Rallycross - The Race Format

The Race Format

Like other forms of motorsports, the weekend begins with a session of unofficial practice, where laps are timed, but do not affect the running of the weekend. In the ERC, there are two unofficial practice sessions, each lasting an hour, with each car entitled to make four laps in each. Following this is the official practice, where each driver does a number of timed laps (three in the ERC). A driver's fastest lap counts, and this sets the grids for the first heat.

There are three heats in the ERC. Each heat is formed of a number of races. In the ERC, cars start 5 abreast on the start line, national championships sometimes use a staggered grid. The first race contains the five slowest cars from official practice. The second race contains the next five slowest, and so on until there are fewer than 10 cars left, when they are split equally for the last two races. The heats in the ERC are all 6 km long.

At the end of a heat, the drivers are given points based on their overall time for the heat. The fastest driver gets 1 point, the second fastest 2 points, and so on. Drivers who did not finish get 80 points, drivers who did not start the heat 85 and drivers who were black flagged 95 points.

The second and third heats take place on the Sunday, after a morning warm-up session, like the unofficial practice. The starting order for the second heat is set by the results for the first heat, and the order for the last heat is set by the results for the first two heats combined.

After all three heats have taken place, each driver is allowed to discard his worst score from an individual heat, so he can keep his two best, which are combined to form a score for the driver, and to rank all the drivers. This sometimes means that a driver who performs in both of the first heats well can decide not to race in the third heat, and still qualify well.

On the Sunday afternoon, the finals take place. In the ERC, the finals involve the top 20 ranked drivers from the heats. The drivers ranked 1-5 qualify directly for the A final, drivers ranked 6-10 qualify for the B final, drivers ranked 11-14 qualify for the C final, and the drivers ranked from 15-20 compete in the D final. This is a new rule for 2009, in previous years, there were only three finals, involving the top 16 drivers, however, points are still awarded up to those in the C final, the top 16. No points are awarded for those lower down, the D final is only for deciding who should score points out of the positions 15-20. Drivers ranked 21 and lower do not compete in the finals, and do not score points for the series. The top two drivers from the D final qualify for the C final (and therefore will score points), the winning driver of the C final qualifys for the B final, and the winning driver of the B final qualifys for the A final.

In the finals, the drivers start in a staggered formation, with three rows of two each. The finals are longer than the heats, at 8 km.

The winner of the A final wins the event, and gains maximum points. Finishers in the B and C finals are ranked below them, and score more minor points.

In every race, the drivers must pass through a longer track section for his so-called Joker Lap once. The alternative route for the Joker Lap is a section that must be at least 2 seconds slower than the normal track, often on a different surface, and the drivers must decide when to take it carefully.

In the ERC series of 10 rounds, the drivers can drop two round scores, one from the first half of the season, and one from the second half.

Different championships have different rules from these ones, and often have fewer drivers competing.