Formula GT: Notes From the Front Lines

Formula GT: A Report From the Front Lines

[WARNING: This post is long. I'm verbose. I know this to be true.]

Just finished running the Formula GT (FGT) series in B-Spec, and thought I’d share a few notes on each race and the set-up used.

NOTE: When I say “Best Lap”, I mean *Bob’s* best lap in this series, not my own personal best.

1. FUJI

Set-up: Full downforce (70f/90r)
Tires: Racing Soft
Transmission: Top Speed 261mph
Brake Balance: 9f/8r
All else use default settings
Best Lap: Forgot to look.

Start by being aggressive. You want to get to the front of the field FAST. Once you do, build your lead, but calm your driver down. You want him about 75% of the way up the “hot/cold” meter (if the line in the middle of the graph is 50%, you want him at around 75%).

You don’t want to pit until well past the halfway point. For one thing, you don’t know for sure if the other drivers are even going to pit in (they are, but you don’t know that when you start...) For another, the less fuel you take on, the faster your Bob can drive. Less weight is always better.

When you start to get into lapped traffic, calm Bob down. He gets cranky in traffic (don’t we all?), but that can lead to costly mistakes.

To be on the safe side, you want to build around a 40 to 45 second gap between you and the second-place car. This will allow you to get in, get fresh tires and fuel, and get out, all without relinquishing first place. Once your rear tires get down below halfway on their wear indicators, you’ll notice your lap times climbing and your tail sliding around a bit more than you’d like. That’s a good time to pit in.

When you pit, you probably want to get a little more fuel than it’s recommending (the game’s AI will throw a number up there that IT thinks should get you to the end, but that’s if you don’t drive aggressively). I usually add 3-4 liters to what it says, just in case.

I pitted on lap 23, with a 45.347 second gap to second place. At the end of the out-lap, that lead was 6.766 seconds. Fueling takes longer than tire changes, so bear that in mind. If you want to fill up (and why would you?), you’re going to need a LOT more time in the pits.

If you really see someone gaining on you, and you just want to get back out there, you can always hit “Pit Cancel” while you’re in the pits - if they’ve put the new tires on, you’ll be dropped off the jack and let go without the full fuel load. Hopefully you can come back for a splash-n-go later...

And if you’re going to assume anything about the other cars, the AI, and pit stop strategy, assume they’re all on a no-stop strategy. It’s the only way to be sure!

Once you pit in and get back out, you should have a really easy cruise to the end. The other drivers are now on ragged tires, so they’re screwed for keeping up with you, and they lose even more time if they pit in for fresh slicks. You’ve got this in the bag. Let Bob cruise easy from here.

2. INDY ROAD COURSE

Set-up: Same as above
Best Lap: 1:13.799

Here’s why you should never assume anyone else is going to have to stop for tires and fuel: these guys don’t pit. And if you go really, REALLY easy on the tires and fuel, you just might make it without a stop, too. But why chance it? Go flat-out, build a lead on them b**ches that they can’t overcome, and then pit.

You want at least a 45 second gap to second on this pit stop, though. I did it with that gap, and it put me out of Pit Lane *RIGHT* in front of Driver Number Two, whom I cut off heading into Turn One. I mean he had to hit his brakes, hard, or hit me. I’m glad he chose the brakes.

Early on, keep Bob chilled out on the road portions of the course. Let him do most of his passing on the superspeedway sections. He can make up an awful lot of spots just by doing this. Once he’s in front, let him loose a bit. It took me until Lap 6 to get to first place; after that, I kept Bob at about 75% of the hot/cold meter, and he just walked away from the rest of the field.

I pitted on Lap 24, and never looked back. These guys don’t pit, but their tires are TRASHED near the end of the race, and I ended up lapping all the way up to second place before the race was done. It was a little sad, because where passing had been so hard early on, after the pit I just drove by them at will - mid-corner, outside the curve, wherever.

3. MONACO - Er, I mean “COTE DE AZUR”.

Set-up: Full downforce (70f/90r)
Tires: Racing Soft
Transmission: Top Speed 230mph (could really be set down to 215 or so)
Brake Balance: 9f/8r
All else use default settings
Best Lap: 1:17.005

Looks like no pit stop will be needed, at least not for fuel. Don’t let Bob over-drive the circuit. It’s easy for him to get too heated up and overcook it, and he WILL spin out. Mine did. Twice, even though I tried to keep him cool. Once he finally worked his way to the front, it went really quick and easy.

I *did* end up pitting in, with a 41 second lead, and only got tires - no fuel at all. I came out 21.125 ahead, so that was a cinch.

And really, just tell your Bob to chill the hell out! He can pass in the curve at the top of the hill, or coming out of the tunnel down to the chicane, but that’s just about it. He’ll get to the front, but he has to be patient.

4. NüRBURGRING GP/F

Set-up: Full downforce (70f/90r)
Tires: Racing Soft
Transmission: Top Speed 221mph (I hit 201mph on the straight, but never hit the rev limiter)
Brake Balance: 9f/8r
All else use default settings
Best Lap: 1:35.550

They really could call this one “Spin City”. My Bob spun twice in the first nine laps - and he was still in the lead! Several other cars spun as well, some while they were in front of Bob, giving up a few key spots to him in the process, and some while they were behind, blocking a few key competitors.

Bob’s issue with this course seems to center on the big chicane just before the end of the lap. He hit it wrong, twice, and it spun him off the road both times. I learned that no matter how you run your Bob anywhere else on the track, you better cool him down below halfway before he hits the chicane, lest bad things happen to him exiting that kink. At Lap 12, Bob was less than four seconds in the lead. This wasn’t looking good for his chances at a clean win. Then, just to make things more interesting, Bob decided to have another spin. Maybe he wanted to turn around to get a better look at who was behind him. Maybe he doesn’t trust mirrors. I think he just can’t figure out a simple chicane. Or he’s up to something, trying to make me look bad. I call such behavior “chicanery”, because I’m a smart*ss like that.

I pitted at the end of Lap 18 for fresh tires and a few liters of fuel (3-4L should do it). I went in with a lead of 23 seconds, and came out just a bit ahead of 2nd place. At this point, I put the “cool meter” down to around 25% and just let Bob enjoy a nice cruise. By the end of his out-lap, Bob already had a 12-second lead over Number Two, and it was pretty clear that nobody was catching Bob with their raggedy-*ss tires. Their tires were TIRED. And should have been RE-tired.

5. MONZA

Set-up: Full downforce (70f/90r)
Tires: Racing RAIN
Transmission: Top Speed 243
Brake Balance: 9f/8r
All else use default settings
Best Lap: Forgot to look.

RAIN. Lots and lots of RAIN. And would you believe it, it seems like you’re the only one who thought to fit rain tires to your car. At the end of Lap 1, Bob was 55 seconds ahead of the pack. And then they pitted. When Bob was starting Lap 3, the entire rest of the field was just ahead of him, on their SECOND lap.

I pitted twice - once on Lap 24, and again on Lap 30. The second stop was because I misjudged the fuel load on the first pit stop, and shorted myself about 14 liters! And it didn’t even matter as far as the time was concerned - I still finished more than a lap ahead of second place. And I finished on fumes.

6. SUZUKA

Set-up: Full downforce (70f/90r)
Tires: Racing RAIN
Transmission: Top Speed 243
Brake Balance: 9f/8r
All else use default settings
Best Lap: 2:14.520

More rain. Suppose the others will start on wets today? Well, they did, but to no avail. At the end of their first lap, Numero Dos was 1:10.xxx behind Bob. Why? How? I checked, and they were all running rain tires. And nobody pitted after the first lap to get BETTER rain tires, either.

It got no better for them, and only more sad and pathetic, really. Bob lapped the entire field on Lap 3, before the hairpin. And he continued to lap the field every third lap. By Lap 30 (the end of the race, thankfully), Bob had ten laps in hand, ON THE ENTIRE FIELD. Seems the only drivers in GT5 worse than Bob... are other Bobs.

I considered having Bob pit in every lap, just to give them a chance to catch up a bit. But then I really wanted to see if he could put 10 laps on the field, in identical cars with identical tires. Turns out, he can. Bob’s skills are really coming along, I think!

I did pit Bob on Lap 27, for a splash of a few liters of fuel and some fresh tires (that he really didn’t need).

At some point I remember thinking that this was the GT5 equivalent of a Zombie Apocalypse, and the other Bobs were all undead, droning around aimlessly in search of BRAAAAINNNNNSSSS!

And then I just started wondering why PD bothered including this race at all. It just seems pointless. Let’s face it, it really doesn’t matter WHERE you set your top speed for this run, since nobody else in the race seems to be able to top 85mph...


So that’s my story. Hope some of this info is helpful to some of y’all.

So the AI is much slower in FGT B-spec? I was doing 1'14s on monaco, 1'10s on Indy and was only 1 second faster than the closest AI. I feared Bob would get blown out of the water since he is much slower than me. You have allayed my worries, maybe it will be doable.

SagarisGTB

So the AI is much slower in FGT B-spec? I was doing 1'14s on monaco, 1'10s on Indy and was only 1 second faster than the closest AI. I feared Bob would get blown out of the water since he is much slower than me. You have allayed my worries, maybe it will be doable.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the AI seems MUCH slower in B-sped FGT. Either that, or Bob is much faster in that car than I am. Or both. Probably both.

Dang, now I wish I'd noted the average lap times of the 2nd-place runner. Generally, though, if I hit a best of 1:17.099 on a course, the other guys were turning bests of 1:20 to 1:21. And they crash and spin more than you'd expect.

Anyway, the B-spec FGT is *very* beatable. The worst part of it is probably that you have to pay pretty close attention to it, and most of the races take close to an hour to complete. So you're basically stuck there, watching someone else race, telling them what to do, for about 6 hours.

When is Kaz going to come out with his next blockbuster videogame, Pit Boss? I'm sure he could get Ross Brawn to collaborate on it...

My Bob did around 1.20 and the AI around 1.23 ish .. In A Spec they do around 1.17/18 ish pretty silly really as it s the same race and cars ! It should be the same for both !

SagarisGTB

So the AI is much slower in FGT B-spec? I was doing 1'14s on monaco, 1'10s on Indy and was only 1 second faster than the closest AI. I feared Bob would get blown out of the water since he is much slower than me. You have allayed my worries, maybe it will be doable.

Click to expand...

rubberbanding AI does its part to. at suzuka. i did a few mistake. ended each time on 12th position. in a few laps i could easly overtake all cars. 3times in a row and won. but did the race again. i was the whole time 1st and the AI just can follow me. on the end of the last lap i make one mistake. finished 8th.


while my second race was alot better whit almost no mistake and much faster i am 8th.

while on my first race i was bad and still could win the race.

Rubberbanding 👎👎👎👎👎




also there are diffrent tyre rules and race distance between A and B-spec. 👎

My Bob did this series last night and did very well. I have to do very little helping, he seemed to love racing that championship. The only real problem was the NüRBURGRING GP/F track. He spun twice trying to get to the front and then spun again after getting the lead. He fought his way back up and won with a pretty sizable lead after that. I'm proud of the guy, he did a very good job. 👍

Some extra tips:
You can win Indy without pitting.
The AI didnt pit the first 2 races when I did it, but they did pit the last 4.
Medium tires last longer than a full tank of gas, so theres no point in using hard tires at all.
Monaco is a HUGE pain in the ass.

AI "forgetting" to put rain tires on at the start even though it's pouring down seems to be pretty common. Have run the Sarthe race from the Dream Car Championship many times in B-spec, and can only remember once or twice when the other cars had rain tires on.. and even then it was pretty easy.

What I have found that works well is whether you need to pit or not is to short pit and go in about two laps past the midway point in the race and get tires and fuel.

Also add a few liters of fuel more than what they "recommend" as the fuel load they add automatically will still put you on fumes for the end of the race. Better to add a bit extra and not worry about fuel usage at all.

The reason I recommend doing this is that even if you come out of the pits in 7th or 8th place which usually you will come out much further ahead than that with you having new tires while the AI is running on old half race distance tires your lap times will be much faster and even if you are
20+ plus seconds behind you will make up the difference in a few laps and be back in the lead while still turning lap times that are 4 to 5 seconds a lap quicker than the second place car with their much older tires.

I have made this standard procedure for the longer races and doing this makes the win almost to easy!

good write up mate. gota say, this was the most boring championship in the game so far... was way to easy. i did it with hard tyres and in need of a bad oil change... meh...

thanks anyway

I just started each race and came back 45 minutes later. Bob golded everyone of them. Didn't alter the car at any time. On Suzuka I even forced him to pit on lap 15 to get fresh rubber and again on lap 25 for LOLs and he never lost his lead once.

In fact, the only time I think he lost his lead was on Nurburgring when he pitted a lap earlier then everyone else...

I didn't get rain on a single race either. Would of only increased his dominance.

I just completed this yesterday. I pretty much ran stock, but I had to keep on giving him commands the entire race. I tried in one race to leave him be when I went to the shop for 10 mins. I came back and he was last! Took me almost the entire race to get him to catch up as he kept crashing. As to pitting, the trick is to get him as big as lead as possible, where you have lapped most of the pack. This should be around lap 30 in a 37 race or 24 in a 30 lap race. Then pit him with stock settings. He will come out ahead and win by a country mile.

It also depends on your BOB. I have found that one of my BOB is much better than the other as he will corner better even though his stats are about the same.

good write up, one major problem, I just started monza with wets on. dry as a bone, was obviously last in no time lol, im a mug, didnt even think to look that it was sunny haha

no rain on suzuka either. im guessing this were changed on 1.06 update perhaps

Just did this one on Saturday. Won Fuji and Indy no prob, finished 5th at Monoco (no passing room), in each case letting Bob run the thing on his own. Then babied him through the Nurb for the spin-out reasons mentioned above.

Locked up the title at Monza but not without difficulties.

The entry screen indicated rain, so I put full rain tires on. Unfortunately, it was only INTERMITTENT rain, on part of the track, so my guy wound up spinning out at the Ascari chicane on the 1st lap. That put him all the way back at 12th, so I let him pit along with everybody else and put on soft slicks. From there I pushed him through the traffic and got the lead on lap 17. Once in front I kept Bob's temper centered and ran him out to a ~20 sec lead and the W.

Though I'd clinched I also opted to run Suzuka. Entry screen also indicated rain; however, I opted for soft slicks. But this time it was a true, course-wide gulley-washer, so my guy and the rest of the field did the shimmy the entire first lap and then pitted for full rains. From there my guy ran out to the big lead and a W on his own.

Moral of the story: Tire selection in the weather races is far from cut-and-dried, so to speak.

everything worked well. the pitting at monaco late is crucial. pitted at lap 24 at nurb at 3rd and dropped to 11th, took the lead back at lap 28 - again pitting late works better. No probs on any of the other courses.

Good post. Time to sit down and tackle this sucker while laundry loads are being exchanged.

I've tried a few different setups and I end up walking away to play something else on the PC - and inevitably something goes wrong. usually pit strategy. I need to stay at the helm for this it seems.

i just started the races and did something else. A lvl 40 driver will get first in all the races with no manipulation.

setups great so far, got a best lap of 1:13:184 at Indy

Love the write ups, helpful and funny too

I'm using my (now Level 37) Bob, and he won at Monaco without breaking a sweat - although he spun atleast four times, every time on the exit of Casino... he clearly wanted to get a better look at the opposition as well...

edit:

Top tip for anyone else doing this Championship...

Use the 'Suspend Race' facility to 'save' your progress every couple of races (or at the end of each race, if you can be bothered). This will protect you against the possibility of the game hanging/crashing during the track loading screen. This is what happened to me after four races (and about four hours) of this series, and I lost all my progress. Atleast if you choose 'Suspend Race' after each race, you would be able to reload the game and start again from where you were in the event of a crash...