TPP Presents: the Ferrari Challenge(s)!

With the SuperTrofeo wrapped up and the inbetween DTM GT3 Challenge too, it is time to look towards The Privateer’s Pitbox‘ next big championship. Or should I say… championships! Starting the first week of May, we will have not one, but two championships to fight for!

The Ferrari Challenge will have both an Endurance Series (on Fridays) and a Sprint Series (on Sundays)!

Based on the results of the survey ran within our community after the SuperTrofeo championship, the single car format proved the most popular option and the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo the most popular car. People want more single car championships, and that’s a great indication that we at The Privateer’s Pitbox are on the right track to offer unique challenges within the limits of Assetto Corsa Competizione!

Below I will detail these championships’ full characteristics, which are a bit different than what you are used to from us. Not much, but enough to warrant typing them out again.

If you’re already sold, you can skip reading and register your participation on Simracing.GP (which just entered open beta!) here – limited space available!

>> REGISTER HERE FOR THE FRIDAY ENDURANCE SERIES <<

>> REGISTER HERE FOR SUNDAY THE SPRINT SERIES <<

Here’s a table of content for this post to quickly jump to the information you’re looking for!

• Championship dates & calendar
• Sprint Series championship
• Endurance Series championship
• Scoring system & bonus points
• Custom liveries

Championship Dates & Calendar

The Endurance and Sprint Series will drive on the same tracks. This allows people who want to do so to use the Endurance events as practice for the Sprint Series. However, the Endurance Series is not merely a practice event: it’s its own fully-fledged championship.

Imola will be the first round, followed by Donington, Kyalami, Suzuka and we finish these championships back in Italy for a final round at Monza. This means that you not only need the ACC base game, but also the 2020 GT World Challenge, British GT and Intercontinental GT DLC packs.

The best 4 out of 5 events (8 out of 10 races for the Sprint Series) will count towards that series total score. This either means you can have one (or two, for the Sprint Series) bad result or you can miss one event due to whatever reason you want.

Date	Series	Track	Event start	Event finish
May 7th	Endurance	Imola	19:30 CEST	~22:30 CEST
May 9th	Sprint	Imola	19:30 CEST	~22:15 CEST
May 14th	Endurance	Donington	19:30 CEST	~22:30 CEST
May 16th	Sprint	Donington	19:30 CEST	~22:15 CEST
May 21st	Endurance	Kyalami	19:30 CEST	~22:30 CEST
May 23rd	Sprint	Kyalami	19:30 CEST	~22:15 CEST
May 28th	Endurance	Suzuka	19:30 CEST	~22:30 CEST
May 30th	Sprint	Suzuka	19:30 CEST	~22:15 CEST
June 4th	Endurance	Monza	19:30 CEST	~22:30 CEST
June 6th	Sprint	Monza	19:30 CEST	~22:15 CEST

Want these dates synched to your Google Calendar / iCal? Check out TPP’s shared agenda!

Sprint Series championship

The Sprint Series consists of 5 rounds. No longer do we race on two tracks each night, due to popular demand. An event will consist of two races (a sprint and feature race) on 1 track. The sprint race will be ran during the day, while the feature race will start in the afternoon and finish in the evening. The schedule for a race weekend:

Time (in CEST)*:	Event:	Duration:	In-game time**
19:30	Free Practice 1	30 minutes	Friday, 12:00h
20:00	Qualifying 1	6 minutes	Saturday, 12:00h
20:10	Sprint Race	30 minutes	Saturday, 14:00h
20:50	Free Practice 2	15 minutes	Saturday, 22:00h
21:10	Qualifying 2	12 minutes	Sunday, 17:00h
21:25	Feature Race	45 minutes	Sunday, 19:00h

The first Free Practice session is meant for drivers to get up to speed with the track and to give everyone time to join the session. It is followed by a short (6 minute) qualifying, which is just enough time to do one stint and about three timed laps. The sprint race is a short 30 minute affair.

The second free practice session is a short one, meant for drivers to get used to the colder conditions during the night time conditions you will experience during the race. What follows is a 12 minute qualifying session, enough to do two stints. The 45 minute feature race will start at dusk, and will finish well into the evening (~22:30h in-game time).

The weather settings for these sessions are consistently random: the ambient temperature is set to 20C, randomness to 4, cloud level to 0.4 (40%) and rain to 0.1. These settings gave a great balance during the DTM GT3 Challenge and will offer a good chance (1 in 4-ish) for rain.

Endurance Series championship

The Endurance Series also consists of five rounds, using the same tracks as the Sprint Series. Since the Endurance Series runs two days before the Sprint Series, you could treat this as practice towards the Sprint Series if you plan on participating in both.

The Endurance Series is however its own thing. Neither of the results influence each other, and if you can’t race on Sundays or you don’t like the shorter races you are welcome to only participate in the Endurance Series.

The typical schedule for a race weekend is as follows:

Time (in CEST)*:	Event:	Duration:	In-game time**
19:30	Free Practice	45 minutes	Saturday, 12:00h
20:20	Qualifying	15 minutes	Sunday, 12:00h
20:40	Endurance Race	90 minutes	Saturday, 15:00h

A round starts with 45 minutes of free practice to allow for people to trickle in and to allow those with minimal practice to get some sure footing on the track and with the car.

A 15 minutes qualifying session follows suit, which should be enough to do two stints comfortably.

The race starts at ~15:30h in-game time. The time multiplier means the 90 minutes will be extended to 6 hours of in-game time, meaning the finish will be somewhere around 21:30, shortly after sunset. Not only will this create beautiful scenery due to the in-game lighting, it also poses a challenge in terms of tire pressures.

There are no rules for the strategy in the race, but due to the 90 minute race format you are forced to pit at least once for fuel. Make sure you concoct the right strategy for your race!

Scoring system & bonus points

The scoring system and bonus points are again slightly revised. The Lucky Loser and MVP bonus points are gone, but the fastest lap bonus (5 points) remains.

The qualifying bonus points are instead expanded. Now, the entire top 10 from qualifying is granted extra points. Furthermore, the distribution is less steep, meaning the difference between scoring pole position and second place is smaller. You can view the new distribution in the chart below.

Please note: qualifying bonus points are only given out for Q2, not Q1.

The points system is equal to our DTM GT3 challenge’s system. The top 25 drivers receive points, with the winner receiving 50 points. The maximum score for a race a driver can achieve is (race win plus pole position plus fastest lap) 70 points, while the runner up could potentially score 58, 12 points shy of the winner. That difference diminishes to just two points if the runner up snatches the Fastest Lap award.

View the full points distribution bar chart below.

Custom liveries

Custom liveries are allowed and encouraged (but not mandatory)! If you have your own custom livery, feel free to share the files on our discord.

If you don’t know how to create custom liveries, you can either read my tutorial to get started or you can use the treasure trove at RaceDepartment to download one directly.

Before the championship starts, I will compile a pack of liveries to download for all competitors so everyone gets to see your creation. Downloading the pack is not mandatory if you like to save on performance.

For this championship (due to lack of time on my part) I will not be making personalized custom liveries for our contenders.

Why are you still reading?

Go register for the Ferrari Challenge now, either the Sprint Series or the Endurance Series (or both)! Be sure to enter our discord (click the discord logo on this page) or to follow @The_Pitbox on twitter to get the latest updates!

Also, have another screenshot!