2023/4 GTWS Exhibition Season 2 – Nations’ Cup R1 – Spa-Francorchamps
GT2 League - B / S Lobby – 137pts to winner
It’s the Nations’ Cup, so naturally it’s time to get the Silk Cut Jaguar-liveried X2019 out of its box. I only ever use this thing for these races and other things called “Nations’ Cup” – Menu books, Weekly Challenges, one-off races to celebrate live events and so on, so I was a bit rusty going into practice. The reason why is simple – it’s too bloomin’ fast! With this amount of aero there really aren’t many corners that need to be slowed down for so it’s like doing the Kessel Run all the time, and being old/slow/on a controller I just can’t take to it like others can, so I wasn’t expecting to do as well as most of those with a similar overall skill level. With that in mind, my aspirations for this round were modest – 110pts or so and no significant DR damage and I’d be happy.
TT practice showed no weather shenanigans within the GT2 race length of 12 laps, in fact the weather gets nicer after lap 6 or so and times drop by about a second, still I can only do a mid 1:52 overall and a high 1:52 in the first 3 laps (which will most likely mimic the qualifying conditions). I was expecting to be low down in qualifying due to my assist strategy for online races in this semi-guided missile of a car – namely, up the assists a bit – but hopefully it would pay dividends in the race where 1 amazing lap won’t do but 12 OK ones would be fine.
I managed to enter a few lobby races where I wasn’t up at the sharp end but was able to pick up places here and there as others spun or crashed. If I was to get a good result that would surely be the means by which it was achieved. What was also noticeable was they way this thing’s sheer aero grip neutralises some of this track’s most feared corners – Eau Rouge, Radillon and Blanchimont all turned into “pin the throttle and point it vaguely at the apex” with no drama whatsoever except the sparks at the first two of those turns. Pouhon still required a brave pill to be fast through it though, and Ickx and Campus needed to be taken with care in order to carry speed down the following straights.
Another multi-run day, for reasons that’ll become clear.
Run 1 – B/S lobby – 136pts to winner
Saturday rounds always mean it’s difficult for me to make the first slots due to meddling pesky real life, indeed it wasn’t until slot 4 that I got my name on the entry list. Qualifying wasn’t great as I expected, I pulled out of my pit box with 4:10 on the clock – but a car a few slots up did the same thing so I was on their bumper exiting the pits. Drop back to gain space and here we go, I was OK but just a foot or so wide here and there compared to my best laps in TT so 1:52.9 got me Q9 - Door #12 though, so not bad.
Race time, and I had been wondering in the build-up where they were going to start us. The best place would be down the hill after La Source, but that’s for the 24h circuit and we’re not using that (as evidenced by the fact we have the shorter pit lane). The normal start/finish line is a possibility but a) that means La Source is the first corner, b) those at the back of the grid will be handed control of the cars mid-way through the chicane which isn’t ideal and c) even if La Source isn’t a punt-fest on Lap 1 someone will spin coming out of it leading to a re-enactment of the ’98 Belgian GP start.
What I didn’t expect was for the roll-out to start at Blanchimont. “This is going to be a really long roll-out if we start in the conventional place”, was my first thought, followed by “Hang on, the chicane is going to be T1!” as the “3” came up on my screen. In fact I was so intrigued by this that it took a split-second to notice that the countdown was at “3” and I was still in trackside view…
“2” – er, hello, PD, aren’t I meant to be in driving view by now?
“1” – Oh f…..
“GO” – and I’m still in trackside view, but I now have control of the car! Cars in the latter half of the grid go everywhere, there are people in the wall at the chicane, in pit entry, facing back towards Blanchimont, the whole works. Having realised what is going on I hit pause so the car auto-drives for a while, meanwhile I’m doing everything to try and get into driving view, but no chance – the warning of impending disqualification for excessive pausing comes up and I quit out - by this stage the leaders are half a lap ahead so the only reason for continuing would be for experience and salvaging a lesser DR loss, but I hit quit on the basis that a voluntary quit might hit me a bit less than a forced DSQ. Gutted – not because I thought this was an amazing chance for a top result but because I knew my ratings would have taken a pasting through both quitting and hitting every wall in Belgium before hitting Pause. A few others had also quit by this stage, I only hope it was a common bug rather than them quitting because their first corner was ruined by some moron driving like he couldn’t see where he was going. If it was the latter, and you were in this race and I ruined it for you, sorry. I got bugged.
Oh well, nothing I can do now except wait for the next one. I reset the PS in case that contributed to the problem, and kept my eye in with the car by doing the last X2019 Nations’ Cup menu book race I had left (Yes, practising for Spa by driving on the Sardegna grind track. Can’t see any problem with that…)
Run 2 – B/S lobby – 96pts to winner
Now I knew my rating was going to take a hit from Run 1, but from a 136pt lobby to a 96pt one? Harsh. There were even a couple of others from my previous run in the same lobby, so had we all been tarred with the same brush or was the matchmaking going a bit weird? Still, my hopes for today were now so low that even starting a race would have been an achievement, so I was still going for it – even though the 1st place points here would have been far below my initial goal. Still, against this opposition I can at least count on an improvement in qualifying, right? Right – to P8 (from door #3). There were still people doing 1:51s in this room and I was nowhere near.
On to the race, and naturally I was on tenterhooks at the start, waiting to see if I would actually be allowed to see where I was going. No problem this time, dropped in to driving view at the “3” – but I was so preoccupied by this that I braked for the chicane where I’d been doing at the start of TT runs, even though I’d started further back and was thus going faster. This naturally meant I went into the back of the car in front, thankfully I didn’t take them out but I did delay them and got (and fully deserved) a 2s penalty for my efforts. Even though I knew it was a fair cop I was still swearing like Muttley as I drove towards La Source, then for the rest of L1 I just wasn’t at the races, the traffic ruined my flow and even though I passed a couple of spinners I seemed to be getting passed at each corner, so by the time I served my penalty I was P13 and out of touch with the midfield. I was catching others though – whether through better driving or a tyre difference I neither knew nor cared by now. I got past the first 2 I came across as they went off, then I got into a battle with someone who was making very liberal use of track limits to make sure they maintained position – together we still caught a group of 3 who were squabbling, they all went wide at Stavelot and we both went through while still having our own battle. I was running a 9S/3M strategy and I was surprised to see I was virtually alone in this – indeed I led for Lap 9 as the leaders pitted on Lap 8, even though the RS feel past their best on Lap 9 they are still a bit above RM pace for me – but by the time I emerged from the pits I was P8 again – to be honest I was just glad to potentially be in the “DR up” positions after what had happened on the first lap. P7 had actually passed me as I came out of pit lane, they had changed to softs early and my fresh RMs helped me to get by them, then I caught P6 on the last lap – I drew alongside along Kemmel Straight, they don’t see me and go for the apex at Les Combes so we touch, then they try to barge me wide into the second part of the turn but fail and we are side-by-side going into Malmedy, where I have the inside so make it stick. They follow me through the rest of the lap and then try a dive-bomb into the chicane – I see it coming and give them the line going in, this means I have the line coming out and I have the place by a tenth. P6 and 76pts – still disappointing overall, and made even worse by the driver who barged me off track on the last lap accusing me of pushing them even though I’d been alongside for 500m and they just turned in anyway on the preceding corner.
Only consolation was that I finished 12 seconds behind the winner, where I’d been 15s down after lap 1! There was some race pace there somewhere, I just had to do something different to find it.
There wasn’t a slot in the next hour, it being the EMEA “Lunch Break”, so I did what any high-performance and super-focused esports athlete would do, and went to get the groceries in and walk the dogs.
Run 3 – B/S lobby – 137pts to winner
What is going on with the matchmaking today? Yes I was DR and SR up in the last run – restoring me to full S SR – but this jump up in lobby points is as mystifying as the drop down for run 2. One observation from Run 2 was that those who started on RMs seemed to come out of it a bit better, starting on RS only works if you qualify up the sharp end and can use the extra pace to gap the field. I definitely wasn’t going to be in that position so decided to switch my strategy to 3M/9S – I would then complete my RM laps where I’d be slow anyway due to traffic, and I wouldn’t have much track position to lose if my qualifiers so far were anything to go by.
My qualifying performance was my best so far at 1:52.6, and thanks to a driver a second or so ahead who was also on their last flying lap but messed up Malmedy ever so slightly, but immediately aborted and pulled over so I wasn’t slowed up, but this was only good enough for P11! Forget the chicane being T1, this far back I wouldn’t even be clear of Blanchimont.
A cautious start into the chicane saw me passed by a couple of cars, but 2 drivers span at the chicane so I was net even as I headed towards La Source – where I got a nice juicy punt up the rear that nearly put me into the old house there (they did apologise afterwards, and it looked like they’d dropped in without any opportunity to practice and were struggling). Recovering in P13 I saw the car involved had 5s penalty, and 2 more cars involved in chicane incidents had 3 or 4 s penalties so once they were served I was in the top 10, and that became P9 after another spinner coming out of the chicane at the end of L1. I then caught the end of a tight group and was right behind one of my compatriots in this race who was P8. I decided to not slow everyone up by battling, I only had just over a lap on RM to go by now and then I’d get nice fresh soft tyres and a clear track to use them on.
I pit at the end of L3 but so does the car in front, so I am still on their bumper as we emerge for Lap 4. They pull away initially but I catch them again and get by on Lap 5 – by now more people are pitting, and adding a couple more spinners to this we are moving up the field again – we are P6 and P7 at the point that the pit stops have finished. The driver I have been battling with – and this was a basement battle in terms of door rankings, me as #15 against their #16 – gets back past on lap 8 then pulls away, and the car behind, who stopped very late for a car starting on RMs – is catching me and indeed had Fastest Lap, so I forget making any places up and settle for the 105-or-so points and modest DR improvement I will get from P7.
The driver behind is within a second as we enter the final tour – and I’d swapped the Basement Battle for a Tussle of the Smokes, my Silk Cut car versus their Marlboro-liveried machine. (Don’t smoke, kids. Smoking is bad.) I manage the gap through the first part of the lap, They gain a couple of tenths through Pouhon but I’ve got enough exiting Campus that surely P7 is mine unless they go for an epic send – hang on, the yellows are out! – going through Stavelot the car I’d been battling earlier and the P5 car they’d been rapidly catching were both off – P6 to the outside, P5 on the inside – and we both cruised through picking up 2 places that I felt like I’d stolen at the death. Initially I thought that P6 had stuck their nose up the inside at Stavelot and P5 had slammed the door on them, they’d touched earlier in the lap as I had driven through the resulting smoke – but P5 had actually had a good exit from Campus and, in an attempt to capitalise had taken too much kerb at Stavelot and spun to the inside, P6 had arrived on the scene with the car in front sideways, had swerved to the left to avoid them, just clipped them and gone into the barrier on the outside. Still, all I had to do to take P5 was make it through the chicane, and I did just that. Another score in the “Top 5” column and 114 points – far more than my skills in these X-cars deserve.
One thing about the GTWS rule of “your final score of the day counts” is that it makes a skill out of Knowing When To Fold’Em, and that’s something I was only too happy to do, just like in Manus’ Round 4 I’d finished a few places higher than perhaps I should so took the points and ran, and P5 from Door #15 restored my DR to where it had been at the start of the day and may even have raised it a tiny bit overall.
All in all, I don’t hate driving these X-cars but I’m just not as competitive in them as I am in, say, Gr3 or Gr4 machinery. Ha! This is the Nations’ Cup Norbs, it’s for fast cars! What do you want, a front-drive diesel hatchback for the next round or something? Well, yes actually – and that’s exactly what we’ve got for Round 2, how the epic torque-understeer out of corners matches Fuji’s final sector remains to be seen.
Even so, I’m looking forward to it as I love Fuji’s last bit with it’s wonderful natural flowing turns and sense of rhythm. (OK, PD, I’ve said it. Now give me my wallet and car keys back.)
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