2023/4 GTWS Exhibition Season 1 – Nations’ Cup R2 – Lago Maggiore Full Circuit (Normal Direction)
GT2 League - Mid-B / S Lobby – 110pts to winner
Quoth Norbs at the end of Round 1:
“The X2019 is far too quick for an old geezer like me so I’ll see how I take to it in practice before I even decide whether or not to enter”
Well, this time I actually owned the car in question (although I don’t recall buying it at all), so, after applying a late-80s Le Mans Jaguar livery I was able to carry out something akin to my normal GTWS preparation – first get used to the track / car combo in Free Practice mode, then set up a Custom Race against the AI to gauge tyre wear and determine a “thereabouts” strategy, then hit the lobbies and join or set up rooms for full-length race practices. It became apparent very quickly that, in the GT2 20-lap race length, only 1 lap would need to be on RH to satisfy the regulations, and that RS would last for at least 10 laps for me before the tyres fell off to sub-RM levels, so the strategy became centred around 10S/9M/1H, but in which order?
The slipstream didn’t seem nearly so important as at Deep Forest, so I thought maintaining a clear track for yourself without losing time passing or being passed by other cars would be key to a good run, as having to go 2 abreast through T1-4, or pretty much any of the lap after T5 would cost chunks of time. (I also noticed how much you could ride the kerbs without a penalty – it seemed that you could escape the Red Rectangle Of Doom as long as you were within a time zone or so of the tarmac). Therefore, I decided that, as I didn’t want to have a messy end to the race by pitting for RH on lap 19 and trundling round to the end on RH as everyone was diving for last-gasp position gains, I’d go as follows depending on qualifying position:
PLAN A: Qualify 5th or higher – 10S/1H/9M
PLAN B: Qualify 6th-12th – 9M/1H/10S
PLAN C: Qualify 13th or lower – 1H/9M/10S
I also decided that a worthwhile approach to get a good race position would be to – well – be a wuss. Yes, BE a wuss – notch up the assists a bit – I spend my time in GT7 normally in Gr3/Gr4 cars, with the occasional stint in a detuned Gr2 for WTC800 races when I feel the need for cash, so, with the X2019 feeling so tail-happy that if I parked it outside a newsagent’s it would be facing the other way when I came out of the shop, I was more than willing to up TCS by a notch. (Top Tip: If you do this, do it in your Assist Settings then change back after you finish with the round. It saves having to do it in the MFD every time and risk forgetting at a crucial stage).
This would probably leave me in a poor qualifying position (but hey, I’m old and slow and use a controller), but aid me in the task of doing 20 laps in this thing, sometimes on worn, or cold, or hard tyres, without messing it up. We would see.
I didn’t think I’d be able to make the first European race slot at 9am UK time as I had an early appointment, but that finished at 8:30 so I was able to get home, fire up the PS and register my entry with 45 seconds to go 😊 However…. My lobby got “Update 1.38’d” and – well – the track model is very pretty, isn’t it? Just as well as I was staring at it for 40 minutes or so before resetting. I did a few more laps in Custom Race to get used to starting on the RMs – I felt that plan B was the most likely – and almost forgot how long it takes to exit World Circuits and fire up Sport Mode on a PS4 – this time I registered my entry with TWELVE seconds to go – phew.
My RS times in practice led me to think that a 1:34 in Qualifying would be respectable, so after leaving the pit lane as soon as it opened (in contrast to rd1), laying back a bit on the out lap to gain space and going for it through the last corner I started my flying lap only to be greeted by a late starter starting their out lap as I started my flying lap. Get past them then go again – my second flying lap was 1:34.7 and I couldn’t improve on my final lap. Q9 – I was surprised at how low I was but felt better when the grid flythrough showed me to be Door #12 so I’d beaten my ranking at least. Plan B it was then – start on RM, do your RH “Joker Lap” in the middle and then RS to the end.
Lights out and away we go (GT2 didn’t have False Start Check, cars were released when the lights went out).
Setting a higher TCS paid immediate dividends as I made up a few places while others were wheelspinning. Nice and steady round T1, stay to the right of the bunch. Hug the kerb through T2, another clean acceleration means I’m up to P4 and I can take the line through T3, especially as that car in front has twitched sideways – now they’re over-correcting – now they’ve slewed across the track and knocked me onto the grass on the left (outside) of the approach to T4. Drat. Double Drat. Didn’t hit the barrier and thankfully that nice big red bit of tarmac on the outside of the exit of T4 means I can get going relatively quickly and rejoin safely, but not only has my good start gone I’m now P12. However that means I’m now down with the RH starters – I make up a couple of places through T5 and The Esses due to superior grip, get past a car being penalised over the brow (that’s scary when you crest the brow going Harry Flatters and see a slow car right in front of you, even though it’s ghosted), easy through BBB (never really got the hang of that – it would be a weak point all race), and at least I’d regained my qualifying position of 9th by the end of lap 1 – which became 7th when a couple more RH-starters dived into the pits. My RM stint was then quite quiet, passed another car who’d decided to do a whole stint on RH for some reason (or just hadn’t practiced on RM at all and was slow on them) and passed a couple of spinners out of the tight corners – P4 as I pitted for my RH lap. The whole stop-slow lap-stop cycle pushed me back down to 13th or so even though others stopped at the same time, then I began to make places as RS starters pitted after 11 or 12 laps (really wringing out those RS tyres) and passed 2 or 3 cars that were now on RM – gratifying as it was then clear I’d kept up with them on RM when they were on RS. With 2 laps to go I passed an RM runner to get into the top 5, but with P4 7 seconds or so up the road I’d have to hope that they either made an error or their tyres became completely cooked – neither happened so I crossed the line in 5th (96 pts) my 50th top 5 finish in Sport Mode and not bad from door #12.
No-one above me had the 1-minute Wait Of Shame from mis-reading the tyre regs, although a couple of drivers further down the order did.
Good round this – I thought I’d hate it due to the car’s quickness and unfamiliarity with the circuit (I know it often appears in dailies but I’ve never fancied it so haven’t entered), but being a wuss with the assists tamed the car a bit (still had to be careful with the throttle, especially out of T2 and BBB), and being able to do a fair bit of Practice meant I was comfortable with the track before race day (after the race was over I capitalised on my newly-acquired track knowledge by finally getting gold on the final Human Comedy mission race). Everyone drove well and sensibly – perhaps the lightning-quick reactions of the car meant people were less inclined to go for over-optimistic moves, and more able to avoid them when they did happen.
Next round for the Nations’ kind-of encompasses the two rounds so far – absurdly quick powerful cars on a slipstreamers’ dream of a track. Again this isn’t my normal thing but if I can get a handle on a half-decent strategy and do a lot of Practice then we might – just might – avoid disaster. Maybe.
In the meantime I should be able to finally enter Manufacturers’ cup at N24 this coming Saturday – probably the only round in this series I can do, so I can optimise my car choice for this round. Any recommendations for a controller user (motion-sense steering) who likes stable cars?