iRacing – How ttRating Works

Time trial is usually a very good mode to gain consistency. It forces you to be smooth and clean with the car without risking in every corner. Ttrating has no real meaning for me but sometimes I asked how this work. Many people asked same as well. Here is the current Sporting Code explanation and an old iRacing staff notes by Shannon Whitmore.

1. ttRatings are a measure of proficiency in the Time Trial discipline and compare an individual driver’s best average lap time at a particular track against the best recorded average lap time for the same car at that track.
2. ttRatings are the primary factor in assigning drivers to Divisions for the series in which they compete, maximizing competition and allowing members to advance to higher and more prestigious Driver Divisions as their skills improve or return to a lower Division if the competition proves too difficult.
3. Each driver shall have a separate ttRating for each category (Oval and Road). Each category-specific ttRating is automatically calculated and updated to reflect the driver’s performance in any Time Trial sessions joined in that category.
4. Only Time Trial sessions in a given category affect a driver’s ttRating in that category. There is no cross-category influence on ttRating.
5. Drivers gain ttRating points by improving their time trial relative to the best time trial on record for the same car at a given track.
6. ttRatings are calculated by averaging a driver’s track ttRating at the last 8 tracks where he/she has completed an official time trial.
7. Drivers will not gain ttRating points by finishing ahead of drivers with a higher ttRating, nor lose points based other ttRatings. As a driver’s average time trial for a given track gets closer to the existing record, he/she may gain ttRating points, if it moves further from the time trial record, he/she may lose ttRating points.
8. ttRatings are not visible to members holding Rookie Licenses

A Time Trial is a competition between you and the clock (and everyone else and the clock!) You are on track alone and must try to record the fastest sequence of laps without spinning, going off the track, or having contact with a barrier. Any such incident will invalidate your current lap sequence, and you will need to complete another full sequence in order to better your time. The Time Trial time is your average lap time for your best sequence of laps in the session. The number of laps in a full sequence varies from track to track, or from configuration to configuration.

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What is an official time trial? Official means you completed the required number of consecutive incident free laps during a time trial session. For example, Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca requires four consecutive incident free laps.
Essentially, you get a session rating at a track each time you complete a time trial. This session rating depends on your time trial time compared to the time trial record for that car at that track.
Your last four time trial session ratings at a given track regardless of car are averaged to get your rating for that track. For each car you time trial at a track, you’re given a normalized number, and that number is reflected by a rating, for example 1600. Why doesn’t it matter which car? Because within the formula, being x.xxx off the record in a Rookie Solstice can be equated to being x.xxx off the FSB2000 record.

Your track rating from your 8 most recently visited tracks are averaged to give your overall time trial rating.

What if you haven’t time trialed at 8 tracks? What happens here, is that you’re given the service wide average rating for the remaining tracks. So the table shows Driver A having time trialed at 4 tracks, leaving him 4 tracks at which he is getting the service average rating, for example, let’s say the avg is 1600 for all other tracks.

Once you have time trialed at 8 tracks, your overall rating is more correct, because now you have 8 real ratings for 8 tracks, no service average ratings are included. Once you complete a time trial on a 9th track, only the 8 most recent are used, so in this case your first track would be dropped from the average.

Having the best time trial or being at the top percentile of the standings for a given week or track doesn’t necessarily equate to a positive gain in ttRating points.

See you on the track!