That's a definite one-and-done for me. I was lucky and managed to dodge the lobby loading problems, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed the race even though it went quite well. Playing in VR really presented some issues today.
I have absolutely no idea how or why but there was an alien in my lobby who had over 400 points from round 1. I think I got matched at least one split higher than usual because the race was worth 289 points for the winner compared to the 250-ish I normally see. I'm kind of curious what the points would have been without him.
Qualifying was a mess for me. I'd backed off to the car in front to get some space, then come charging around the second-to-last bend after he'd picked up some speed. Only as I'm cresting the hill, I notice two people ghosted in front of the last bend waiting. By the time I saw them it was too late to back off myself so I went through, only to then end up with the alien right up my rear bumper on the run down to turn 1. I just quit back to the pits and went again. Thankfully the flying lap I did get to set was reasonable, starting P7.
The start of the race was mayhem and I'm glad I once again managed to get through unscathed. The Ukrainian starting P9 got it wrong into turn 1 causing a bit of a pile-up which somehow missed me. I ended up running in P5 through the second half of the lap after getting past the alien at the S-bends as he'd started on the Hards. I wasn't complaining though, running that far up on the Mediums was a really good start.
I was going 11M/1H/9S/9S. My pit exit on the Hards was... not the nicest as I ended up with the alien having to swoop around me. This is the second issue I found VR gave me. The combination of not being able to see accurate deltas in the pits, not being able to see them at all once control is returned and the extremely short run from the pit exit to turn 1 meant I was effectively going in blind. I couldn't truly tell if anyone was there, especially with those tiny rear view screens the X2019 has that get obscured by the driver's hands most of the time. Those things are absolutely useless.
The third issue came later on. After my first pit stop exit I was frantically looking at the track map during pit stops trying to gauge if I'd be encountering someone on the exit. What I didn't notice until checking the replay afterwards is that the wind direction changed during the race, doing a full 180 so headwinds turned into tailwinds and vice versa. That's not displayed on the VR HUD and it completely threw me off. The car felt all sorts of wrong leaving the pits on my final stint and it took me a few laps to recompose myself and adjust, making a load of mistakes in the process.
I ended up finishing P6 for 229 points which I'm definitely happy with, although a bit annoyed since that could have been P5 if not for the mistakes on the last stint. Not a fun combo for me.
