Hi all,
I have done hours of deep diving into the simulator code to see why you might be experiencing what some are calling "Favoritism" and the qualifying running order still not being random and older teams or people that pay for things with real money getting favored.
First off the sim has no idea who spent money and doesn't care. It is given details about the car attributes, driver attributes, setup and strategy.
Practice, Qualifying, Race all run through the same code path for advancing the car around the track.
Practice and Qualifying both run pretty similar as there is no other cars on the track.
Here is a qualifying from my league a few days ago in Austria, only time stamps, lap times and driver names are shown.
The qualifying round happened twice because of processing load (We do over 1500 races at peak times). In such cases the first results are always taken in favor of the second running.
But in this case it shows 2 qualifying runs with different running orders and results.
Run 1 - The one we took qualifying results from.
Running order (The order cars do the qualifying lap )
12/11 18:50:47 A Williams
12/11 18:50:49 A Zanardi
12/11 18:50:51 J Chadwick
12/11 18:50:52 A Robinson
12/11 18:50:54 V Munoz
12/11 18:50:56 T Dennis
12/11 18:50:58 E Prydero
12/11 18:50:59 S Jansen
12/11 18:51:01 D Poile
12/11 18:51:03 A Baeten
12/11 18:51:04 S Taylor
12/11 18:51:06 A Morris
12/11 18:51:08 W Davies
12/11 18:51:10 G Raggi
12/11 18:51:11 D Halász
12/11 18:51:13 S Thompson
12/11 18:51:15 L Hamilton
12/11 18:51:17 G Russell
12/11 18:51:18 R Ciampi
12/11 18:51:20 P Włodarczy
12/11 18:51:22 J Nowak
12/11 18:51:23 R Ismael
12/11 18:51:25 G Paz
12/11 18:51:27 J Brundle
12/11 18:51:28 M Schumacher
12/11 18:51:30 X Morris
12/11 18:51:32 v Koponen
12/11 18:51:34 B Monger
12/11 18:51:35 P Evans
12/11 18:51:37 L de Jong
12/11 18:51:39 P Claeys
12/11 18:51:40 J Klein
The results were:
12/11 18:51:40 Position 1 : "J Klein" 65.465s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 2 : "G Raggi" 65.467s +0.003s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 3 : "A Morris" 65.488s +0.023s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 4 : "A Robinson" 65.489s +0.024s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 5 : "S Thompson" 65.491s +0.026s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 6 : "B Monger" 65.495s +0.030s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 7 : "G Paz" 65.495s +0.031s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 8 : "X Morris" 65.499s +0.034s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 9 : "S Taylor" 65.507s +0.042s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 10 : "L Hamilton" 65.511s +0.047s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 11 : "T Dennis" 65.513s +0.048s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 12 : "P Claeys" 65.520s +0.055s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 13 : "E Prydero" 65.521s +0.056s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 14 : "M Schumacher" 65.521s +0.057s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 15 : "J Nowak" 65.522s +0.058s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 16 : "D Poile" 65.527s +0.062s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 17 : "A Williams" 65.529s +0.064s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 18 : "J Chadwick" 65.553s +0.088s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 19 : "R Ciampi" 65.626s +0.161s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 20 : "P Włodarczyk" 65.628s +0.163s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 21 : "A Baeten" 65.630s +0.165s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 22 : "A Zanardi" 65.776s +0.311s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 23 : "L de Jong" 65.853s +0.389s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 24 : "G Russell" 69.115s +3.651s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 25 : "P Evans" 69.133s +3.668s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 26 : "J Brundle" 69.465s +4.000s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 27 : "v Koponen" 71.485s +6.020s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 28 : "D Halász" 72.036s +6.571s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 29 : "V Munoz" 72.872s +7.407s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 30 : "W Davies" 73.056s +7.592s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 31 : "S Jansen" 73.141s +7.677s
12/11 18:51:40 Position 32 : "R Ismael" 73.144s +7.679s
The second run order was:
12/11 18:51:54 P Claeys
12/11 18:51:56 J Klein
12/11 18:51:58 P Evans
12/11 18:51:59 A Robinson
12/11 18:52:01 V Munoz
12/11 18:52:03 R Ciampi
12/11 18:52:04 A Baeten
12/11 18:52:06 G Raggi
12/11 18:52:08 T Dennis
12/11 18:52:09 G Russell
12/11 18:52:11 G Paz
12/11 18:52:13 J Brundle
12/11 18:52:15 J Nowak
12/11 18:52:16 W Davies
12/11 18:52:18 S Jansen
12/11 18:52:20 B Monger
12/11 18:52:22 A Williams
12/11 18:52:23 M Schumacher
12/11 18:52:25 S Taylor
12/11 18:52:27 P Włodarczyk
12/11 18:52:28 L Hamilton
12/11 18:52:30 X Morris
12/11 18:52:32 D Halász
12/11 18:52:33 L de Jong
12/11 18:52:35 E Prydero
12/11 18:52:37 v Koponen
12/11 18:52:39 D Poile
12/11 18:52:40 A Zanardi
12/11 18:52:42 S Thompson
12/11 18:52:44 J Chadwick
12/11 18:52:45 A Morris
12/11 18:52:47 R Ismael
The second run results were:
12/11 18:52:47 Position 1 : "S Taylor" 65.416s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 2 : "E Prydero" 65.416s +0.000s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 3 : "J Chadwick" 65.422s +0.006s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 4 : "T Dennis" 65.486s +0.070s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 5 : "A Robinson" 65.487s +0.071s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 6 : "L Hamilton" 65.488s +0.072s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 7 : "X Morris" 65.495s +0.079s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 8 : "R Ciampi" 65.497s +0.081s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 9 : "G Paz" 65.500s +0.084s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 10 : "M Schumacher" 65.501s +0.085s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 11 : "D Poile" 65.502s +0.086s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 12 : "J Klein" 65.506s +0.090s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 13 : "A Williams" 65.518s +0.102s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 14 : "S Thompson" 65.520s +0.104s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 15 : "A Baeten" 65.521s +0.105s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 16 : "B Monger" 65.521s +0.105s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 17 : "P Włodarczyk" 65.525s +0.109s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 18 : "J Nowak" 65.531s +0.115s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 19 : "P Claeys" 65.628s +0.212s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 20 : "G Raggi" 65.629s +0.213s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 21 : "A Morris" 65.631s +0.215s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 22 : "A Zanardi" 65.687s +0.271s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 23 : "L de Jong" 65.867s +0.451s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 24 : "P Evans" 69.086s +3.670s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 25 : "G Russell" 69.155s +3.739s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 26 : "J Brundle" 69.494s +4.078s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 27 : "v Koponen" 71.493s +6.077s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 28 : "D Halász" 72.108s +6.693s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 29 : "V Munoz" 72.936s +7.520s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 30 : "W Davies" 72.979s +7.563s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 31 : "R Ismael" 73.067s +7.651s
12/11 18:52:47 Position 32 : "S Jansen" 73.096s +7.680s
I can't share the actual car setups because that is down to confidentiality both internally within iGP and teams don't always want there strategies disclosed.
I can say not only is there now randomness in the actual running order of cars, there is some randomness to some additional non controllable attributes. In both cases these values differed both runs too sometimes having some positive affects and some negative.
If you are still not convinced, please give me a race id and reasons you feel you should be doing better than team x,y,z I can look into the logging for the qualifying but this may not be a instant response as there is a lot of things going on in the background for iGP Manager.