How are F1 Racing leagues handled?

OSiriS

Looking into online racing recently it struck me that while the ultimate goal of many motoring fans might be to successfully compete in a formula 1 sim, the very nature of the sport goes against what the majority of competitors would want from a racing game. There is an inherant imbalance within formula 1, but you ask most sim racers what team they would want to drive for in a league I would imagine most would pick Renault, Ferrari, or McLaren in their current form. How many racers would honestly want to drive a Midland at least 4 seconds slower than the front runners?

The only real solution to this would to have all teams in equal equipment, but this isn't really F1 now is it? If this is the case wouldn't they be better off just running GP2 or A1 leagues where the playing field would be reflective of the real world competition. Just a thought :P

ButcherOfNog

The way it worked in UKGPL was that each chassis had a handicap, in the form of a pitstop, which differed from track to track. If a car was the best car on a particular track, it had the longest pitstop.

I raced in other leagues where you started the season with a number of points, and spent these points on cars for each track, and the number of points you had was adjusted by your GPL Rank, so a slow driver could take the faster cars more often than a quick driver.

I liked the pitstops the best, and I would guess most leagues use one or other of the above, there are also single make leagues, and leagues that will give you more points for getting placed in a slower car.