Is this a feature or a bug?

[danieljjohnson10]

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=847145507

Game as reference above. In round 29/30 (move 635 in the log) of the race is when my question occurs.

There is a blue car with lots of brakes left who downshifts to gear 2 and 1 over consecutive turns and brakes so that they are immobile at the exit of a turn for multiple turns (they roll a 1 and use one brake point to stay still) the result is that he is basically completely still and blocking the only legal exit of the curve intentionally for multiple turns and causes two cars behind to get eliminated from the race.

I've had a similar situation happen in a more natural way that seemed more logical (crashing into someone in a crowded curve) but this is the first time I've seen it used intentionally as a strategy to eliminate opponents.

It's the natural result of following the rules as programmed... But it also feels like it is against the intention of the game as a racing game. Especially because there is literally no negative consequence for the player executing it. They never roll for collision or face any consequence of two cars essentially ramming into the back of his.

The rules are vague here (and they appear to be implemented as correctly as possible) but it seems like there is a decent following for Formula D as a tabletop game so I'm curious if this is just a known strategy if there is some rule that solves it in the tabletop version.

[RungeKuttaFehlberg]

Yeah, this happened in a game I played as well. Seems like there should be something happening to the car in front as well. But I don't have the tabletop game so I don't know if there's a solution there.

[Wolfjäger]

Both eliminated players could have stayed on the other side of the curve on preceding move. They willingly put themselves on a dangerous position, hoping for some "fair play" that nothing in the rules mandates. I hope for them that next time they'll be aware of that danger.

[danieljjohnson10]

Both eliminated players could have stayed on the other side of the curve on preceding move. They willingly put themselves on a dangerous position, hoping for some "fair play" that nothing in the rules mandates. I hope for them that next time they'll be aware of that danger.

Totally fair. And it seems entirely within the rules as described in the rulebook. That said it's a niche case and strikes me as odd that it's a move legal to use brakes to "park" and take a round remaining idle to block the exit of a turn. I would have assumed that there is some requirement that a car must move forward a single space each turn. The player remaining idle for a round is what caused the eliminations.

Just thinking of the real world scenario the game is based on if a car stopped moving on the track in any real race there would be penalties / retirements / yellow flags so it never even crossed my mind that that was an option.

[Quatrevents]

I find this way of playing very hateful, and completely at the opposite of my conception of a so called fair-play. I make here some proposals to try to avoid this. And yes, I know it's not forbidden explicitely within the rules !!! But...

First thing

If I remember well, there were a series of "masters rules" elaborated to clarify, in competition, the initial rules given with the original box of the game and one of them was saying something like (in French) :
Le pilote dont la voiture n’a plus assez de PdV de freins ou de PdV de pneus pour assumer un blocage (...) est éliminé.Il occasionne alors d’office la perte d’un point carrosserie à la voiture située juste devant lui.
which is, in English, :
The driver whose car no longer has enough brake or tire points to withstand a lockup (...) is eliminated.This automatically results in the car directly in front of him losing one body point.
This rule could be implemented to prevent a single car to block for too many turns. It's not perfect of course, because the blocking car still can have been built with many body WP.

Second thing

In the original rules again, maximum WP was 10 for tires and 7 for everything else. This could prevent cars with 10 brakes...

Third thing

A new rule could be introduced, requiring to move at least one step forward. In "real life" a racing car is NOT allowed to stop on purpose in front of another one... I hope so by the way !

Any comments about these ideas ???
I could write this directly on the BUGs and Suggestions part of the site, and I will certainly make it, but I'd like to have racers reactions and comments before. Thanks.
And if nothing can be done, then Red thumb is your friend !!!

[RungeKuttaFehlberg]

Always forcing at least one step wouldn't in itself solve these issues due to the forced path coming out of and into corners. One car could brake and move one or more steps to land just in front of another car, which would then be forced to crash and be eliminated.

I was pondering inflicting more body damage to the braking car, as many as the crashing car perhaps. But that could possibly be used as a weapon coming from behind and intentionally rear-ending instead. I don't think we want to turn this into Destruction derby.

Limiting the amount of brake points to 7 is I think also not the solution. You need less than 7 to cause crashes.

At the very least, some damage to the braking car is justified even if it's just one body wp.