2017 Subway FWC Invitational format

Qualifying is by invitation only. You must have 20 rated races to your credit to receive an invite on July 15th. Qualifying will last 1 week.  Each driver will get one 10 lap session to qualify, at Yas Marina North.

Standing start, simulation damage, no collisions, any assists, best lap recorded by a Race Official.

Only the top 23 qualifiers will make the race grid. You must race in the same car you qualified in.

The race will be held Sunday, July 30^th at 1:00pm PST, 3:00pm CST, 4:00pm EST at Yas Marina full.  Race length will be 50laps with 7 mandatory pit stops.  Rolling start, simulation damage, default collisions, any assists, no end timer.  No restarts, no cautions.

The podium finishers, plus 4th place, and the lowest rated best finisher will all win Subway sandwich certificates!


*Here's a pro tip on car selection: Due to the race length an estimated 2hrs long, on a long track and the required number of pit stops (7), drivers will be circulating the track at very different points on the track as the race progresses due to the gas mileage differences of each car.  

Some cars will need to pit sooner than later.  In particular, the Z06 gulps a full tank of gas about every 7-8 laps, whereas the others can go much longer.  Each will have to still do 7 pits stops regardless.  The better gas mileage cars will have the flexibility to decide when to pit, but the ZO6 will be on more of a constant pit schedule.  This will push all of the cars to be on a different pit schedule, entering and exiting pit lane on totally different laps. What this does is eliminates the fast car vs handling car bottleneck that tends to happen in shorter races.  

For example, two cars run the exact same lap times, but one does so by speed, and the other does so by handling and braking.  If they are in close proximity to each other the speed car tends to have the advantage because it blocks the handling car going into turn 1.  But if both cars are on different sectors of the track because of mpg requirements, this is no longer a problem for the handling car.  In a long race, it will come down to the last fill up before the two will have to share the same track sections.  This means that in the case of the ZO6 which has less speed than the other 3, will not be stuck behind other cars in the infield.  Except for the start and the finish. Corvette drivers will mostly contend with other Corvettes in the infield and not be slowed by speed cars in the twisty sections is the point.  So don't let your sprint experience skew your opinion on whether or not to go with a handling car vs a speed car this time, you'll be fine.  Yas Marina has a nice balance of long fast straights and tight turns slightly leaning towards being more useful to a handling car than a speed car.  But only slightly.