Bulgaria

This part of the rulebook contains information about the type of penalties given for rule infractions. Most types of infractions will only be reviewed after receiving a report from a driver or team manager. Exceptions to this are infractions of rules like those for tire compounds, pitlane speed limit, pitlane entry/exit lines and so on, which the league management will review and penalize for a randomly selected driver after race, without receiving a report about it.

The reports will be reviewed by a Race Control (RC) commission. Anyone approved by the league management can take part in the RC. The current members of the RC are:

  • Dimitar Dulichki
  • Hristo Itchov
  • Peter Nikolov

The participants of the league can submit reports for any incident or rule infraction within 72 hours after the end of the race, which then will be reviewed by a member of the RC. If someone disagrees with the decision made by the RC member, they can send an appeal within 48 hours of the RC decision, after which the situation will be reviewed by all members of the RC.

Type of penalties

The main type of penalties are: penalty points (P.T.), added race time (A.R.T.), starting from the back of the grid, loss of starting grid positions in a current or future race, disqualification from qualifying or race, 1 or more race bans, missing the rest of the season, and as a last resort for very serious or repeated infractions – a permanent ban from participation in the league.

The penalties will be applied for infractions of the rules described in the Racing Section.

Penalty points system

From season 3 onwards, we introduced a penalty points system, similar to the one used in the real Formula 1. Any driver who breaks the rules will receive penalty points, the amount of which depends on the severity of the infraction. If a driver collects 8 or more points, he/she will be penalized with 1 race ban for the following start of the season, after which his penalty points will be set to 0.

Penalty points will be reset at the start of each new season.

1. Infractions penalized by using the penalty points (P.T.) system and/or added race time (A.R.T.)

  1. 1 P.T. for each text line in the in-game chat, in sessions for which chat is forbidden.
  2. 5 seconds A.R.T. for hitting or pushing off another driver which gives an advantage.
  3. 1 P.T. for anyone caught speeding in the pitlane during official practices and qualifying sessions.
  4. 1 P.T. for crossing of the continuous line of the pit entry/exit.
  5. 1 P.T. for ignoring blue flags.
  6. 5 seconds A.R.T. for gaining a position by cutting the track limits and not giving back the position.
  7. 1 second A.R.T. for gaining a significant time advantage for cutting the track limits and not slowing down afterwards.
  8. 1 P.T. and 10 seconds A.R.T. for using a driving aid (Traction Control, Anti-Lock Brakes) in the race, while being in the top 6 positions of the championship drivers standings.
  9. 2 P.T. for blocking another driver, which leads to a dangerous situation, loss of time or loss of position for the other driver, or drivers nearby.
  10. 2 P.T. and 15 seconds A.R.T. for hitting one or more drivers, that causes damage to their car and/or spins them out, but doesn’t lead to their retirement.
  11. 2 P.T. for a dangerous rejoin after leaving the track limits, causing one or more drivers to avoid a collision by changing their speed and/or direction.
  12. 2 P.T. for starting the race with tyre compound different from the one used in qualifying.
  13. 2 P.T. and 10 seconds A.R.T. for using tyre compounds in the race that differ from the appointed compounds for that event.
  14. 2 P.T. and 10 seconds A.R.T. for using just one of the two tyre compounds in a dry weather race.
  15. 2 P.T. for driving on the track with seriously damaged car for more than 3 laps. A seriously damaged car is considered to be such, which doesn’t allow the driver to produce lap times within 120% of his/her normal lap times. This usually means a car with broken wings, missing wheels and/or tyre punctures.
  16. 3 P.T. and starting from the back of the grid in the next race for causing a collision with one or more drivers, that leads to the immediate or consequential retirement of those drivers.

2. Other penalties

  1. Disqualification (DQ) for going backwards against the normal direction of travel of the track.
  2. Starting from a lower position in the current race for using tyre compounds in the Qualifying that differ from the appointed compounds for that event.
  3. Missing a race event for accumulating 6 or more penalty points.

For situations and infractions not described here, or for systematic infractions of one or more rules, the league management and/or the Race Control reserves the right to apply any kind of penalty or penalties they deem proper.

Any participant in the league has the right to send reports to the RC, not only for infractions described in the rulebook, but also for those that are not listed.