Gran Turismo Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup Returns for 2023 Season

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I was just doing the race and server crashed with 2 and a half laps to go. There was also constant lagging during the race with everyones connections dropping down to 1 bar. What is up with PD's servers recently?
 
I hate GR010 so much, when you are not allowed to tune it. Whatever they did to the GR010 on update 1.32 I think it was, with the big physics changes, you just cannot put the power down on this car whatsoever. 4WD car, haha what a joke. Yeah finished last in my race, like 1 min 20 sec something from the leaders in slot 2 GT1. I feel like an average C driver could have done that race better, such an embarrassing effort. I can only drive this car these days, when you are allowed to tune the LSD on it, and apparently it gets way way worse in the wet with getting the power down on the default tune.

Nothing worked out, I spun maybe half a dozen times, chose the wrong tires too and timing was off. Like stint 1 it started to rain lap 4 and I was on mediums, softs was better. Then should have pit on lap 6 for softs when it got dry enough, but nope, went 1 lap too long and picked hards in hoping it would not rain. Lmao, totally wrong. Then again stayed out 1 lap too long on hards when it started to rain, lost so much time plebbing with hards in the wet. Then instead of intermediates chose heavy wets and they had no grip most of the time, only useful when it got to the last bar or so (very rarely it did). Icing on the cake was driving to the sand on Indianapolis on final lap, to drop to last.

Gonna try once more, I have nothing to lose. Season is pretty much over if I mess up. I have only 1 good score so far and Round 6 at Grand Valley Highway 1 in the Supra is a bad combo for me, so I cannot afford to mess up rounds 4-5, and 7, if I were to get a low score tonight.
 
Interesting result today.

GT3
DR/SR - C/S
Lobby of 13 of the same rank.

Qualifying did not go well. All of my practice laps were wet, and the weather looked gloomy, but had 0 surface water. I thought it might start raining during qualifying, so I started on the inters. Ended up not setting a time so I started P13 along with another who also didn't set a valid time.

At this point, I don't know how I stack against the field, this could prove to be difficult.

Waiting for the race to start, I switch to mediums. I figure, it will start dry and either stay dry or start to rain at some point during the race. The mediums should at least last the entire time while dry.

The beginning of the race is of course chaotic. I'm bumped a few times during the first lap. Once in the Esses and once at the first chicane of Mulsanne straight. Neither are severe, so I race on.

By the end of the first lap, most of the field has become spread out enough to see what kind of work I can do gaining places.

Most of the field seems to be making mistakes, but I capitalize on their errors and am P4 by lap 4. I catch up to P3 after the first chicane of Mulsanne straight. After watching the replay, they were P2 but spun out on their own on the exit and lost the position. I pass them before the second chicane, but I brake too late and cut the inside, so I concede the position back to them. We have good clean battles for the rest of lap 4 and 5 trading places throughout. Until right before the Ford chicane of lap 5, I pass and maybe move over to the racing line and clip them, I'd have given the place back, but when I looked in my mirrors, I couldn't see where they were. So I continued (I apologized after the race and they didn't seem to believe I was at fault). After watching the replay, I barely bumped them and they ran into the pits by mistake avoiding me, which explains why I couldn't see them.

From that point it was just a time trial and nursing my medium tires to the end. It did never end up raining, mediums were the right call.

During lap 7, I end up setting the fastest lap (3:31.838 ... 0.044 seconds faster than the previous) on almost dead tires. Then finish the race with no other incidents. Up 10 places, with FL, good result.

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I think, had I been on soft tires during qualifying, I might have had a good chance at pole. At the very least, I'd have been closer to challenge P1 for the win. After watching the replay, our lap times were matched until the last 3 laps where he was losing grip from doing a no-stop on soft tires.
 
GT2
With only 6 minutes and I assume a pit on the outlap wouldn't count as qualifying, so I run the hot lap on IMs.
I might be wrong, but you can quit as soon as the qualifying starts. It puts you back in the pits where you can change tires. It would mean losing 10 seconds of the qualifying session. Someone, please correct me if I am wrong.

It was nice to see you. And, my god, the lobby was so dirty and overly aggressive. During the qualifying out-lap, people kept fighting each other, so I kept slowing down to let the people behind me go ahead and create a gap. The people behind me were also being aggressive to each other instead of creating a gap. At the chicane before the start of the flying lap, I slowed down predictably in response to the guy ahead of me slowing down and got hit hard, damaging my left rear. So I chilled there, waiting for the damage to be gone. I couldn't even reverse and move forward again to keep the tires warm because reversing was going to disqualify me. My first sector was on cold tires, but I easily landed in 5th position thanks to many people running inters.

At the race start, I could tell that the driver behind me was in the mood to ram, so I slowed down and let him go ahead. He did take out the guy ahead of me and himself. The guy ahead of me tried to rejoin but unfortunately was not ghosted, forcing me to slow down as he took over the entire track width to rejoin. It also resulted in me being rammed from behind by multiple drivers, with one of them being successful in spinning me around.

Meh, I did not really care. All I wanted was rain-filled carnage. The race was dry throughout. I kept gaining positions easily as people kept taking each other out. Towards the end of the race, there was a big tease of rain. I knew not to pit, but I saw that some people ahead of me pitted, which meant that I was going to inherit 4th place easily. It put me in a dilemma. I wanted a rain-filled carnage and not this boring dry race. If I finished 4th, I knew that I would be happy with the result and not re-attempt this race. So I pitted for intermediates and was curious where I would finish. Win? Last?
I hold my line, he pushes me outside track limits and then he spins off, no penalty becasue I was pushed. Chats me an ironic 'Nice'. I don't even save the replay, I didn't do anything except hold my line. (He calls out both myself and @appu as dirty in the post race, let's hear it for the GTPers!)
While chilling towards the finish line on my dying intermediates, I was letting everyone go past me, and then this guy came across me. At a braking zone during the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight, he rammed me from behind, which was clearly a "push to pass" move. Then he rammed me again while accelerating out of the corner, which made zero sense. He fell so far behind me as a result that he only managed to catch up with me at the exit of the second chicane on the Mulsanne straight. I immediately steered out of the racing line and closed in close to the wall so that this crazy guy could go ahead without troubling me again. But this guy sneaked into the wall and hit my front left so hard that my front left wheel got damaged. I needed to steer away from him to avoid spinning him out, but then I thought, "Why not?" and I did nothing. The guy spun out, probably with a Pikachu face. And after the end of the race, he gave me my badge of honor by calling me dirty.

------

Second race:
I did my second event, again hoping for rain. Not only was my wish granted, but it was also the best rain event I've ever experienced in the sport. Qualifying started, and I put on intermediates. Guess what? It was the wrong decision. Despite the conditions never reaching the wet territory until the Porsche curves, many of us, including myself, struggled hard for grip on intermediates! I finished 8th, trailing the pole sitter by 15 seconds, who used wets along with most of the people who qualified ahead of me. I was happy when someone commented on how useless the intermediates were.

The race started, and as someone mentioned earlier, the weather indeed carried over from qualifying, but the surface wetness was reset to dry, which was weird. I stuck with intermediates. Some folks were on wets! At the start, I got ghosted due to slowing down out of caution before the first chicane. I immediately seized the opportunity to "cheat" by staying ghosted by overlapping with another guy, allowing me to navigate the first few corners safely without getting hit.

On lap 1, just before the Porsche curves, I unintentionally punted off a guy who was being overly cautious. I didn't receive a penalty, but I felt really bad about it. After the race, I apologized to him profusely, and he accepted it, calling it an accident.

From lap 3 onwards, some people started pitting for slicks. I'm really bad with slicks on a damp track since I can never seem to consistently keep the car on the dry line. So, I decided to continue on intermediates until the track dried out more.

I ran out of my rear left tire at the start of lap 6, but I kept going because I had foreseen that more rain was on the way. I gained free positions thanks to others pitting due to the unpredictable weather. Most people changed from slicks, and one person even switched from completely worn-out wets. The rain eventually arrived, and I continued to drive on my completely worn rear left tire until the finish, for three laps. I held onto second place throughout, until the final lap where three people easily overtook me due to their fresher inter/wet tires on the slightly drying track, but one of them received a penalty at the finish line. So, I ended up in 4th place, which made me very happy. Even after finishing the race and gaining hindsight now, I still have no idea what the best strategy could have been! I really loved the dynamic weather in this race.
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Ran on these red tires for 3 laps :D
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I can also confirm the the lag never went away ever since it started a few weeks ago. It is there in Daily Races and in special events. Now the lag has started infecting European servers as well, I have read here.
 
Well went for another try, didn't expect much. At least in quali I managed to do a 3.26.2 which got me up to P5 in the end. But I knew it was very much trivial, since the race was a different type of a beast. In advance, sorry for the novel 😅

Race then, having done the slot before and checking the weather radar during quali (the straights are long lol), I knew it would start to rain pretty early, but still the quali was full dry. So I decided to start on softs for the race, hoping it would start to rain by lap 5-6 at latest. In the race first 2 laps I stayed somewhere around P5-P7.

But then on lap 3 after the Mulsanne straight was done, it started to rain. So now everyone tried to go into survival mode and the chaos began. I just kept my head cool and drove the correct speed, and managed to not bin it. Up to P3 and 13 sec from the leaders before the pits and others behind must have had a tough time, since I came out of the pits 10 sec ahead of P4 (gap behind was like 2 sec before I pit in). I decided to go on the intermediates, predicting the rain would not get too heavy. Interestingly enough I noticed many around me go to the heavy wets. I will say the slot I did before is when I struggled so much with the heavy wets, which probably affected my choice, with the inters I could feel how they behaved, even in very wet conditions.

But unlucky for me, the weather did get very wet, so over the next 5 laps or so a pack caught me up, since they were on the better tires. I did let 1 driver go, and then all of a sudden on the next lap the rain became very light, so the inters worked better, back up to P3 on lap 10 I think it was. I pulled a few sec of a gap on lap 11. Then on the next lap the rain got heavier again, so I was caught back up around lap 12 after the Mulsanne straight, and being passed. Then some Irish driver passed me soon after, down to P5. I started to push a little more, trying to hang on. Luckily the rain started getting a bit lighter and then it stopped, so I managed to get up to P3 during lap 14.

On that very same lap the conditions turned into potentially allowing dry tires. I wasn't sure what to do, to stay out or not to stay out. It was very close between just surviving on dying inters vs. switching to fresh softs, but I decided to follow the driver in P2 in and changed to softs. 2 or 3 drivers passed me because they stayed out. Then came the risky spot with going to dry tires, a driver ahead of me spun and so did I, but luckily kinda caught it, so only lost maybe 5-10 seconds. Now down to P7.

I was worried I had thrown a potential podium finish into the bin, especially since my first lap I barely caught up compared to the leader who was still on inters. At the start of lap 15 a German and an UAE driver came out of the pits and they were also struggling to get on the power on a wet pit exit, so I passed them both just about, up to P5 again. Sadly I messed up slightly at the chicane before the right hander before Mulsanne and a German passed me, down to P6. I went into their slipstream and got really close, but so close that I lost the vision to the front and somehow forgot to brake in time and punted the German. Wasn't that big of a hit, but it was very wet outside the driving line, so ofc they spun. Silly me 🙈🤦, but I got up to P5. Caught up on lap 16 at the end of Mulsanne someone who was still on inters. So I passed them at Indianapolis for P4.

Then final lap 17, a Polish driver messed up on the first chicane after the long right hand T1. I did a cheeky move and passed through them just before their ghost would dissappear, up to P3. Looked like that is where I would finish, leader who was on inters looked like to win. But then came a few more twists. I missed my braking point heading into Indianapolis, off to the sand I went, down to P5 heading into Porsche curves. The German who I had punted got also close so I decided to back off and let them pass me for P4, but unlucky for them they hit the wet patch on the right and spun on the straight before Porsche curves, so from P5 back to to P4. In the Porsche curves the Polish driver who had messed up at the start of the lap did so again, up to P3. And then in the final chicane the Frenchman leading the whole race pretty much who stayed out on inters, binned it, so I ended up finishing P2.

Not happy with my punt, but sadly it happened, I guess I should have learned a proper brake marker on Mulsanne (I used the red light flashing on my speedometer and the visuals of the track in front to determine my braking point). And yeah without mistakes, that could have possibly been a victory. But I think maybe I did not deserve it due to the incident and the Frenchman messing up right at the end from the lead, so all good, a very interesting round. Season is rescued with a score of 187 pts. Now I need good scores in 2/3 in rounds 4-5 and 7 to get a decent championship score.
 

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I just went again for fun. As if I haven't had confirmation enough, I had to reinforce that I truly am terrible at Le Mans. :lol:

Qualified in P7 this time (somehow) with a 3:26.2 and started on the Mediums like before. I didn't get killed by the game at turn 3 - progress! I did however go wide at Tertre Rouge and get a track limits penalty, and between just not having the pace/serving the penalty I was down in P11 by the end of the lap. From there I started gradually falling away from the group.

By lap 4 I'm down in P12 and the radar shows some heavy weather off to the east, but the track is right off the edge of the light rain surrounding it, with the wind blowing it so that it never encroached onto the track. That was interesting to watch until it eventually passed us by. :lol:

At the end of lap 7, I see this on the radar and it's coming towards us. I had a feeling the dark blue part was going to hit the track so I take the gamble and put on some Inters.

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It ended up being COMPLETELY the wrong call. The track did start to get wet, but never crossed into Intermediates territory. I pit again at the end of lap 8 for Mediums and accept I've just blown it, but will continue running just in the hopes that something else happens. Sure enough, it did. :P

I'm coming down the Mulsanne on lap 14 and the radar looks like this:

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That crossed over onto us and the track dampness starts slowly rising. By the time I'm approaching the pit lane, it looks like this:

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Now I'm already so far away from everyone that I figure I should just try again and pit for Intermediates. Turns out it was absolutely the right call and my previous mistake meant I was now in the right place at the right time. The track just kept getting wetter and wetter throughout the course of the lap and I'm suddenly charging towards everyone who's already gone past the pit lane and now having hell on slicks.

At the start of lap 15, I'm suddenly running in P7 after being ridiculously far behind. :lol: I actually managed to make some headway in the wet and was briefly running in P5 on the final lap, but I messed up by picking up a track limits penalty... and then missed my braking point at Arnage and said hello to Barry R.

End result, P9 as the race stopped as I was approaching the Porsche Curves. I'd happily take P9 at Gr.1 Le Mans ANY DAY because it's like my kryptonite combo and always goes horrendously, but to do it like this was hilarious. :dopey: Moral of the story - never give up because you have no idea what could happen!



Edit - Also had some pretty scary lag in this one too.
 
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GT2

I might be wrong, but you can quit as soon as the qualifying starts. It puts you back in the pits where you can change tires. It would mean losing 10 seconds of the qualifying session. Someone, please correct me if I am wrong.

It was nice to see you. And, my god, the lobby was so dirty and overly aggressive. During the qualifying out-lap, people kept fighting each other, so I kept slowing down to let the people behind me go ahead and create a gap. The people behind me were also being aggressive to each other instead of creating a gap. At the chicane before the start of the flying lap, I slowed down predictably in response to the guy ahead of me slowing down and got hit hard, damaging my left rear. So I chilled there, waiting for the damage to be gone. I couldn't even reverse and move forward again to keep the tires warm because reversing was going to disqualify me. My first sector was on cold tires, but I easily landed in 5th position thanks to many people running inters.

At the race start, I could tell that the driver behind me was in the mood to ram, so I slowed down and let him go ahead. He did take out the guy ahead of me and himself. The guy ahead of me tried to rejoin but unfortunately was not ghosted, forcing me to slow down as he took over the entire track width to rejoin. It also resulted in me being rammed from behind by multiple drivers, with one of them being successful in spinning me around.

Meh, I did not really care. All I wanted was rain-filled carnage. The race was dry throughout. I kept gaining positions easily as people kept taking each other out. Towards the end of the race, there was a big tease of rain. I knew not to pit, but I saw that some people ahead of me pitted, which meant that I was going to inherit 4th place easily. It put me in a dilemma. I wanted a rain-filled carnage and not this boring dry race. If I finished 4th, I knew that I would be happy with the result and not re-attempt this race. So I pitted for intermediates and was curious where I would finish. Win? Last?

While chilling towards the finish line on my dying intermediates, I was letting everyone go past me, and then this guy came across me. At a braking zone during the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight, he rammed me from behind, which was clearly a "push to pass" move. Then he rammed me again while accelerating out of the corner, which made zero sense. He fell so far behind me as a result that he only managed to catch up with me at the exit of the second chicane on the Mulsanne straight. I immediately steered out of the racing line and closed in close to the wall so that this crazy guy could go ahead without troubling me again. But this guy sneaked into the wall and hit my front left so hard that my front left wheel got damaged. I needed to steer away from him to avoid spinning him out, but then I thought, "Why not?" and I did nothing. The guy spun out, probably with a Pikachu face. And after the end of the race, he gave me my badge of honor by calling me dirty.

------

Second race:
I did my second event, again hoping for rain. Not only was my wish granted, but it was also the best rain event I've ever experienced in the sport. Qualifying started, and I put on intermediates. Guess what? It was the wrong decision. Despite the conditions never reaching the wet territory until the Porsche curves, many of us, including myself, struggled hard for grip on intermediates! I finished 8th, trailing the pole sitter by 15 seconds, who used wets along with most of the people who qualified ahead of me. I was happy when someone commented on how useless the intermediates were.

The race started, and as someone mentioned earlier, the weather indeed carried over from qualifying, but the surface wetness was reset to dry, which was weird. I stuck with intermediates. Some folks were on wets! At the start, I got ghosted due to slowing down out of caution before the first chicane. I immediately seized the opportunity to "cheat" by staying ghosted by overlapping with another guy, allowing me to navigate the first few corners safely without getting hit.

On lap 1, just before the Porsche curves, I unintentionally punted off a guy who was being overly cautious. I didn't receive a penalty, but I felt really bad about it. After the race, I apologized to him profusely, and he accepted it, calling it an accident.

From lap 3 onwards, some people started pitting for slicks. I'm really bad with slicks on a damp track since I can never seem to consistently keep the car on the dry line. So, I decided to continue on intermediates until the track dried out more.

I ran out of my rear left tire at the start of lap 6, but I kept going because I had foreseen that more rain was on the way. I gained free positions thanks to others pitting due to the unpredictable weather. Most people changed from slicks, and one person even switched from completely worn-out wets. The rain eventually arrived, and I continued to drive on my completely worn rear left tire until the finish, for three laps. I held onto second place throughout, until the final lap where three people easily overtook me due to their fresher inter/wet tires on the slightly drying track, but one of them received a penalty at the finish line. So, I ended up in 4th place, which made me very happy. Even after finishing the race and gaining hindsight now, I still have no idea what the best strategy could have been! I really loved the dynamic weather in this race.
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Ran on these red tires for 3 laps :D
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I can also confirm the the lag never went away ever since it started a few weeks ago. It is there in Daily Races and in special events. Now the lag has started infecting European servers as well, I have read here.
Good to hear your second race went much better - Congrats! Yeah, I saw you in the first few turns on lap 1 ghosted sidewyas, then I saw another driver with a 5 sec penalty and thought there was a story there. After my encounter with that dude, it was mostly driving in space for me. Glad I avoided the real drama. I'm happy for mostly dry race, tbh, I can't seem to get strategy right. Today's tortoise-and-hare strategy paid off for me.

Edit - I didn't think of quitting in the qualifier. I'd be curious to know if that works. I'll let someone else try that experiment, thank you!
 
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Good to hear your second race went much better - Congrats! Yeah, I saw you in the first few turns on lap 1 ghosted sidewyas, then I saw another driver with a 5 sec penalty and thought there was a story there. After my encounter with that dude, it was mostly driving in space for me. Glad I avoided the real drama. I'm happy for mostly dry race, tbh, I can't seem to get strategy right. Today's tortoise-and-hare strategy paid off for me.

Edit - I didn't think of quitting in the qualifier. I'd be curious to know if that works. I'll let someone else try that experiment, thank you!
Can confirm you can quit whilst in qualifying to quickly return to the pits. I do it quite frequently if I see I'm potentially going to be stuck in traffic and won't get a good opportunity to pull over for space.
 
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I got Q2 and finished P2 in my GT3 race, it was wet almost the whole time so I ran IMs the entire race, swapped to a new set halfway through. Came down to the final chicane, P3 had a well (?) executed divebomb and overtook both of us, I followed and got P2. Unfortunately I'm really not sure if I caused an incident in that move going 2 wide into the chicane, the former P1 spun out on the entrance, looks like he made contact with P1, and maybe me. I didn't feel contact (edit: looks like he lost the car already and hit my rear right?) and got no damage on the indicator, so I'm not sure really. Feel kinda bad about it though if I did, unfortunately forgot to save the replay so only have it from my POV. Left a bad taste in my mouth if I caused that, might have been a dirty move from my part. Still learning how to race online, and find the right balance of driving consistently, fast, and safely taking opportunities when they are presented.

Other than that it was a great race, very happy with my results. I have very little experience in rainy conditions so I practiced a couple mock races yesterday and this morning in the rain, helped a lot. I can't believe I got Q2 with that horrible qualifier lap.

 
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So what on Earth is the point of the pre-race "Surface Wetness" indicator if it in no way corresponds to the actual surface wetness in the race that is about to start?

Qualifying was wet, but in the lobby before the race the indicator said 0% wetness. So I figured I'd go for mediums. Race starts and it's about 50% wetness on the little blue indicator. Ridiculous.
 
OK, take 2 was much better.

Hopped back into the 2nd GT1 slot. Q was just slightly damp but dry enough to run RS. Got a track limits penalty that dumped me to 7th on the grid. This time I didn't take a chance and mounted IM's for the race. There was 1 other guy in the lobby who was in the previous race with me and he did the same and gambled with RM when the rest of the field were on IM or W. Again, the Surface Wetness say 0% again, but now I know better.

In this race however it was reversed as him and I and I think only 1 other person chose rain tires which I was definitely not expecting. Sure enough the grid walk was plenty wet and the start turned into almost instant bedlam and by the time we got to Mulsane I had taken the lead with the guy from the previous race behind me, there was another person also on wets clearly but he was far enough behind. By the time we got to the Porsche esses we had a 1/2 lap on the rest of the field, at that point it was a relief to know it was only going to be a 2 horse race should the weather get screwier and I needed to dip into the pits for different tires, at least 2nd should be locked up.

Well, a lap later I got a track limits pen. and of course to add insult to injury spun the car exiting Arnage right before the penalty zone I was about to serve :rolleyes:. That pretty much sealed my fate and gave my co-racer enough breathing room. Although interestingly, I started on IM's but the other guy ran full wets. He dipped out at the end of the 13th lap I think it was to likely switch out to RS as there was a dry line. At that point I did take the lead again with an 18 second lead. My hope was that I could maybe run the IM's until the end and baby the car home. Unfortunately the track was drying too fast and I knew there would be no chance of staying in front that long on chewed IM's with him on fairly fresh RS. So at the end of the 15th I dipped in for RS to finish, handing him the lead back. Bit of a bummer that I could have won that one if not for stupid errors and corresponding track penalties, but I was happy with a 2nd and 175 pts. 👍
 
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My race (9am slot) was not the most fun. Haven't really got the hang of this car properly and definitely haven't got enough track knowledge to be challenging at the front.

Qualifying was dry and busy so I went for completing the lap rather than pushing and ended up 10th.

Race was dry the whole way and messy from everyone. 1st chicane carnage, crashes at both chicanes on the straight. I tried being cautious and got hit for it. Ended the first lap 15th and decided to go for the tortoise rather than the hare approach and run medium until the end. It kind of paid off too. Most of my passes were from penalties and offs, a few cars went back past later on, but then pitted later. I just nursed the tyres to the end and finished up 8th in a pretty lonely race. Decent points though (for me at least! 😁) so can't complain.
 
Looks like regional qualifiers (organized by local Toyota operations) are opening up, starting from Indonesia (which also spills the beans on Asian regional finals, to be held this September).

(Last year, there were spots for regional events hosted by Toyota's Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern branches in the finals.)
 
I gave the race two tries last night (9pm and 10pm EST slots). Both were mixed A & B lobbies. Each of these were fantastic races regarding the wet/dry scenarios. Race 1 started wet and finished dry. Race 2 started dry and finished wet.

Race 1 - qualified 13th. Started on intermediate tires. Immediately made it up to P4 since many up front had softs on. By lap 4 I was in 2nd place, just a few seconds behind P1. At this point the track was drying and I had killed the inters to 100% dead in the rear. I got hit coming into Indianapolis and made a mess of things trying to get back on track. Put inters back on at my pit stop instead of softs. Had to put again for softs. Finished the race P13.

Race 2 - dry qualy, so was able to turn fast laps on softs. Started P5. Managed to stay between P3 and P5 for the first 4 laps. Started raining and P3, myself, and P5 all hit the pits at the same time. Drove the remaining 4 laps on intermediate tires. A combination of good racing and chaos during the final handful of laps. I made a couple stupid mistakes which took me from P3 to P7. Made a couple passes to finish the race P5. I should’ve finished P3 but I’ll take a top 5 any day of the week. One of the most fun and entertaining races I’ve done so far in this game. We need more races like these.
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I'm competing in GT2, A/S rating. Overall had a pretty lovely race yesterday. For Qualifying went out on RS tires. Surface moisture was 0%. But of course the radar screen looked bad almost immediately and knew there was no way to get a dry hot lap in. So "quit" the track, switched to IMs and rejoined. And I was quite right. Was pouring before even got to the backside of the track. I kept my eye on the leaderboard & map to see if anyone else was doing what I did. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for me) the answer was no. Maybe a few racers went out from the get go on IMs but not a single person "restarted" after me and their Q times were dreadful. The rain was really coming down. A few spots on track were into the dark blue on the meter but most were just below that. I caught up to the field on my hot lap, and had to dodge spinning/extremely slow cars but still easily took the pole by a margin of 8 seconds. P3 was 16 seconds back, and after that...well I can't count that high:D.

For race start surface moisture was displayed (on main screen) as 0% but the sky was grey. So what tire to start on? Big dilemma, but really there was no choice but RM, at least by my logic. Race start was very clean and I wonder if there may have been a minor scuffle at the first 1-2 turns because before I got onto Mulsanne I had a lead of almost 4 seconds. Unfortunately (surprise surprise) it became clear to me that rain was on the way, and soon. Had to pit at the end of lap 1, at which time my lead was around 5 seconds. P2 and P7 also pitted. I guess that the rest of the field gambled and started on IMs because nobody else pitted.

I came out in P9 and started gaining back position. The poor driving of other drivers made me question whether they were on IMs afterall, because it seemed like a lot of cars were struggling to maintain grip. I dodged a few accidents and mishaps and clawed my way back to 2nd. For laps 3-5 I was only 1.5 - 2.0 seconds behind the race leader. Never could get close enough for any drafting effect. By lap 5 the racing line was very close to dry and at the end of that lap I told myself I'd do the opposite of whatever the race leader did. Well he didn't pit, so I did, and put on RS tires. Of course I slid too much on pit entrance and hit wall at chicane (thank you 3 second penalty) and on pit exit I mistook the wet line for the dry line and promptly spun...twice. This dropped me back to 5th. On the following lap the leader (and everyone else still ahead of me) pitted. I had the pace to pass all of them save the leader, whom I was never able to get closer than 20 seconds for the remainder of the race. I felt pretty happy about 2nd so I "hung it up" after that. Overall that race was fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun as hell IMO.

Can I just go on a rant for a moment? Why oh why can we not see the radar screen PRE-RACE?!?! In what world do race cars have live radar screens in their cars, but no access to this information pre-race to determine what tire to use? Apparently GT7's world. This is so so so so so dumb!
 
I joined in on the final 11pm slot for GT1. Qualified 7th and went for a two-stop strategy for M/S/S, assuming it didn’t rain.

Rain did eventually appear in the middle of race, but it was extremely minimal and not even IM tire worthy. So thanks to that, I was able to stick with my original strategy. The real challenge was just keeping the GR010 under control. At one point, the rug almost got pulled under me and I nearly spun, but I fortunately saved it without losing too much time. Other than that, I ran a mistake-free race and it was actually quite uneventful looking back on it. Gaps between me and other drivers ended being as big as around 6 seconds throughout the race. But I wasn’t bored though as the anticipation of rain and how unpredictable this car can be sometimes did keep it interesting.

In the end, I finished in the top 5 for 149 points.

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^I've seen many comments about this car being difficult to drive. I find it to be an absolute pussycat, especially compared to anything with comparable speed. In what way are people struggling?
 
^I've seen many comments about this car being difficult to drive. I find it to be an absolute pussycat, especially compared to anything with comparable speed. In what way are people struggling?
I’m curious too. I don’t have much seat time with the GR010 but it is really stable with Intermediate tires in rain conditions. I did bump TC to 2 for rain. The car was a hoot to drive around la Sarthe.
 
It can be a bit understeer'y and also it has a tendency to really snap the rear when the hybrid kicks in if you haven't straightened the car sufficiently before getting on it, which as others mentioned seems excessive for an AWD car.

Honestly don't recall if it was always like this, or if it developed after a recent physics change.
 
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It can be a bit understeer'y and also it has a tendency to really snap the rear when the hybrid kicks in if you haven't straightened the car sufficiently before getting on it, which as others mentioned seems excessive for an AWD car.

Honestly don't recall if it was always like this, or if it developed after a recent physics change.
Yeah, I didn't have any troubles with the car on this past race, but I have had these exact difficulties you mention, specifically with the hybrid system kicking in like that when a turbo is installed on the exit from the Daytona infield onto the banked left. It's surprisingly difficult to make that exit full throttle without losing it last I tried a while ago.

Was very happy with how it handled this last weekend in the rain though.
 
I could be mistaken but I believe the hybrid component of the car only drives the front wheels. Thus, at lower speeds in 1st and 2nd gear you need to treat the car like it's RWD. This may explain some people's confusion in understanding how to drive the car.

Another thing that might benefit me more than some (most?) is that I don't tune a lot of cars. Unless they're absolutely horrible I instead adjust my driving style to suit the characteristics of the car. For an event where the car can't be tuned, I can see how this puts some people at a disadvantage.

Just wondering out loud here, hehe.:cheers:
 
^I've seen many comments about this car being difficult to drive. I find it to be an absolute pussycat, especially compared to anything with comparable speed. In what way are people struggling?
I struggled a lot with it spinning at the exit of slow turns during Olympics Time Trial at Deep Forest, to the point I wasn't sure about racing because I could be a hazard to other players, but I found it really well planted here for a Gr.1 car.
 
Yeah, this was my first time using it ever, for any race. I did about 20 laps in practice (to test tire durability), then buckled in for the GR Race :)
 
^I've seen many comments about this car being difficult to drive. I find it to be an absolute pussycat, especially compared to anything with comparable speed. In what way are people struggling?
It used to be a pussycat but now it is not. All the other hybrid gr1 cars pretty much can get the power down way easier, but not the GR010. Exactly as some pointed if the car is not pointing straight, it kills you. This would be easily fixed with LSD adjustments, but obviously you are not allowed those changes.
 
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I could be mistaken but I believe the hybrid component of the car only drives the front wheels. Thus, at lower speeds in 1st and 2nd gear you need to treat the car like it's RWD. This may explain some people's confusion in understanding how to drive the car.

Another thing that might benefit me more than some (most?) is that I don't tune a lot of cars. Unless they're absolutely horrible I instead adjust my driving style to suit the characteristics of the car. For an event where the car can't be tuned, I can see how this puts some people at a disadvantage.

Just wondering out loud here, hehe.:cheers:

Hmmm, that does make sense if the case. And I recall Mistah_MCA saying that the hybrid doesn't kick in until 60-something MPH, so that would definitely leave you a bit vulnerable to having only RWD when gassing it off corner exits too hard.
 

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