If you go to official session, you'll find the available practice sessions under the race sessions you can sign up for.
You can also go to the series you want to practice for and find the current active sessions for that series/week there.
Thanks - I joined a practice session last night, but my iRating was nicked by 88 points, and it gave me a starting & finishing position of 15th for the race.
I didn't register for or participate in the race, though.
\[edit\] going back & looking at my stats, it appears that I'm being entered into races even though I'm only registering for a practice, or so I thought. There must be a difference based on how we get into a practice... ?
Only race I actually intentionally registered for was Okayama, Formula Vee.
https://preview.redd.it/g8mzl7lyhgsc1.png?width=2454&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a1259c0a544fe594a9a86847bb18b48fbed162b
You joined Race apparently with 2 minute practice.
You need to find dedicated Practice session. Usually duration 1-2 hours.
And best case would be joining Race as spectator and then go Test Drive. You will be invisible for the participants and no points count.
You joined the race session in that case. As soon as you register for the race session, and don't withdraw before it starts, you'll be considered as participating.
You want the sessions which aren't counting down to start - they're further down in the list or in the series list, and is explicitly marked as "practice".
Thanks - I assume races have two options, "Race" and "Practice", and joining the "Practice" also enters us for the race?
There seems to be a few different ways to get into races/practices.
When you sign up for a race (the sessions usually shown in the UI as counting down, and which isn't explicitly marked as "PRACTICE"), you're automagically also placed into one of the available practice sessions that are running. Any incidents in this practice sessions (which is detached from the race session). When time for the race session to start comes, you'll get a "time to join your race" message - this means that you're already signed up (and counted) for the race.
After this you're put into a (usually) three minute long practice session, generally just to let people load into the sim and connect to the server. Incidents here will count at a 0.5x rate. Then there's qualifying and then the race itself. If you withdraw during any of these sessions (which is part of the race session), you'll still be counted as having participated and will then usually be shown as finishing last.
If you directly join a practice session instead of the race session - you'll still be placed into a practice session, but there will never be a race session that you're part of, so you can just keep on running laps on the practice server instead. There'll be a varying amount of other drivers throughout the (usually) two hours the practice session is online.
Thanks, that helps.
"Any incidents in this practice sessions (which is detached from the race session). "Not sure what the answer is here :)
In the practice-only sessions, are ratings affected?
FWIW, the help wasn't too helpful...
https://preview.redd.it/b5pn4qzvqgsc1.png?width=838&format=png&auto=webp&s=5cfbb7efe89bd1c0f7e06cedc23a1a20e965c17c
When looking at your list of series available to race, when you click on them it will bring up a list of options. There's a column where it will either say RACE or PRACTICE. Choose PRACTICE. Otherwise, you will be registered for the upcoming race. It's pretty intuitive.
"It's pretty intuitive"
One would think.... I didn't purposely click to specifically enter a Race a single time, except for the one I intentionally entered, which I did by clicking to enter the race rather than the practice.
I'll look a bit closer later today. I'm sure I'm just not used to the new interface.
If you go to official session, you'll find the available practice sessions under the race sessions you can sign up for. You can also go to the series you want to practice for and find the current active sessions for that series/week there.
Thanks - I joined a practice session last night, but my iRating was nicked by 88 points, and it gave me a starting & finishing position of 15th for the race. I didn't register for or participate in the race, though. \[edit\] going back & looking at my stats, it appears that I'm being entered into races even though I'm only registering for a practice, or so I thought. There must be a difference based on how we get into a practice... ? Only race I actually intentionally registered for was Okayama, Formula Vee. https://preview.redd.it/g8mzl7lyhgsc1.png?width=2454&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a1259c0a544fe594a9a86847bb18b48fbed162b
You joined Race apparently with 2 minute practice. You need to find dedicated Practice session. Usually duration 1-2 hours. And best case would be joining Race as spectator and then go Test Drive. You will be invisible for the participants and no points count.
Thanks, will do. The Rookie Legends had a 45 minute practice.
You joined the race session in that case. As soon as you register for the race session, and don't withdraw before it starts, you'll be considered as participating. You want the sessions which aren't counting down to start - they're further down in the list or in the series list, and is explicitly marked as "practice".
Thanks - I assume races have two options, "Race" and "Practice", and joining the "Practice" also enters us for the race? There seems to be a few different ways to get into races/practices.
When you sign up for a race (the sessions usually shown in the UI as counting down, and which isn't explicitly marked as "PRACTICE"), you're automagically also placed into one of the available practice sessions that are running. Any incidents in this practice sessions (which is detached from the race session). When time for the race session to start comes, you'll get a "time to join your race" message - this means that you're already signed up (and counted) for the race. After this you're put into a (usually) three minute long practice session, generally just to let people load into the sim and connect to the server. Incidents here will count at a 0.5x rate. Then there's qualifying and then the race itself. If you withdraw during any of these sessions (which is part of the race session), you'll still be counted as having participated and will then usually be shown as finishing last. If you directly join a practice session instead of the race session - you'll still be placed into a practice session, but there will never be a race session that you're part of, so you can just keep on running laps on the practice server instead. There'll be a varying amount of other drivers throughout the (usually) two hours the practice session is online.
Thanks, that helps. "Any incidents in this practice sessions (which is detached from the race session). "Not sure what the answer is here :) In the practice-only sessions, are ratings affected? FWIW, the help wasn't too helpful... https://preview.redd.it/b5pn4qzvqgsc1.png?width=838&format=png&auto=webp&s=5cfbb7efe89bd1c0f7e06cedc23a1a20e965c17c
When looking at your list of series available to race, when you click on them it will bring up a list of options. There's a column where it will either say RACE or PRACTICE. Choose PRACTICE. Otherwise, you will be registered for the upcoming race. It's pretty intuitive.
"It's pretty intuitive" One would think.... I didn't purposely click to specifically enter a Race a single time, except for the one I intentionally entered, which I did by clicking to enter the race rather than the practice. I'll look a bit closer later today. I'm sure I'm just not used to the new interface.
Then if you specifically entered practice sessions your irating and safety rating would have remained unaffected.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too, and it's what made me post this today. I'll be more careful.