Driver ratings should be downgraded altogether

It’s that most wonderful time of year in the world of sports car racing where teams are trying to put programs together for the following season. The problem is, the economics of putting it all together can be complicated, especially given what could be a drinking term in sports car racing: driver ratings.

If you’re unfamiliar with the process, here’s a brief primer. There’s four such ratings available: Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze. You might remember earlier this year, each was mentioned in a blog post about how many acronyms there are in sports car racing. 

In theory, this is how they should work. Key words “in theory:”

• Platinum: Primarily factory drivers and other universally accepted paid professionals
• Gold: Paid professionals or junior series professionals who are not yet with a factory outfit
• Silver: Top-level gentlemen drivers who do not derive their sole income from racing cars
• Bronze: Newer gentlemen drivers who are often lacking in experience

Now do all drivers applicably fit within those categories? It’s a yes-and-no type thing.

There’s several problems with the current formula as it is.

JUNIORS MINTED? 

For one, if say you’re an up-and-coming junior formula driver in North American open-wheel racing, you’re likely classified as a Gold (Matthew Brabham and Stefan Wilson would be two good examples). If you’re an up-and-coming junior driver in sports car racing, you’re likely a Silver (as Sean Rayhall was for 2014, before being bumped up to Gold for 2015).

A strange situation that occurred this year though, was that Porsche Junior drivers Connor De Phillippi and Alex Riberas were ranked differently. "CDP" was a Gold, Riberas a Silver, and thus Riberas held more value given his rating. 

Now in theory, if you’re a junior driver lacking for sports car experience, regardless of whether you’re coming from the open-wheel or sports car world, or another arena altogether, you should be classified the same. It shouldn’t be split down the middle between some being Golds and some being Silvers. Whether the one choice is a Gold or Silver is a matter of opinion.

The gentlemen driver will likely tell you that racing against “fake Silvers” – drivers that have outright talent but are unheralded, unheard of in North America or simply fly under the radar – does them a disservice because they’re not racing against equal competition.

The up-and-coming junior driver will probably argue that because he or she may not be at an equal level of sports car experience compared to an Andre Lotterer or Scott Pruett (diverse examples, but basically two top-level Prototype drivers in either FIA WEC or TUDOR), they shouldn’t be ranked as such, for at least their first full year in the championship.

As it stands now, both types of drivers get screwed. In an arena where an “Am” driver is required, teams may opt to bring in a “fake Silver” – a Pro who for whatever reason doesn’t have one of the two Pro ratings – to optimize the car’s lineup. This is a course of action that you can’t fault teams for, because that is how the system is set up.

This hurts both the Ams and the Pros. The Pros lose out an opportunity by the fact the class isn’t designated to allow for them to have a shot full-time (or even in some endurance races), and some Ams lose out by the fact they have to race against Pros.

So the blurred lines, worldwide, fixate on what makes one driver a Silver and another a Gold, even if he or she have similar resumes.

ONE AM, TWO AMS, FAKE AMS? 

Another problem? The type of lineup. Until a team knows what type of lineup a class requires - i.e. One Silver or Two Silvers, one Bronze, only one Platinum/Gold or whatever - it may not know where it can compete.  

This has the knock-on effect of a team perhaps wanting to run a car in one class but not having the lineup with which to do so. An example this year, albeit an extreme one: Bret Curtis had an accident at this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans practice day. The ProSpeed team with which Curtis, a Bronze, was running with Platinum-rated Jeroen Bleekemolen and Silver-rated Cooper MacNeil were scheduled to race in an older Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in the GTE-Am class.

As the team sourced a backup car to replace its injured one, they could not source a suitable Bronze-rated driver replacement to replace Curtis, who was ruled out. So this made for the abnormal situation of a two-driver lineup, with the car then moved into the GTE-Pro class (no driver ratings restrictions) in a car that was intended to go for a top result in GTE-Am. As it turned out, Bleekemolen and MacNeil completed an ironman 24-hour stint on their own and ended fifth in GTE-Pro, for a better result than would have been the case in GTE-Am.

But great as that story may be, it's still confusing to the masses unless you're massively engaged in the day-to-day inner workings of how complicated it is to make lineups work, given the rating restrictions. 

SWITCHING IT UP

Then there's another problem - changing driver ratings in-season. Granted, it didn't happen a ton last year, but it happened enough to affect several drivers last year, which prevented possible opportunities. Again, it's a case of if you're going to have them, at least keep them consistent and level for a standard period of time. 

ULTIMATELY, THIS IS A MICRO PROBLEM AFFECTING ON A MACRO LEVEL

The greater problem? The fact that you seemingly need an degree in advanced mathematics or an acute awareness to study formulas for what makes a lineup, a lineup, not only prevents drivers from getting opportunities, but unnecessarily complicates the process on the whole.

In an ideal world, driver ratings should be downgraded to just Pro or Am, if not abolished altogether. It’s unlikely to happen, but it would make things so much simpler.

I can’t tell you how many times this past season I thought or asked, “Wait, is that lineup good to the regulations?” Sebring this past year saw nearly half the GTD teams need to switch their lineups last-minute to comply.

It hurts from an optics standpoint – if you can’t reveal who is driving your car until the last minute, how are you supposed to do advanced promotion of it and thus help grow your car and brand awareness?

It’s confusing from an organizational and statistical standpoint – remembering which drivers are Gold and which ones are Silver can make your head spin. I’ll usually know which drivers are Pros or Ams, but there are definite times where I’ll need to check the list to view the ones that aren’t as straightforward.

Sometimes with the reasoning behind certain drivers is questionable. For instance, if you’re over 50, you can be classified as an FIA Silver – this includes ex-F1 drivers such as Stefan Johansson and Martin Brundle, respectively.

Earl Bamber, through no fault of his own, seems to be the poster child for a rating mismatch as he’s currently listed as a Silver. The New Zealander has won the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, and most recently, Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup titles this year. He is a pro, and a badass one at that, but somehow has been misclassified.

This rates him – and the ex-F1 drivers over 50 that are eligible – equal with a majority of tech gurus and other businessmen who typify the words gentlemen racing drivers.

For a comparable NASCAR example, it would be like saying Terry Labonte, a two-time Sprint Cup champion who is now 58, would be the equivalent of a John Potter, the am, team owner, and savvy businessman that runs Magnus Racing. But Labonte wouldn’t be the same rating as longtime Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, even though they’re both series champions. Because that makes sense.

The bottom line is that it’s hard enough for sports car racing to get recognized in this country as it is, beyond the small, core group of media members and slightly bigger, but still small hardcore group of fans.

We spend our days asking “how does this driver fit this lineup” rather than “how can we better promote this driver, knowing he or she will be part of this lineup?”

Driver ratings don’t help the problem. You’re either a Pro or an Am. You need both for endurance sports car racing to be sustainable, but you don’t need to cloud the picture by having questionable ratings for some inadvertently screw the pooch for others.

But is simplicity so much to ask for? Yes, because this is sports car racing, and the word simplicity might as well be from another language.