The SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals is a brand new championship concept brought to you by both SimGrid and VCO.
In 2021 and 2022, SimGrid and VCO came together to run the World Cup, a popular and immensely competitive competition focused on esports and endurance racing. However, as the sim racing space continues to grow, as does the number of esports competitions, always attracting the same drivers and teams. The concept of the Grand Finals is to turn the focus back towards the communities who provide racing on a regular basis for the "everyday simracer". To achieve this, rather than having invitations going to teams based on their success in esport competitions, or their reputation in the sim racing world, the invitations will be solely awarded to teams who win them by participating in championships held by ten of the best SimGrid communities.
When a team wins a slot to the Grand Finals, that team will not only represent themselves, but also the community that they won the slot from, thus creating an extra standings in the Grand Finals championship for the communities.
Unlike the aforementioned World Cup, the SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals will run as a multi-class championship, with GT3 and GT4 classes taking part. Multi-class is frequently requested, but rarely used in prominent ACC competitions but the Grand Finals will change that and demonstrate the excitement and drama that multi-class racing can provide. To account for the additional class, the Grand Finals will also feature a bigger capacity grid, allowing for 33 GT3's and 25 GT4's at capacity!
All slots on the Grand Finals grid will be filled by teams who win them by participating in championships held by 10 of SimGrid's best communities.
Each community championship will have 5 guaranteed slots available plus 3 slots in the GT4 Play-Off.
Teams can enter as many of the community championships as they like, even enter all ten if they want! However, teams are limited to only two slots in the Grand Finals and only one slot per class. Teams that secure a slot in the Grand Finals through any one of the 10 available championships will also be exempt from participation in the GT4 Play-Off event in October.
Below are links to the 10 championships that will qualify for the SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals:
The GT4 Play-Off takes place in October and will feature the teams that finished in P6, P7 and P8 from each of the community championships. The GT4 Play-Off will award the final three GT4 slots.
Teams that have already secured a slot in the Grand Finals, regardless of class, will be exempt from participating in the GT4 Play-Off and the Play-Off slot will be awarded to the next available team that does not already have a Grand Finals slot.
All teams that enter the series must agree to abide by the Sporting Code and Terms & Conditions.
The schedule below is a rough guideline and not confirmed.
The SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals qualifying features 4 separate qualifying sessions. Each class will have 2 qualifying sessions.
Qualifying 1 will feature all teams in class. The top 10 from Qualifying 1 will then participate in Qualifying 2, with the lap times from Qualifying 1 remaining on the board.
Teams that make it through to their class' Qualifying 2 must use a different driver to the driver that did Qualifying 1.
Please note that this qualifying format, and the timetable listed above are not confirmed and may change before the Grand Finals starts.
All races in the SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals will have both live and post race stewarding.
Stewards will investigate collisions that are brought to their attention through the game logs, however teams can also use the protest forms made available in the discord channel called "#protests" to report rule violations and bring them to the attention of the stewards.
Teams are requested to please check the public incident sheet to see if the contact has been put forward for investigation, before they file a report. This will save time for both the team and the stewards.
Teams will also get the opportunity to appeal against a stewards ruling. Teams are limited to only 1 appeal per race. Please note that appeals will only be reviewed post-race as appeals are viewed by an independent party not involved in the original decision.
Please note that the SimGrid Licence Points system documented in the Sporting Code, will be in use for the SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals.
The SimGrid x VCO Grand Finals imposes the standard 65 minutes driver stint limit. The stint limit is reset upon exiting the pit lane, unless you are serving a Drive Through or Stop&Go penalty. The game will automatically apply a penalty if the stint limit is exceeded.
Maximum Driving Time for each round will be documented here closer to the time.
Custom liveries made outside of the game are permitted in this event but please remember that they are not officially supported by the game's developers.
If your team will run with a custom livery, the livery must follow the requirements detailed in the Terms & Conditions.
The required logos can be found in the Custom Livery Assets folder that will be made available here. The folder will also be accessible on Discord.
Any politically charged or potentially offensive material on a custom livery will result in the livery being rejected.
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