What you need to know about the iRacing Safety Rating!

iRacing, the leading online motorsport simulator, has captured the hearts of racing enthusiasts around the world. An essential aspect of iRacing is the Safety Rating, a benchmark that promotes safety and fairness in racing. In this article, we will delve deeper into the iRacing Safety Rating and discover why it is so important to racers. Moreover, we will offer practical tips to improve your Safety Rating and take your experience on iRacing to the next level.

What is the iRacing Safety Rating?

The iRacing Safety Rating, also known as SR, is a system that measures players' driving skills and consistency. It takes into account several factors, such as avoiding collisions, respecting race etiquette and performing consistently.

By assessing these elements, iRacing can assign a Safety Rating to each player, which is displayed as a number between 0.0 and 4.99.The Safety Rating indicates how many incident points you typically receive. A driver with a lower Safety Rating will have more frequent incidents than a driver with a higher Safety Rating.

iRacing tracks a driver's Safety Rating separately for each discipline - oval, road, dirt oval and dirt road - because each discipline is different and a driver's safety in one discipline need not be the same as in another. You can check your Safety Rating for each licence by clicking on your helmet in the iRacing user interface.

Results

After each session, you can see any changes to your SR by going to the "Results" of the last session you drove. Your final safety rating is listed, along with any changes caused by the race that led to the SR listed. To be clear, a value of 3.6 (+0.2) means the driver earned 0.2 SR in the session and their total SR is now 3.6.

Increase iRacing Safety Rating by a whole number

Every time a driver's Safety Rating increases by one whole number, 0.40 Safety Rating is added. Conversely, every time a driver's Safety Rating decreases by one whole number, 0.40 Safety Rating is subtracted. An example; suppose your SR is 2.90 and you win 0.1 SR with a race, your total Safety Racing increases by 0.5 (0.1 + 0.4).

These adjustments are made to avoid drastic fluctuations around these important whole number values. For example, if a driver constantly fluctuates around a value of 3.00, he would constantly be qualified or not qualified for events that require a minimum value of 3.00 SR, or even for promotion to a higher licence class.

Why is the iRacing Safety Rating important?

The Safety Rating plays a crucial role in iRacing, as it contributes to a realistic and competitive experience for all players. By promoting safe driving behaviour, the system reduces the risk of accidents and improves the racing experience as a whole. Moreover, Safety Rating acts as an indicator of a player's skills, allowing for fair and challenging matchmaking.

How does the Safety Rating affect the game?

The Safety Rating affects various aspects of the game. For example, it determines who you are matched with while racing. Players with similar Safety Ratings are grouped together, creating balanced and competitive races. This system is definitely something in which iRacing excels. In addition, having a high Safety Rating opens the doors to more advanced racing leagues and competitions, where you can compete against like-minded and experienced drivers.

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How is the iRacing Safety Rating determined?

After a session that affects the Safety Rating, iRacing calculates each driver's new Safety Rating. The Safety Rating calculation looks at three things:

• How many incident points did you receive?
• How many turns did you complete?
• What kind of session was it?

1. Incident points

Incident points are the 1x, 2x and 4x values displayed at the top of the screen while riding. These are added together to determine your total number of incidents for a session.

Sometimes incident points are shown as 2x -> 4x. This means that a 2x incident was assessed, but was very quickly followed by a 4x incident. In these cases, we do not want to pile up incident points, so we ignore the 2x and assess only the 4x penalty, as this was the largest value of the incidents that occurred in that short period of time. It is not possible to get more than a 4x penalty for a single incident.

The following situations negatively affect your Safety Rating by incurring Racing Incident Points:

• Leaving the racing surface
• Losing control of your car
• Contact with another object
• Contact with another driver

A full table of incident types and their incident point values can be found in the iRacing Sporting Code. The more incident points you accumulate during a race, the more negative your net safety rating of that race will be. But if you drive clean and avoid these race incidents, your net safety rating of that race will actually be more positive. Keep in mind: Incidents are rated individually for all drivers involved on a no-fault basis - regardless of cause.

2. Counting turns

Each track configuration in iRacing has a certain turn multiplier. When assessing your safety rating, we look at this corner multiplier in combination with the number of laps you completed to determine the total number of corners you completed.

The influence of turn multipliers on your Safety Rating

Turn multipliers are assigned based on the complexity of the track, so that the relative impact of an incident on a short track with six corners is roughly equal to that of an incident on an extremely long track like the Nürburgring Nordschleife, with dozens and dozens of corners. This also applies to oval tracks, with short tracks having lower turn multipliers than intermediate or superspeedway tracks.

The importance of every turn

Every turn is a challenge in itself. Whether it is precisely cutting a sharp corner on a short track or navigating a complex series of turns on an iconic long track, every turn requires concentration, control and finesse. The number of turns you successfully complete is an important factor in determining your safety rating.

The interesting thing is that iRacing takes into account the nature of the track and its length. An incident on a shorter track with fewer corners has a similar impact on your safety rating as an incident on a much longer track with an abundance of corners. This ensures that the assessment of your driving is fair and balanced, regardless of the track configuration.

Fair assessment of driving behaviour

Whether you feel the thrill of fast ovals or the technical challenges of winding road races, every corner and track configuration is a chance to show off your skills. It is a chance to maintain your concentration, perfect your braking points and find the ideal line. Every corner counts in the determination of your safety rating, meaning every corner is an opportunity to improve yourself and grow as a driver. And fair is fair, this is the fairest system ?

Growing as a driver by taking advantage of every corner

So, embrace the curves in your path. Learn from every cornering adventure and put in your best performance. The corners are part of the rich and varied world of iRacing, and they are a key factor in achieving a strong safety rating.

3. Session type

During race sessions, incidents have a direct impact on the driver's safety rating, but not all sessions work the same way. Sessions such as preliminary practice sessions, qualifications, warm-up laps and Time Trials have special factors that reduce the impact of incident points. For example, at Time Trials, your total incident points are multiplied by 0.35 before they are taken into account in the calculation of your safety rating.

This is actually pretty cool when you think about it. It means you have a bit more leeway during those non-race sessions. You can really challenge yourself, push your limits and try out new things without it immediately having heavy consequences for your safety rating.

Promotions and Degradations

At the end of each iRacing season, drivers who meet the requirements for their Safety Rating and Minimum Participation Requirements are promoted to the next licence level. To promote quickly, you can raise your Safety Rating to 4.00 or 3.00 as an iRacing Rookie. Drivers who do not maintain the minimum Safety Rating will be demoted to their previous licence level.

A Safety Rating below 2.00 leads to relegation at the end of the season, while a rating below 1.00 means immediate relegation. In a Licence Class Promotion, the Safety Rating is reduced by approximately 1.00, giving drivers a chance to improve their rating before they can be promoted again.

The CPI determines your iRacing Safety Rating

Why is it more difficult to achieve a higher Safety Rating at the higher licence levels?

The impact of CPI on your iRacing Safety Rating

Your Safety Rating is determined by your average number of incidents per corner, or; Corners Per Incident (CPI). This metric is based on about 2,600 turns. This means that as you race more consistently, your CPI gets higher on average. When your CPI is around 100, even a few incidents can cause a sharp drop in your CPI, thus affecting your SR.

Challenges at low CPI

If you already have a good Safety Rating due to a low CPI, it becomes increasingly difficult to improve it further. This means you need to drive more and more corners without incident during each race to increase your overall average. If your CPI is already low, you need to maintain and improve this level to earn more SR. This becomes more challenging as you progress through the different licence levels.

Consistency and safe racing are key

So achieving a higher Safety Rating at higher licence levels requires a combination of consistent and safe racing, avoiding incidents and continuing to improve your CPI. It is a challenge that requires you to get better and better as you develop your racing skills.

4 Tips for improving your Safety Rating:

1. Drive responsible: Avoid unnecessary collisions and respect the rules of the track.
2. Learn racing etiquette: Be aware of the rules of conduct on the track, such as giving space to other drivers and avoiding unnecessarily aggressive driving.
3. Practice consistency: Focus on delivering consistent performance without major errors or crashes. Having good sim racing hardware is essential here.
4. Be patient: Building a higher Safety Rating takes time. Stay focused and keep working on your driving skills.

Conclusion and final words

The iRacing Safety Rating and licensing system is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and realistic in the simulation racing community. The system is designed to promote a competitive and safe environment and reward players for good driving skills and consistency on the track.

Based on this article, we can conclude that the iRacing Safety Rating is an essential part of the iRacing system. It measures the driving skills, consistency and safety of players and contributes to a realistic and competitive experience for all racers. The Safety Rating affects matchmaking, getting access to more advanced racing leagues and competitions, and it promotes safe driving behaviour.