2023/4 GTWS Exhibition Season 2 – Manufacturers’ Cup R4 – Dragons Trail Gardens (Normal Direction)
GT2 League - B / S Lobby – 136pts to winner
Last time out, I was at a track that I have nearly 30 years’ gaming experience on, so to mix it up a bit this final round of the season was at a circuit I’ve never raced online at before. Yes, I’ve done a few World Circuits races here before but only when Menu Books or Weekly Challenges have called for it, so my track knowledge only extended to a vague notion of what direction the next corner is. When preparing for a round at an unfamiliar venue first stop for me is always to see if I’ve ever done the circuit experience – turned out I hadn’t so a few minutes later I had a better knowledge and a few hundred thousand more credits in the kitty. Even better, the CE here is done in a Gr4 car - albeit an RCZ which is somewhat different to drive than my Silvia – so it gave me a realistic starting point for braking points and so on. Next, go to TT mode and load up the fastest Silvia driver as your ghost to chase, then set off on a race-length run to see if anything odd happens with the weather or daylight. This got me down to a high 1:39 and it looks like we might just avoid any wet from the clouds on the radar. A few more lengthy runs in both TT and custom-race mode and I had the following conclusions.
- Corner exit speed will be key. This is true of any form of motorsport that involves corners of course, but here it’s really got to be maximised as whole chunks of time can be gained by being fast out of Sausage Chicane, The Hairpin, 50p Turn and the double-apex Final Turn. (My own names, has anyone ever decided on a convention for naming the corners here?). This is especially true if you have a well-handling but slowish car like I’ve got.
- Linked to the above, Avoid Those Sausages! BTCC-style hopping over the kerbs looks dramatic but is slow and will leave you a sitting duck on the next straight. The AI love doing it in Custom Race and I was able to pick them off dead easy here. The really fast guys in TT can get a wheel inside the sausage on each apex and thus gain the most time with little risk, but I’m not them so I’ll settle for declaring the sausage as outside my personal track limits and playing it safe.
- Talking of track limits, this seems to be one of those circuits where you can take some real liberties with them and not get penalised. Run all over the kerb coming out of The Esses, go outside the kerb out of 50p Turn, clamber all over the kerbs at the chicane or the hairpin? No problem. The only time I saw the red rectangle of doom throughout the dozens of laps I put in was when I ran off the outside at the final turn, and even then it was precisely because I was trying to see how wide I could take that corner before getting punished for it.
- Fuel? Plenty. Tyre wear? Ish. The mandated RMs will last the distance but don’t expect to challenge for Fastest Lap in the dying stages of the race. However, the time loss from worn boots is nowhere near that lost by pitting so a no-stop it is.
By the end of my time in TT I had a 1:39.0 as my best, but doing “mock qualifying sessions” – ie, start a TT run then do just 2 laps and see what your best is – was frustrating at first as I couldn’t even get in the 1:39s under self-imposed pressure. Later I did manage to repeatedly get in that bracket but could never repeat my best time.
Lobby races next, I managed to do a few for the first time this season and got some good results. It seems to be quite possible to race cleanly here, even through the chicane and the esses so that’s good. I did manage to win a couple of lobby races against all-B/S opposition but, as we all know, B is a very broad band so I don’t know where in B the other drivers actually were.
Come race day, I had the opportunity for any EMEA slot ahead of the 2-hour “lunch break” in the middle of the slots. After that, no go. That still gave me a few goes, so hopefully I’d be able to get a score that reflected what I thought I could do.
I already had 2 acceptable scores, so what were my objectives for this round? I’d thought about that while walking the dogs in the morning. (Having 2 very energetic Jack Russell Terriers gives you a lot of time like this to think.)
- Improve my score, ie beat the 118pts from N24
- Give my DR a boost – so if I beat my score on the 4th run today but the first 3 runs were poor that wouldn’t be achieved
- Win my local league in GT2 Nissans – there’s only 2 of us entered but we’re both in the UK top 5! Obviously I’d need to improve my score to help with this.
- Enjoy yourself! When the fun stops, stop etc etc.
So, let’s go into the first slot. This is often a hard slot as the people entering are usually the ones who have been practising for days beforehand and are therefore good (and the ones who have been practising for days but are still mediocre like me 😊). This won’t help with race positions but may mean high-point races so I could finish lower but get more points than in previous rounds. Yes, looking at the points table confirmed this – 136pts to the winner of this slot, 10 more than is usually the case for me. I could finish top 4 and improve my series score, so that was the target.
Into Qualifying we go. Do my normal thing of waiting until everyone else had gone off and wait a bit longer for a clear track. With a circuit as short as this I went a bit earlier than I had to, to avoid being caught by cars a lap ahead. Everyone else has gone, nice clear track, away we go – until a car materialises back in the pit lane just ahead of me and sets off immediately, thus meaning my nice clear track has turned into being on the bumper of another car. Looks like they copped a penalty on their out lap and immediately restarted so as to still get 2 flying laps in. Drat. OK, I’ve just got enough time to hold well back on the first half of the out lap, and only started motoring properly out of The Esses so as to get into my rhythm for the first lap. 1:39.8 – I mean that’s not bad but it only puts me a provisional Q12, you can tell these racers have been practising. I improve on my 2nd lap and post 1:39.4, giving me Q5. More than happy with that from Door #14 (see what I mean about high point lobbies?), but the 4 cars behind me were all between 0.3s of my time, and I had a good lap – if they’ve had bad ones they could be faster than me in the race and it could all go very wrong. We would see.
And so to the race. Have I mentioned that the Silvia isn’t the quickest off the line? A lovely car to drive sure, but if you use one you have to be prepared to be attacked at T1 – and an Aston does the honours this time, hip-and-shouldering me to get on my inside through the sweeper. I’m still tight enough to keep my speed into the chicane, and we go through the first 2 apexes side by side, but the Vantage has the better exit and I tuck in to get the slipstream down the straight. They only let me have the outside line at the hairpin, so I use it and go round their outside to retake P5, which I then make stick into The Esses. The car in front meanwhile has gone wide at the same point so our P5/6 battle becomes P4/5 and I’m in the position I need to improve my score, just hold it from here and it’s job done. I get good exits out of 50p Turn and the final corner and the Aston can’t get close enough on the straights to have a go back until Lap 3, where I miss the apex slightly out of the chicane and have to momentarily slightly lift to stay off the grass, this gives the Newport Pagnell special enough momentum to draw alongside going into the hairpin, they keep it tidy and get by, and then immediately start to gap me. This battle brings the Jaguar behind us into play and their speciality is The Esses – they gain a huge chunk of time here on Lap 4, stay close behind through the rest of the lap and get by into T1 on lap 5. P6. Still good but not what I needed, frankly.
On Lap 6, though, everything changes. The Jag takes a bit too much of a liberty through The Esses, puts a wheel wide and spins. I manage to dart through the cloud of dust and Big Cats and retake P5, with a Supra now a second or so behind me. Then, coming out of the final corner I see a dark green object on the left hand side of the track heading towards Pit Lane. The Aston has gone in for a stop! That’s something about Slot 1 I forgot to mention earlier – people either haven’t read the rules or haven’t sorted a fuel/tyre strategy out so sometimes do things that aren’t the most competitive. With them taking themselves out of the equation I’m back in P4, I’m in the position I need to improve my score, just hold it from here etc etc. Good, eh?
Well it gets even better on Lap 8 when I round the hairpin to see a blue Supra going slowly and ghosted in front of me. It’s the Q2 car who had led until now – although I didn’t know it at the time they’d been pushed off at the tight turn and were recovering. I got past no problem before The Esses, initially I thought they might have temporary engine damage, more likely they were in auto-drive mode as they were busy messaging the chat to question P1 and P2’s driving standards. They’re a second or so behind me by the time they get going, and although I keep P3 for the next lap or so I can see that they’re certainly quicker in certain places and I should expect a move soon.
It comes on Lap 10, they are fast through T1 and draw alongside going into The Chicane. I let them have the 1st apex but am still alongside going into the second – they want that apex but I’m there so they have to go wide. Still side-by-side coming out of the chicane they make sure of the position and also ensure that I’m far enough behind them that I can’t challenge back at the hairpin. How do they do this? By running wide enough that I’m pushed completely on to the grass (or maybe not – see later). They weren’t carrying the speed to have to run that wide through momentum so I can only assume they did it as a way of ending the battle once and for all. I run across the grass and it feels like I’m going to spin as I get back on the kerbing – oh great, this was a good run, now I’m probably going to spin, crash, rejoin outside the top 10 and have to go again next slot.
Then something odd happens – the car not only straightens up but also seems to get a bit of a speed boost, meaning after all that I’m still only 0.9s behind the Supra that pushed me wide. I can only assume the car behind touched me and set me straight – sadly I didn’t record the replay so I can only guess. OK, back in P4, I’m in the position I need to improve my score, just hold it etc etc. This is still good - The former leader pulls away after that and I just manage the gap to the car behind, to finish P4 for 119 points – a good score considering this was my first competitive race on this circuit.
Despite being my first scoring run off the podium in this season, and the fact that I lost a place late on through – ahem – robust driving tactics, I decide not to go again. This was a good score, and an improvement – albeit by 1 point, but they all count, and I’ve lost local championships through countback scores in the past so I’ll take any improvement. I also thought this was a good a display as I was likely to be able to put on today – I really should have been 3 places further back in P7, if the car on lap 1 hadn’t gone off at the Esses, if the Jaguar hadn’t done likewise, if the Aston hadn’t pitted – It wouldn’t be difficult to see a mid-field finish and it could have been even worse if a train of cars had been able to follow the Aston through on Lap 1 T1. No, I’ll take the 119pts and declare a one-and-done in the first slot for today. When the post-race summary was revealed, I was astonished to find I had the CRB – despite contact on laps 1 and 10 and running off the track in the L10 incident – that’s why I think I must have just stayed within track limits. It also would help in the event of the blue Supra driver deciding to have a go at me in post-race chat, so I took a screen shot of the CRB award which I think is why I forgot to save a replay. In the end, nothing was said. I also got a nice boost to my DR as well, finishing 4th from Door #14 – that dark grey bit on the right of my bar is quite hard to see now (OK that might be more my TV😊).
So did I meet my objectives? Score improved (by 1pt), DR boosted, and fun had, so yes. I also won my local league after the other driver failed to improve on their previous best 2 scores, and finished 3rd for Nissans in the UK (and about 22nd overall in UK GT2).
Good season this – my favourite race is ironically the score I threw away, that 5-lapper at N24 was the best race I’ve ever been in, and the most intense too. Here’s to more longer races, just because we GT2 drivers are slower than our GT1 counterparts doesn’t mean we don’t like a bit more of an endurance feel to our races now and then. Watkins Glen was good too, there’s still a place for sprint racing and rounds 2 and 4 had good racing and a real sense of having to keep your lines tight and consistent to get a good result. Sadly I couldn’t do Bathurst so missed out there.
One advantage of being done with a GTWS round a few slots before you had planned is that, with these tightly-packed rounds you can have a go at preparing for the next one early. With Nations’ Rd1 only 3 days away I had a cup of tea and then loaded up Spa and the X-thing for a few laps. With 2 compounds of dry tyre required in a 12-lap run it seems unlikely that PD will put weather into play, and 12 laps in TT shows the sun to come out after a while, but nuts to the weather, I’ve got to get used to driving this insanely fast thing again first. I want my Group 4 back!
