Gran Turismo World Series (Manufacturers Cup 2025 Exhibition 3 season: 12 Nov - 29 Nov)

[tmtk]

GT2, US 2nd slot, high B lobby, 126 points for the win, door 1 😬

This round I expected to write off the points tally. My pace was just about average compared to the drivers around my DR level.
I tested this one a lot, prepared for it as good as I could. Thanks are due to @ikon_313 for helping me out with settings of the Supra, without his input I would fare much worse...

Not a good lap in qualifying (28.7) placed me on 12th spot, but started 11th because someone left before the start.
Started on hards obviously, held my position in first corners and then I arrived at the right hander before first tunnel to a huge crash area, five cars left and right with a corridor for us just to sneak through. That's how it ends when few cars try to squeeze into one corner:

After all was settled I found myself in P6, two cars close ahead and a bit of a break behind. Latched onto the slipstream of the cars ahead who were fighting among each other, so slowing down enough for me not to loose touch with my racing hards. And so I travelled like that for a few laps behind them, doing quite good laptimes. At that moment I decided to extend my hard stint by one lap in order to have my mediums in better condition at the end.

Pitted lap 5, emerged to a free air and began clocking those laps. After all the pitting ended I found myself in P5 just behind a hard runner. Duh! They were racing good and it was really tough to make the pass. Even though I had a healthy margin behind (about 5 seconds) the driver in P6 quickly closed it to around a second, before I finally overtook the hard user.
Bad news was that the P6 driver in the Porsche had a few laps fresher mediums and it was obvious I won't be able to hold them long. they made the pass on the penultimate lap. Back to P5. But ok, that was satisfactory place for me (minimum P6, better yet P5). And in that order we crossed the finish line.

The top 5 earned me 105 points, which means that in every round of this cup I earned at least 100 points - never happened before. And the best 5 points counting are all over 100 points. Cool!

My final points tally this season is 537, record haul.

 

[Moose78]

Team Ford - GT Race Car '18 - GT2 - Americas - 10 AM EST - 144 points available - Door #11 - Q13 (1:28.790)

This race was a mess from the start. In qualifying, I didn't leave enough space to the cars ahead and ended up being held up. There were a lot of server issues on lap 1, with cars teleporting all over the track. I went out of the track limits on the exit of the hairpin to avoid hitting a car that wasn't really there and got a 1-second penalty. And then on lap 4, I got bumped off the track on T1, which knocked me down to P15. Pitted on lap 5 to switch from RH to RM. Managed to cross the line in P12 for 78 points and a 2.7% hit to my DR. Not the way I wanted to end the season. Decided I'd try again later.


Team Subaru - WRX Gr.3 - GT2 - Americas - 11 AM EST - 142 points available - Door #11 - Q11 (1:28.493)

Not a great qualifying time. Nobody to blame but myself this time, though.

I managed to stay out of trouble during the race, too. I did a fair bit of racing with the two pink Porsches pictured above. Lots of good, clean racing. I pitted for RMs on lap 6. Spent most of the rest of the race fighting with the Porsches for P8. Then on the final lap, there were a couple crashes at the hairpin. I was promoted to P6 for the finish. 112 points and 2.1% DR gain. Good enough.


Team Ford (again) - GT Race Car '18 - GT2 - Americas - 12 PM EST - 138 points available - Q9 (1:28.834)

For qualifying, I left the pits late to avoid getting held up, even it meant I'd only get two flying laps. It didn't really work. I only got one flyer in before coming upon an altercation between two drivers about something that happened in the previous slot. I didn't get involved, but it held me up. So much for a second lap.

Not that it mattered much. I had no pace on the RH tires in the Ford in this race. Over the first 4 laps, I dropped down to P13.

I pitted for RMs on lap 5 and things began to turn around a bit. I had some good racing with an AMG and Lexus (pictured above) and picked up some positions to pitters and crashers.

Crossed the line in P8 for 98 points and a 0.4% DR gain. That will have to do, I guess. I'm not going to try again.

 

[TheWeapon874]

Nice way to finish off my best Manu season.

1st slot Asia sadly didn’t go to plan. 300 point lobby and door 12. Qualified on pole with a 1.27.1, 0.2 clear of 2nd
Decided to start on hards, and was getting dive bombed like mad. Was planning to pit at the end of lap 3, and was hanging on to 3rd, less than a second off the leaders (who were on mediums). But of course some genius turned me around in the turn 5 on the entry to the tunnel and that was my race done. 16th and 1200Dr gone.

Didn’t want to end my season on a bad note, so I stayed up for the 2nd lobby at midnight. Door 9, but managed to secure pole with 1.27.1, but a very close field. Only 268 points for 1st though.

The vantage in 2nd and I started on mediums (he got me into turn 1, had way more pace off the line) and pulled away from the field who mostly started on hards

He copped a penalty before he pitted on lap 11, so I inherited the lead (and could tell he came out straight into traffic). I ran to the end of 13, then pitted for hards and came out in the lead (just!).

Had to cover under brakes a couple of times, but made sure I got good exits at the important corners and managed to hang on for my second Manu win ever, and second win in a few days 😂

Also the first time I’ve managed all gold! Really happy with my performance this season!

 

[Wilsonson]

I had a very satisfying end to this Manufacturer's Series. GT2, high B rating, EMEA.

I didn't post about Blue Moon because my only chance to race there was easily my worst performance ever. Despite somewhat getting the hang of it in free practice the days before nothing clicked at all when I went into qualifying last minute without any warm up free practice laps that day. While I somehow stumbled into Q9 I just could not hook a lap together for the life of me. Between getting spun out on the first hair pin in lap 1 and then hitting the inside of T4 and the final turn numerous times as well as getting a few penalties P15 was well deserved.

Now Deep Forest. I have liked this track ever since, also in its old layout from the older games. It flows so nice. And for whatever reason sector 1 here is probably my best sector on any track in the game. All the way to the tunnel I'm just smoothly flowing often posting purple sector 1 times. Ironically the slowish right hander between the tunnels is my worst part of the track. Well and the left hander towards the back straight if I happen to screw it up which happens every now and then.

I had tinkered with setups but the standard on the GT-R was already very good for me which is why I left it at that.

I had time for 2 races and hoped for a good result in the first. Well… I completely bothched qualifying for Q15. The race went well and I finished P7 with a race time of about 22:58. 5H/10M worked very well. I undercut people. At the end I lost a place to a fast driver on better tires but it seemed like a very good strat.

I thought I could do better however and opted to do the final race of the day.

With some spare time I managed to improve my PB in FP to a 27.7 which should be very competitive in my races. Consistency on this track is also pretty high which is very rare for me. Unfortunately I often suffer from botching at least one thing a lap but not here.

Qualifying went reasonably well, but this lobby was good. My 28.0 was only good for 6th. Pole was a 27.7 on the dot and poor Q16 got there with a decent 28.4.

The race was phenomenal.

I was up to P3 towards the end of lap 2. One clean overtake and two drivers in front who got pit maneuvered. Both could be qualified as racing incidents though I guess.

My exit towards the back straight was suboptimal. I tried to cover the inside somewhat being chased closely by P4 and P5. We ended up 3 wide through the hair pin and I have great respect and gratitude for the green car which delayed their throttle rather than using me as a bumper car here. Feels like they are 1 in 10 who do that.

I got the better exit and was outracing the black beamer down the straight. At the end of T1 of lap 3 I came out on top. Due to them tangling and me having good pace I never had to fight them again.

The red Porsche was one of two cars that had started on Mediums. I knew that while not being outright dirty they were of the Max Verstappen type. Taking no prisoners. When they had a run on me on the back straight of lap 5 I didn't defend and let them have the hairpin. I went into the pits P4 only a few seconds from the leader who was very quick.

I hoped to come out without traffic which was somewhat true. I got held up just very slightly by one driver in front but they pitted next lap.

Later I got into it with one of the poor pit maneuver victims of lap one. They had the pace but were on Hards. After I had overtaken them they got a run on me out of the hairpin but then attempted a massive dive which ended like this. Barry R said Hi next.

The second of those victims was Q2 who was just hundredths shy of Q1 and seemed like the fastest driver in the field. When they steadily caught up to me and I once more had a somewhat suboptimal exit towards the back straight I gave them enough space through the tunnel for a clean pass which they acknowledged with their hazards. Feels good to be seen as fair sportsman.

I ultimately finished P4 (red Porsche still had to pit for Hards) in a very competitive field with a race time of 22:46. I am most proud of a clean race which is rare for me. 5H/10M and knowing when I'm beat were key here in my opinion.

The overall results are already in and I am happy for 5 million credits.

 

[dazdilly75]

Seems like quite a few success stories in this round. Well done to all who took part.

I was desperate to jump back into the RS.01! How I missed this wonderful machine. Deep Forest isn't really a track I excell at, but I think the tuning aspect of this round gave me a better understanding of the nuances of the layout.

Slot 3: GT1 League, 232pt lobby, door #7.
Qualified Pole, with a flukey 1:27.330!!!

In all my practice sessions for this race I started on mediums and went to hards at the end of lap 9. So I stuck with that plan to keep the muscle memory intact.

This was a very fast lobby of drivers, 48K DR and full of quite a few A+ drivers, who had fallen off during the season.

The race started well and I knew most of the guys behind were on the hards, so I tried to set a good pace, utilising the clean air I had from being on pole. After I pit on lap 9, It caught me off guard how much ground P2 (BMW Z4) and P3 (AMG) had made up on me.

I left the pits 2.5 sec ahead on cold hards tyres, against 2 very fast guys on mediums. The AMG driver was flying and eventually made a great pass on T1 on the outside of lsp 14, and I just managed to hold off the BMW driver to take home P2 and 222 points (my highest of the season!)

This was a really enjoyable Championship, especially as we got to use GR4's again. I competed in every round, even when I had a massive disadvantage at Blue moon Bay. It's all character building! Finished the season 102nd overall, in EMEA, with 1041 points total, which I'm very pleased about. I took home 8 million after finishing P2 for Renault overall. Only behind TRL Augh.

Looking forward to spec 3 more than ever now. Let's not have another 5 months without GTWS ever again please PD!

 

[AEther]

Deep Forest went far better than deserved after another lackluster Q11. Nerves got the better of me and made too many mistakes.

Started on Hards and waited patiently for the other drivers to take each other out. Drove into the pit on lap 7 in P6, exiting P14 on Mediums.

From there, it was another last hairpin special. A tale told in two acts:

Finished in P3.

Outstanding potentially final GT3 season overall for me which should net $5M credits.

3rd Spa
8th Atlanta
4th Interlagos
1st RBR
8th Blue Moon
3rd Deep Forest

 

[JDMKING13]

Man these guys are so fast as you climb up took home a hard fought P7 for 221 points.. I Had a great season if I practiced more instead of crunching the laps in one day I could be better lol. Really enjoyed this season can’t wait for the next one!

 

[A_Higher_Place]

GT1 slot - 318pts on the table. Qualified p2 and finished p2. Was over 5 seconds behind P1. Highest points haul of the season at 305. Was a fun season overall but I still gotta find a lil something extra to close the gap to top split.

 

[JDMKING13]

GT1 slot - 318pts on the table. Qualified p2 and finished p2. Was over 5 seconds behind P1. Highest points haul of the season at 305. Was a fun season overall but I still gotta find a lil something extra to close the gap to top split.

It’s crazy bro because you’re so fast I wish I had your pace… it’s like we are never fast enough in this sport!😭😭😭

 

[PowerJunkie]

I only did this race in the Championship as I finally started to feel on pace again. I was nervous, this was my first race since my break.
GT1, the race turned out well. Tire strategy worked and race felt good. I was able to pull a gap being on RM tires as P2 and P3 were on hard tires. Would have gotten clean race, but I just barely nipped a .5 penalty through the second tunnel.