Evolution, not revolution for GPVWC in 2017

William Ponissi

January 02, 2017

Published on tags: Superleague General

As the GPVWC enters a new season, its regulations and standards are tweaked to ensure they continue to produce some of the best experiences in the simracing world.

We're just days away from the start of the 2017 season and the teams are busy recruiting the talent that will light up the Career Ladder. It's a hectic time at GPVWC HQ as well as the final tweaks are made to the systems that will run the season - crucial changes that will influence the year ahead.

After a closely-fought 2016 in all series, it is a matter of evolution, rather than revolution, for the Career Ladder. With a slightly reduced number of teams, in order to guarantee better access to the driver pool, the league enters a new phase of maturity. The Open Series, which has produced some of the most exciting talent in the Ladder in recent years, has fulfilled its purpose and is leaving space to a two-car GPVWC Academy team in Formula Challenge, while the mods across the Career Ladder are getting an overhaul to make them even more exciting.

At the heart of competition, the Superleague - GPVWC?s flagship championship, entering its 17th season - is undergoing some minor changes. Among others to be detailed later, these are some of the new features for 2017:

- R&D and eR&D will see a reduction of concurrent development. In the traditional R&D, only two items (from different areas) can be developed at any given time (excluding pit crew training), while only one development will be allowed in the engine department.

- Engine wear rate will be increased, making engine management a more crucial part of management.

- New Tyre compound selection rules will come into play. With rFactor2's inability to account for limited set numbers, managers will be asked to make their selection of three tyre compounds to take to the following race. The choice is free, and each car will be required to use at least two of the compounds during the race.

The first test of the 2017 season is for the Superleague on February 2nd.