Manufacturers 2023 Exhib Season 2
Round [3/3]
Nissan GTR '13 being the only decent choice to be competitive here, I ended up receiving my Fanatec GT DD PRO wheel and started practicing this combo in the TT straight away to get the new muscle memory dialed in. (I'll also have to change the logitech sponsor out on my cars!)
--Qualifying: As a lot of people tested in the TT, it was possible to use hards right at the end of qualifying however in the real event qualifying, it turned out to generally be better to stay on intermediates and once again I got pole position.
Just to add, as I slowly increase my A rank, it's getting closer and harder to keep this streak going. This combination wasn't in my favour against the Porsche yet I guess that's more prominent at the higher levels. Here's how close the qualifying was in the end:
--Race:
One 'strategy' to play here -
when to pit. The original 'safe bet' lap was to box at the end of lap 5, but lap 4 would gain time providing you didn't get too messy on the outlap.
I managed to keep in front for half a lap with everyone hot on my heels to this point, but with a great exit to the hairpin at turn 6/7, managed to get a small gap open up down to turn 10:
Half a second gap meant I had a good chance to focus on getting a good line here in the section I hated the most. I found that by being patient and cutting the corner as much as possible meant nearly half a second potentially gained coming out of these few corners. The other bonus for myself is that the driver behind broke too late and 3rd and 4th would look up the inside, that means they'll be fighting and a golden opportunity to run away from the pack: (look at the radar)
The result 8 seconds later: (0.3 to 1.5 second gap!)
A good exit out of the final corner, with a gap of 1.6 seconds meant my golden opportunity was successful! I had broken the tow to the pack who would fight for the next few laps.
Nearly 6 seconds was the gap to 2nd by the time i pitted at the end of lap 4:
Not much else happens other than to just run my race and try to keep a large gap to second in case I made a mistake somewhere. Taking a "comfortable" win once again: (also got 163k+ credits for the effort)
I know winning like this is not going to last by any means, and I'm starting to think ahead on how to improve.
Most of my races don't involve much battling, so when the competition gets tougher I may be letting myself down on the race-craft aspect and can jeopardise not only my own races, but could make mistakes and ruin other's as well! So that's what I'll be working on for future races, better to have the 'tools' and not need them right?