Hi all, so as regards pit stops and the amount of players who feel it's one of the most problematic areas within the game which needs to be addressed, apparently even post recent refuelling update, there still seems to be gaps created upon exiting the pit stops which really shouldn't be there. For example if you have 3 cars entering the pit stop (before pit lane speed limiter) with gaps of .5 seconds between each, then realistically we would expect this gap to be maintained upon exiting the pits. Unfortunately there are times where this does not occur, leaving players feeling hard done by. So here are my observations and suggestions for a possible solution. This may already be in effect within the game so please forgive my ignorance if it is.
So, I'm going to talk about the yoyo effect. You sometimes hear commentators on F1 talk about this effect when two cars are racing in close proximity to each other. On the straights they have for example a gap of .5 seconds but approaching the apex of the corner this gap may be reduced to .2 seconds, why? Well obviously the car in front has to break sooner than the car chasing allowing them to close the gap momentarily. Then the opposite happens upon accelerating out of the corner, the car in front gets on the gas sooner than the car chasing, thus allowing them to re-establish the .5 second gap that was originally there on the previous straight. So here is where I think the effect may be somewhat missing in the pit stops/pit lane within this game. Again, I could be wrong but I feel that upon pit lane entry the gap which was on track, say .5 seconds is not reduced enough between the first car having to slow down for the pit lane speed limiter and the car behind. So without this yoyo/stack effect or a reduction in gap size upon entry to the pit lane, you're going to have a situation where whichever car is in front will maintain a .5 second gap before leaving the pits but because they will be accelerating first (before the car behind) this gap will be extended, somewhat like players are experiencing now. So here they could extend this gap to maybe 1 second or more, which should not occur.
So to sum up, I think by creating this realistic yoyo/stack effect to be more inclusive within the game, especially upon pit entry, this could perhaps see a huge reduction in unfair gaps being created upon pit exit. Again I'm sorry if this effect is already produced upon pit entry and it's just something that seems less obvious to me. But if not and my suggestion turns out to be valid, let me hear your thoughts. Tnx 😉