[WEC] Need Help Understanding Driver Gradings

[JT240Z]

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to FIA and ACO, so bear with me. I'm trying to understand this whole Bronze v/s Silver v/s Gold v/s Platinum thing with drivers and how it plays a role into who can race where and under what conditions. I'm an IMSA North America kind of guy so I don't really have to much of an understanding.

Can someone please explain what these ratings mean and how they're derived?

[J Jay]

The "medal" ratings are meant to be a measure of a driver's abilities, based on performances and results across the past few seasons. The boring reading can be found here if you need it. They are updated yearly, and there are stipulations for age that have a driver automatically move down a rating.

As it applies to sportscars, many series use driver ratings to place restrictions on who can race where and with whom. This is typically done to ensure that gentleman drivers - who do not have as much time to commit to racing, yet bring significant amounts of funding to privateer teams - have time in the car. Driver ratings are more generally used to limit how long a driver can spend in the car, for similar reasons. Restrictions based on driver rating are a way of keeping the playing field level; to quote the adage, "You're only as fast as your slowest driver."

The key contention is between silver and gold. This is seen as the line between gentleman drivers and professional drivers. However, there have been many cases of "super silvers," silver-rated drivers who were not rated higher because of a lack of results, but who had the pace and consistency of gold or even platinum drivers. This has been exacerbated recently by the increasing popularity of sportscars, particularly prototypes, as an alternative career to high-level single-seater racing, bringing many young soon-to-be professional drivers with it. Many series and classes mandate at least one silver or bronze driver in a lineup, so the quicker this driver was, the better for the team.

This isn't a full explanation, but it should give the gist of the issue. The recent mass change to the categorisation (and subsequent mass of successful appeals) shows how important this is for teams and drivers.

[JT240Z]

Originally Posted by J Jay

This isn't a full explanation, but it should give the gist of the issue. The recent mass change to the categorisation (and subsequent mass of successful appeals) shows how important this is for teams and drivers.

Great help in understanding the whole medal thing. You guys in ACO world sure do know how to make things more complex. All in the name of "fairness".

All I'm use to is Pro v/s Amateur. Simple.

[FIRE]

But what is a pro, what is an amateur.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by FIRE

But what is a pro, what is an amateur.

That's entirely up to the FIA, until enough people complain that they're being treated as professional driver rather than the gentlemen/women they want to remain as!

In general, if you do not earn your living through racing, you should not be classed as a professional, and vice-versa. But there are, and will be, many cases where the line is blurred, particularly for drivers who have not yet made a career for themselves, but clearly will do so in the future.

Originally Posted by JT240Z

Great help in understanding the whole medal thing. You guys in ACO world sure do know how to make things more complex. All in the name of "fairness".

All I'm use to is Pro v/s Amateur. Simple.

As it happens, IMSA were going to mandate bronze drivers in GTD lineups from next year. This was quickly shelved when the teams/drivers pushed back on it, in favour of sticking to the trophy for teams with a bronze driver within the GTD class.

With GT3 nominally being a customer-focused class, IMSA's hand may be forced on this issue in the near future.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by J Jay

That's entirely up to the FIA, until enough people complain that they're being treated as professional driver rather than the gentlemen/women they want to remain as!

In general, if you do not earn your living through racing, you should not be classed as a professional, and vice-versa. But there are, and will be, many cases where the line is blurred, particularly for drivers who have not yet made a career for themselves, but clearly will do so in the future.

But it's not black / white.

[Anyopenroad]

Originally Posted by FIRE

But it's not black / white.

Very few things are in life! That's just normal isn't it? And that's why there's a 4-tier (5 if you include Iron) ladder and an appeal system for edge cases.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by FIRE

But it's not black / white.

You're spot on. But a line has to be drawn somewhere, unless you want sportscars to become effectively a pay-to-win exercise, with all the escalation that entails.

It's very blunt, but as a tool to keep the gentleman/amateur aspect a key part of endurance racing, the rating system works more often than not.

[FIRE]

Don't get me wrong I am not against the rating system.

It was more a response to JT240Z who said "All I'm use to is Pro v/s Amateur. Simple.".

But the reality isn't simple.

[Anyopenroad]

Originally Posted by FIRE

It was more a response to JT240Z who said "All I'm use to is Pro v/s Amateur. Simple.".

But the reality isn't simple.

It’s not even that simple in JT240Z‘s IMSA, which also uses the rating system and has its own dilemmas around ‘super silvers’ at the moment.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Anyopenroad

It’s not even that simple in JT240Z‘s IMSA, which also uses the rating system and has its own dilemmas around ‘super silvers’ at the moment.

Yes and some drivers get classified up a level, drop out of the series because there is no market for them, sit out a year or two, get their grade level dropped back down, and then compete for the championship. Madison Snow comes to mind.

[JT240Z]

Originally Posted by joeb

Yes and some drivers get classified up a level, drop out of the series because there is no market for them, sit out a year or two, get their grade level dropped back down, and then compete for the championship. Madison Snow comes to mind.

That is a perfect example of how the rating system doesn't work. Any system that penalizes those that excel is wrong IMHO.

[broadrun96]

Madison was an IMSA thing and result of other teams crying cause they weren't smart enough to realize Melanie's kid might be pretty good early on. He has a day job and works on his driving like Ben Keating.

Christina Nielson was even more punished for quick and now has limited appearances after being damn quick in a GTD.