Finally got around to starting my career today. Decided to jump right in with GT4 cars in the Asia-Pacific Trophy. I took the M3 because I don't like how the Mustang drives, so that said it was off to Dubai, and racing on the Autodrome International layout.
Practice was all getting to know the car and the fuel figures. Weather was predictably gorgeous, so it was basically guaranteed to be a dry weekend. Played around a bit with the setup to get it feeling good and worked out my per-lap consumption. Ended up 5th fastest in practice, and rolled on to qualifying.
Q1 went pretty smoothly. Hazy weather affected visibility, but not enough to make a difference. Put in a time with 5 minutes left that had me 3rd on the grid so I called it, only to have someone pip me and end up 4th right at the very end. Q2 was the same story more or less, except the weather cleared up nicely. Couldn't quite string together a perfect lap, so I ended up 4th again. No worries there, second row on the grid in my first race isn't bad.
On to the sprint race, 12 laps in the afternoon heat. I'd never done a rolling start before and it caught me out badly. By the time we crossed the lights I was down to 6th, with 7th right next to me. I managed to out-brake the 5th place BMW into turn 1 (is the first corner here technically considered turns 1 & 2..? I will refer to it as turns 1&2 for this write-up and count off accordingly from there) and came out even with the 4th placed Aston. The turn 3/4 chicane saw me coming out even with him as we flew down the back straight. Out-braked him into 5 and got myself up to 4th easily. Trailed the 3rd place Aston for two laps before out-braking him into turn 6.
Found myself in 3rd with 8 laps to go, and a 5 second gap to 2nd. The Aston kept hounding me, finally re-passing me on lap 9 in turn 5. He never managed to pull out, but I wasn't able to make any move stick, so I came across the line in 4th. Not bad for my first try, finished where I started.
I decided to let my wheel cool down for a minute and played a couple quick games of Rocket League before jumping back in the seat for the main race. The main race is 24 laps here with a mandatory pit stop for tires. The race started later in the evening with clear skies and no change in the forecast.
I was more on top of the rolling start this time and actually managed to cross the lights in 3rd. I out-braked the 2nd place Ginetta and found myself chasing the leader down the back straight! The now-3rd-placed Ginetta was hard on me though, but with a tricky bit of bait-and-switch into 5 I was able to get him off-line enough that the 4th placed Aston managed to sneak past him and gave me a bit of breathing room. The 1st place Ginetta was steadily pulling away at about .2 a lap, but I was gapping 3rd at something like .4 a lap, so it was going alright for me.
That was the pattern until lap 7, when the leader took his pit stop. That opened up a strategy in my mind: the leader would be embroiled in the field, and I would be on clean track. I could push my stop super late, hoping to open up enough margin to keep the lead, and failing that I'd be on fresher tires and not that far back, so I could hopefully take the fight to the leader at the end.
Over the next 10 laps, I had the pace (I thought) to make that work. Everyone behind me stopped at some point between lap 7 and lap 14, and I had almost a 40 second gap back to 2nd, the previous leader. I made my stop at the end of lap 17. Everything was going well, the strategy was set up for soft tires, and the pit stop delta was (as far as I could tell) ~40 seconds, so I was looking good for it. Then my mechanic dropped a wheel nut.
I came out of that stop in 3rd, 5 seconds behind 2nd, and filled with righteous fury. I chased down the 2nd place Ginetta with 2 laps t go and was all over the back of him, looking inside everywhere. I passed him in 5 only to have him immediately re-pass me in 7, and I passed him again in turns 1/2 before being re-passed in 3/4 Started the last lap .2 behind him and chased him the whole lap. Thought I had him in 5 but I just out-braked myself, letting him back on the over-under. Then, in the penultimate set of corners (turns 9&10 maybe...? The long left to hard right up past the pit entrance) I managed to get alongside him, but he had the inside for the last corner. We we door-to-door across the line, but he had a nose on me. The final gap was 0.097 at the finish, and I wound up in 3rd.
A podium in my first weekend was nice, but I was super disappointed with it if I'm honest. I think I had a good shot at winning that race with a good pit stop, but that's the way it goes sometimes I guess. All in all, epic race and leaves me wanting to jump right into round 2, but alas, real life beckons, and it shall have to wait for another day.
I am absolutely in love with this game. I don't know if I've ever played a game that had me so focused and so completely intent on it as this one. I've definitely never played one that could cheat me like that and have me leave smiling.
Going to be driving the Aston Martin V8 vantage GT4. So I might spend a few seasons in this series. Looks like I'm about to have a blast in this series.
