In real motor racing the race is complete when the leader takes the chequered flag. All cars can only complete the lap they are currently on.
On FM6 and I suppose the others you have to run the full race distance.
Not really a pain unless you are crawling around with a heavily damaged car!
That’s always been the way in Forza, drivers need to complete the distance unless their timer runs out (ie: “run to the end”).
In Gran Turismo 6, if you run your race to a time limit, it follows motorsport rules regarding chequered flags (finish current lap). Otherwise you “run to the end”.
The F1 games follow motorsport rules for all races I believe.
Can’t comment on PC sims or Project CARS since I haven’t played them.
Regarding Forza, “run to the end” isn’t really an issue since most races are short enough that drivers shouldn’t get lapped. Normally in Multiplayer when you see a lapped car it’s either somebody who’s parked up and about to retire, or an intentional crasher waiting for his “targets” to come to him.
True on all counts (and pCars is like the others you have described in that you complete the current lap you’re on when the timer runs out). Not an issue in the public lobbies, but it can be a bit of a bother when running endurance races in private multiplayer lobbies. I am currently administrating a series with a handful of endurance races. In fact I’ve had to break them down into multiple stints to deal with the day/night/day (different conversation that’s been had thousands of times to date) and 50 lap maximum issues . My initial plan was to run timed races and record the total distance traveled by each driver, then accumulate the distances for all stints to determine the finishing position. Sadly, the distances are no longer reported in feet, or tenths of a mile, but in full miles. That wouldn’t work out well if you have close racing (which we do). I ended up biting the bullet and setting races for total laps and no end timer, then using cumulative race time to determine the finishing order. Not the most authentic way to do it, but we are left to work with what we’ve got.