring.

What Garth and I need to know is whether we should –

1. Score based on the real qualifying positions NOT including adjustments made due to penalties

Or

2. Score based on the FIA grid positions at the END OF QUALIFYING including all grid penalties.

Therefore Garth and Myself are posting this poll in order to give you, dear GTG players, the opportunity to select the option you most prefer. We will simply go with which ever option has the majority of votes by Sunday – BEFORE the race.

Regards

Gerry and Garth

My personal opinion is that we are making our guesses based on how competetive we think the drivers are going to be in qualifying, and not whether they are being penalised for a totally unrelated incident. Therefore I think we should go with the option to ignore the arbitrary movements down the grid that would be made by the FIA, and stick with the results that are produced from the natural competition.

I think that the introduction of this penalty system only falsifies the grid position.

Thanks for the great feedback!!!

Looks like your point of view is currently leading!

I agree, we need to forget about the penalities, judge the driver's performances in qualifying, concentrate on predicting this, without having to worry about oh yes this driver will likely be here because he's got a penality etc, this would be a waste of time for some, or those will somehow just forgot about a driver's penality, because their concentrating on making the best possible prediction for the grid.

Thanks Gerry and Garth,

Great competition

Sean - Thanks for the valueable feedback!! Curently your point of view is leading but its surprisingly closer than we expected. We expected most to not want to include the penalties just as you believe!

I agree with SeanValen! I think everyone base their guesses on how fast the respective driver is, I mean noone can predict any penalties anyway (I think). That is my view at least.

Thanx for the competition guys, I enjoy it a lot.

Id agree in using the real qualifying time, but then the records won't show who went fastest... will only show who qualified where.. and as the name says.. its the grid and not the fastest qualifying..

too bad fia is doing these idiotic things.. but that's fia


so please use the fia announced grid to evaluate... !

the same goes for the race positions.

I agree with BrundleBud - it's difficult enough to predict the grid taking into account all these modified F2001b/c/d, F2002 versions and driver 1a , 1b etc without bringing in arbitrary FIA penalties as well! Let's stick to who's actually the fastest in qualifying. BTW, as all the others have also said, terrific job with the competition, Gerry and Garth!

Thanks to all of you!

Garth and I are pleased to see so many of you enjoying this and the other games!!

Agreed:up: Good to see the poll is more on the side of no penality, the no penality finishing line is near.

The way i see it, we will have prior knowledge as to if a driver will be starting 10 positions back from where he qualifies, so i say make GTG based after the penalties have been factored in.

Mat

Good point, it overthrew my initial thought, plus it means we have to be more considerate of what happened in the previous race. BTW is this penalty carried over into the next season?

What about the penalities of Sato and Barrichello?

I think you have to include the penalties in the GTG results, but it looks as if I'm in the minority, no biggie

But never-the-less, we will still be unable to change our vote...

from how i understand it, Gerry is asking re. the driver penalty for causing an accident. Therefore we will know that a penalty is be given.

For example:
Ralf and MS collide at the first corner in todays race. In a hearing after the race, the stewards find MS was responsible for 'causing an avoidable accident' and deem that he should be moved back 10 spots from his qual position at Imola.

Following this example, we have ample time to take into account any penalties, since the penalty will be known well before friday practice for Imola.

Mat

definately pre-penalty!!

On a first tought I have voted for the grid before taking in account the penalty.
But what if a competitor is disqualified for being under weight or with any illegal part found of the car. We would use the grid after penalty. Hence if we do not use the official FIA grid as the measurement it may lead to some interpretation of the real grid.

I propose to take the official FIA grid, even more knowing that any official penalty given after the previous race will be known by everybody.

Forget teh penalties. Life is too short for us to be concerned with the stupid political games played by the FIA
And by the way, a great vote of thanks for the guys who are doing all the work. I want to tell you that I really appreciate this and it makes F1 so much more intreesting for me.

We can't forsee penalties and I calculate my guesses (for what they are worth) based on absolute qualifying, not accounting for penalties.

You can have a system that is "Gues the Grid Based on Times" as opposed to a general "Guess the Grid" which is based on ultimate position. Or, have them both???

Thanks to all of you! Keep posting your views as they are much appreciated.

At the moment Garth and I are with the most of you - we would rather use pre-penalty times. Obviously this is the winning choice. However, we will first discuss what exactly we will do and report it to you. Both of us have been quite busy and havnt had a good chance to do so.

We will have to clear a few issues up first - especially the ease/difficulty in obtaining pre-penalty data. I'll report back soon.

Thankfully we dont have to worry about it for San Marino.

Thanks all!