Free practice, qualifying & race

SmartRace supports three driving modes: free practice, qualifying and race.

Free practice

Free practice is the standard mode of SmartRace. It cannot be started separately, but is always active automatically if there is no race or qualification in progress. It cannot be ended either. The results of a free practice session cannot be saved in the history, but track records are still recorded.

Qualifying

To start a qualifying session, open the “Qualifying” item in the main menu. You can now set how long the qualifying session should run. You can either specify a time after which qualifying should end or a number of laps. Press Start to confirm the mode. You must then press the START button in the app or on the control unit to finally start qualifying.

Qualifying is always won by the driver with the fastest lap. There is no automatic transfer of qualifying results to a race.

Race

Starting a race works in the same way as starting a qualifying race. Timed races end after a specified time (e.g. 15 minutes), in lap races the driver who reaches the specified number of laps first wins. You can also specify the track on which the race is held. The active track is preselected here. Depending on which add-ons you have, you can also use damage, weather and penalties. In the “Add-ons” section of the manual, you will find an explanation of how the respective modules work.

You also have the following options:

• How many ghost cars are in the race? You can use this to make races against several ghost cars fairer. You can find more information here.
• Transfer fuel levels from the previous event? If you activate this, the fuel level of the respective driver will be transferred to the race. For example, if a driver finishes qualifying with 50% fuel, he will start the race with this setting with 50% fuel.

You can also save your race settings as a template (“Templates” tab in the dialog for starting a race). This allows you to quickly reload settings you have made at any time.

After the end of a race or qualifying session

At the end of a race or qualifying session, you have various options. Firstly, the winner is automatically determined and displayed, as well as the fastest lap time and an overview of the overall result with all the distances. You now have several options to continue.

• Back to free practice: The results screen is closed and SmartRace returns to “free practice” mode. The result is not saved.
• Repeat: Starts a new qualifying or race with the same settings as the one just finished.
• Save: Saves the result in the history. So you can view and analyze it again later at any time. In addition to all laps driven, pit stops and lead changes are also saved. If you have activated automatic saving, you no longer need to press this button.
• Save as a championship race: If you have the “Championships and Teams” add-on, you can use this to score the race as a championship race. You will receive a dialog with a selection of the championship for which the race or qualifying should be scored.