# GridPilot Rating  
*Our own competition rating system designed for league racing — because iRating was never made for this.*

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# 1. Why GridPilot Needs Its Own Rating

iRating works great for official races, but it's not built for leagues.

**League racing is fundamentally different:**
- you race against the same people each week  
- racecraft matters more than raw pace  
- team dynamics influence outcomes  
- attendance and consistency matter  
- incidents have real consequences  
- formats vary massively between leagues  
- results depend heavily on season structure  
- small grids distort iRating logic  

iRating can’t measure:
- season performance  
- team contribution  
- consistency  
- clean driving  
- decision-making  
- rivalry strength  
- long-term commitment  
- reliability  

So we build a rating *specifically for league racing* —  
where context, progression, and human rivalry actually matter.

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# 2. What GridPilot Rating Measures

GridPilot Rating = **league racing performance + racing behavior + reliability**.

It captures the full picture of a driver, not only their pace.

### **Core components**
- **Results Strength**  
  How well you finish relative to the field strength.

- **Consistency**  
  Stability of finishing positions over a season.

- **Clean Driving**  
  Incidents per race, weighted by severity.

- **Racecraft**  
  Positions gained/lost vs. incident involvement.

- **Reliability**  
  Attendance, DNS/DNF record.

- **Team Contribution**  
  Points earned for your team; lineup efficiency.

### **Why these matter**
A great league driver is not only fast.  
A great league driver is:
- clean  
- consistent  
- reliable  
- competitive  
- predictable  
- respected  
- valuable to teams  

Our rating reflects **real league value**, not just raw pace.

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# 3. Principles of GridPilot Rating

## **1. Competition over matchmaking**  
iRating is designed for matchmaking.  
GridPilot Rating is designed for **championships**.

## **2. Context matters**  
Beating a strong field → worth more.  
Clean races → rewarded.  
Incidents → penalized.  
Attendance → essential.

## **3. No punishing drivers for leagues with small grids**  
In iRating, small splits cause unstable jumps.  
GridPilot Rating normalizes for field size.

## **4. No obsession with “perfection”**  
This is not a chess ELO.  
This is racing.  
Racing has chaos.  
Rating should reflect that.

## **5. Transparent & understandable**  
Drivers should always know:
> “Why did my rating change?”

Our UI makes this clear.

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# 4. Rating Inputs (Conceptual, not equations)

GridPilot Rating is built from weighted contributions:

### **1. Race Placement Score**
Normalized by:
- field size  
- field strength  
- track difficulty (optional future)  
- gaps between positions  

### **2. Incident Factor**
Scaled to:
- incident count  
- impact on others  
- severity  
- penalty involvement  

### **3. Reliability Score**
- attendance  
- quitting early  
- DNS  
- DNF  

### **4. Team Factor**
- points contributed relative to team total  
- team finishing efficiency  
- team strength  

### **5. Season Factor**
Bonus for:
- championship position  
- improvement  
- performance under pressure  
- completing the full season  

Everything is transparent and cumulative.

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# 5. Why Teams Benefit from Rating

Teams need a way to scout drivers that isn’t:
- “Do you have 3k iRating?”  
- “Are you fast in officials?”  
- “Do you join our Discord?”  

GridPilot Rating shows:
- reliability  
- cleanliness  
- consistency  
- contribution  
- teamwork  
- multi-season performance  

That’s what teams care about in real league competition.

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# 6. Why Admins Benefit

Admins get:
- balanced rosters  
- fairer splits if needed  
- data for assigning classes  
- better recruitment  
- fewer problems with unreliable drivers  
- objective metrics behind decisions  

Rating turns leagues into **professional, predictable competitions**.

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# 7. Why Drivers Benefit

Drivers finally get:
- recognition for more than pace  
- a way to show reliability  
- stats that show improvement  
- incentives to race clean  
- a reason to finish the season  
- meaningful identity across multiple leagues  

GridPilot Rating makes league racing **feel like a true career**, not a collection of spreadsheets.

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# 8. How It Differs From iRating

| iRating | GridPilot Rating |
|--------|------------------|
| Matchmaking tool | Competition identity tool |
| Random opponents | Same rivals weekly |
| No context | Context-heavy |
| Pace only | Pace + behavior + consistency + reliability |
| Does not reward team play | Team contribution included |
| Penalizes small grids | Normalized for field size |
| No season meaning | Season progression core to system |
| Binary win/loss logic | Full racing context |

GridPilot Rating doesn’t replace iRating.  
It fills the gap iRating never tried to solve.

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# 9. Why We're Building This

Because league racing deserves:
- fair recognition  
- long-term meaning  
- personal progression  
- team value  
- traits beyond speed  
- a competitive environment that feels like real motorsport  

No other platform gives league racers their own rating.  
And no existing metric truly represents what makes someone great in a league.

GridPilot Rating changes that —  
**by measuring the things that actually matter in league racing.**