Gran Turismo World Series (Manufacturers Cup Exhibition Season: Feb 5 - Feb 15)

[Nakano219]

Fun stat of the day: Wednesday is the 10th GT7 Sport Mode event at one of Nurburgring Endurance or Nurburgring 24h. Of those 10 races, 9 have been Manufacturers Cup events (with one Daily C as the exception); additionally, all ten have been in Gr.3 cars.

 

[MCL1974]

For the coming Manu series I am going to focus on doing at least a gr 3 race as I noticed that the last few times I only did gr 4 races. So did some testing and decided on going with AMG Mercedes. Really wanted to join Lexus but can not find any decent speed in their car. I find the AMG to be quite fast but also very stable. Made a bit of a livery and really want to focus on doing at least the Deep Forest race:

 

[ElectricNaz]

I'm rich. Beyond my wildest dreams 😂😂😂

 

[Seth_Logan]

For the coming Manu series I am going to focus on doing at least a gr 3 race as I noticed that the last few times I only did gr 4 races. So did some testing and decided on going with AMG Mercedes. Really wanted to join Leus but can not find any decent speed in their car. I find the AMG to be quite fast but also very stable. Made a bit of a livery and really want to focus on doing at least the Deep Forest race:

View attachment 1352872

Nice livery. Hope we get to race together!

 

[Homestead]

NA GT2 8p est slot. 159 pts available
Quali P4 ~52.3
I start on the mediums. It starts ok. Bumper cars abound and I slide back a few spots, but expected due to RM. Eventually settle in to a good spot and can put down some clean air laps. Pit at end of lap 12 for hards. Come out in clean air. Do my hot lap and pit for softs. Come out surrounded by 4 other cars! Fighting ensue and I can't use my softs . I end up spinning at end of lap 19 coming out of the final chicane in a 3 way battle for 3rd. I lose ~9 seconds.
I finish P4 when I needed p3 for points improvement. I think second was within reach without the spin.
And hindsight I should have 12m-9s-1h.

LOL just noticed I lost SR

 

[MetalApe]

With a UK podium place in GT2, guess it's going to have be GT1 for me next time.

 

[Moose78]

This was a better result than I expected, considering I missed half the races and am only 13% into DR A. I even topped my secondary region -- possibly because I was the only driver, but still. Good for 2,925,000 credits.

For the most part, I enjoyed the races I got to do -- GT-One at Le Mans, 787 at Daytona, and X2019 at Spa -- and was just fine skipping the ones I missed. I still can't wrap my head around the 5-lap race at Watkins. What was PD thinking?

I'm looking forward to Manu Cup. I haven't clicked the button yet, but I'm pretty much decided on who I'll be signing with this season. More on that later.

 

[Spider-Racer]

Jumping straight into the season overview since Rd 6 was nothing particularly amazing..

This was the first official Nations season that I took seriously: I chose to race on the Canadian account, in search of more balanced lobbies, away from the dreaded top split. I am very happy to have achieved a place among the top 25 in the overall ranking 😁

Highlights:

• Round 1, at Le Mans, I achieved a better result than I expected, finishing in fourth place and adding 310 points. It was a tense race in a very strong lobby, 310 points!
• Round 5, at Daytona, despite not having trained and starting further back, I managed to move up ten positions!
• Round 6, with the infernal Red Bull cars, I ended up in the top split. In the second slot, I got the qualifying right and finished the race in fifth place, which allowed me to slightly improve my score.

Now, I look forward to the huge challenge that will be driving an Audi in Manufacturers! I will be back in my brazilian account as for Manu the Americas are bundled together anyway :-)

 

[Moose78]

Here's the final installment in the shootout of Canada's least popular manufacturers from last season's Manu Cup GT1 league. For this one, we are at Suzuka for the 35-lap race in Rd.4. Since the race is so long and the results from the other rounds showed that several of the cars just weren't going to be viable (more on that below), I only tested two: Dodge and Hyundai.

Manufacturer	Model	Best Time	Total Time	Avg Time	Avg Dev
Hyundai	Genesis Gr.3	2:03.810	72:49.920	2:04.855	0:00.698
Dodge	Viper SRT GT3-R '15	2:03.835	73:08.970	2:05.399	0:00.833

Tire tread levels at finish:

Manufacturer	Front Left	Front Right	Rear Left	Rear Right
Hyundai	40%	35%	55%	60%
Dodge	35%	30%	45%	45%

Both of the cars easily lasted the full race without a pit stop and both gradually lost time to the fatigue of the tires and/or the driver. You can see by the lap times, that I made a mess of a few laps in both cars.

I was faster and more consistent with the Hyundai. It felt pretty good on the track overall, but I found the gearing going into the Esses a bit awkward -- 3rd didn't quite make it there, and going to 4th for a split second only to drop back to 3rd wasn't gaining me any time.

The Dodge was fine at Suzuka. Although I wasn't as consistent with it as the Hyundai, there weren't any parts of the track that were particularly troublesome. It seems I just wasn't driving well.

All the raw data is in the spreadsheet here.

As for the other manufacturers I tested...

Citroen - I struggled to drive this car consistently. I could get good Opt Times out of it, but I just wasn't able to get there reliably.
Renault - This is a really nice car to drive, but with the recent BoP update, it just isn't fast enough (at least, not in my hands).
Suzuki - I've come to the conclusion that I just can't drive this car. It was near the bottom at every track I took it to.

In the end, it came down to a choice between Dodge and Hyundai.

The Hyundai is a really nice drive. It's stable and predictable. No drama with this car ever. It was the fastest at Interlagos and Suzuka and near the top everywhere else. Good on fuel and tires. Just a great all-round car.

The Dodge, though, took the top spot at three of the tracks -- Deep Forest, Daytona, and Fuji -- and by a healthy margin at each. It really surprised me. The testing that I'd prior to the Manu Cup schedule being announced showed it to be a mediocre car, at best. But it really seems to shine for those three races.

So...

And here they are dressed up in their native habit of Detroit, Michigan (with the driver looking longingly at the Gr.4 car that he won't ever get to drive in the series):

 

[MIE1992]

Heh, I’ll take it.

 

[Spider-Racer]

Here's the final installment in the shootout of Canada's least popular manufacturers from last season's Manu Cup GT1 league. For this one, we are at Suzuka for the 35-lap race in Rd.4. Since the race is so long and the results from the other rounds showed that several of the cars just weren't going to be viable (more on that below), I only tested two: Dodge and Hyundai.

Manufacturer	Model	Best Time	Total Time	Avg Time	Avg Dev
Hyundai	Genesis Gr.3	2:03.810	72:49.920	2:04.855	0:00.698
Dodge	Viper SRT GT3-R '15	2:03.835	73:08.970	2:05.399	0:00.833

Tire tread levels at finish:

Manufacturer	Front Left	Front Right	Rear Left	Rear Right
Hyundai	40%	35%	55%	60%
Dodge	35%	30%	45%	45%

Both of the cars easily lasted the full race without a pit stop and both gradually lost time to the fatigue of the tires and/or the driver. You can see by the lap times, that I made a mess of a few laps in both cars.

I was faster and more consistent with the Hyundai. It felt pretty good on the track overall, but I found the gearing going into the Esses a bit awkward -- 3rd didn't quite make it there, and going to 4th for a split second only to drop back to 3rd wasn't gaining me any time.

The Dodge was fine at Suzuka. Although I wasn't as consistent with it as the Hyundai, there weren't any parts of the track that were particularly troublesome. It seems I just wasn't driving well.

All the raw data is in the spreadsheet here.

As for the other manufacturers I tested...

Citroen - I struggled to drive this car consistently. I could get good Opt Times out of it, but I just wasn't able to get there reliably.
Renault - This is a really nice car to drive, but with the recent BoP update, it just isn't fast enough (at least, not in my hands).
Suzuki - I've come to the conclusion that I just can't drive this car. It was near the bottom at every track I took it to.

In the end, it came down to a choice between Dodge and Hyundai.

The Hyundai is a really nice drive. It's stable and predictable. No drama with this car ever. It was the fastest at Interlagos and Suzuka and near the top everywhere else. Good on fuel and tires. Just a great all-round car.

The Dodge, though, took the top spot at three of the tracks -- Deep Forest, Daytona, and Fuji -- and by a healthy margin at each. It really surprised me. The testing that I'd prior to the Manu Cup schedule being announced showed it to be a mediocre car, at best. But it really seems to shine for those three races.

So...
View attachment 1352927

And here they are dressed up in their native habit of Detroit, Michigan (with the driver looking longingly at the Gr.4 car that he won't ever get to drive in the series):
View attachment 1352931

I love this approach to car selection. Thanks for sharing it 😊

 

[rlx]

I can't be the only one who finds it extremely odd that – while during the Nations Cup season one can follow the standings in GT1 with one day of delay – after the final round, all traces of the competition are removed, and there is no way to see who qualified for the finals, not even an announcement.

 

[Talon16]

I still can't decide on a Manu for the primary account. My testing isn't as comprehensive as Moose's, but I just look at the races I am interested in and planning on doing and test those or do an educated guess. I've narrowed it down to two Manus: Porsche and Ford (another nice thing about having alts is you can pick different Manus for TTing (the first round anyway, which is a biggie for me!)).

Races I am planning on attempting
-Manu that would be better (some assumptions made)

Nord (Yes)
-Porsche: My best TT lap in the Porsche was 1.7s faster than the GT18 (and even more so than the LM II). And the fuel was better. Ford should be okay on fuel but will need monitored.

Interlagos (No)
-Porsche

Deep Forrest (Maybe)
-Ford (I've not tested this but the LM II was META there during the last Gr3 Daily, the two long straights cater to the Ford)

Suzuka (Probably No)
-Porsche, especially if it rains

Daytona RC (Yes)
-Ford: I've done some half race tests (aka, 10 laps with fuel and tire) and my LM II's overall finishing time was almost two seconds better than the Porsche (so four seconds full race distance). And, it used LESS fuel (24% remaining vs 15% respectfully) so more time to be gained in the pits for the Ford! LM II was the META here in the Daily C from a could months back

Fuji (Yes (gotta have three so if I don't do DF I'll do Fuji))
-Porsche, especially if it rains

Thing is, of the two tracks I am definitely going to do (Nord, Tona) it's really difficult to pass anywhere but on the straights/ovals. The Ford is a monster on the starights and the Porsche will be a sitting duck to most other Manus, especially like the Genny or Supra which are both likely to be popular picks.

See exibit A from a previous Manu, me in the Ford just walking around a Porsche driver:



The next bits of track will favor the Porsche, but it matters naught as he'll just be stuck behind me until Dottenger when I'd just drive off into the sunset.

 

[bliprunner]

So the final Nations was a tale of two races...

Race one EU, A+ lobby, in quali a crasher ruined my fast lap. Start P6 and all is ok until bumper damage at the start of my medium stint sent me backwards by about 1+ sec a lap into the clutches of the chasing pack. I rallied on the softs but made the classic mistake on the fast right before the back straight - hitting the bollard. A spin and I limp home near the back. Bah.

Race 2 I was watching F1, so it was all on race 3 to save my season, only having two decent points finishes so far.

This time I qualify P5. Start on the hards, gain two places with spinners at T1, lose a position on the Kemmel to a Frenchman and pit right behind him at the end of the lap. So far, so good.

We exit together but he's quick on the mediums and pulls away by about 5 seconds, but as the stint goes on his pace drops and when we stop for softs I'm right behind. We exit together and at the end of the Kemmel we're side by side but I figure his pace will be strong again so there's no hurry, let's settle in and not fight.

Shortly after he made the mistake which ruined my first race, the bollard of death sees him spin out and pick up some hefty damage. All by myself in third with no further stops, all I have to do is concentrate and bring it home.

The leader stopped for hards on the final lap and dropped to P2, plus they got a three second pen for crossing pit lines, and at Blanchimont are suddenly right in front of me. Just a fraction too far to dive at the final chicane though, didn't want to end this race with an accident.

The whole race I was driving 95% trying to preserve my tyres, if I'd have pushed a bit more it could have been closer but no mistakes meant I was less than 10 secs behind the winner and could have done another lap on the softs.

Happy with that and I think best score of the season with 236. Not sure what my final total is but I was 40th in the UK which is decent enough for the three rounds I took part in

 

[GTWolverine]

On paper, not a bad season, but I easily left 60, possibly 80 or more points on the table between Rds.2 and 5, plus each round took at least 2 attempts to get the results I wanted, and half the time I had to use all 3 slots. And in the end, the round I was most looking forward to didn't even count...

Season Summary
Rd.1: Got disconnected from 5th on Lap 8 of 10 in Slot 1, qualified pole and finished 2nd in Slot 2. The only round in which I didn't make any dumb mistakes, which is ironic because I'm horrible at this track and the track limits penalties are ruthless.

Rd.2: Originally the round I'd been most looking forward to, until PD in their infinite wisdom made it a sub-10 minute race...Forgot how to drive in Slot 1 but still almost lucked into a decent finish until I had to dodge a dive-bomb at the chicane and lost control of my car as a result. Missed Slot 2 due to irl stuff, but finished 4th in Slot 3 for 284 points, joint-best with Rd.1.

Rd.5: The round I ended up most looking forward to. Slot 1, running 4th, already on track for my highest points of the season, I ran into the back of 3rd after they hit the outside wall coming back onto the oval and gave myself damage, then made a stupid decision in my rush to figure out what to do on my first pit stop now that it was an unplanned emergency to fix damage and decided to take fuel to the end, which put me further behind in traffic and weighed my car down so I couldn't fight properly. The final nail was someone with absolutely no spacial awareness turning into and PIT-maneuvering me into the outside wall on the banking. Slot 2 I picked up damage twice in the first 7 laps, so I had to do 17 laps on 1 set of tires and obviously finished poorly. Slot 3 the game decided it would allow everyone except me leave the pits for qualifying, so I had to start DFL and run a sub-optimum strategy just to get out of traffic and finished 8th for my worst result of the season.

Rd.6: Just wasn't fast enough mostly, but ended up going from 7th to 3rd in Slot 3 after rage-quitting the previous slot and dropping down a split due to the lost DR.

Cumulatively I probably lost 5k DR from all of this and threw away what was probably going to be my best ever Nation's Championship result.

 

[Roman_GT23]

Round 5

I only had one shot at this due to work (missed 7PM slot because of work and had to miss the 11PM slot.......because of work )

Qualifying looked abysmal until out of nowhere I pulled off a good lap that got me to 8th. But that was short lived. Attrition happened, that was good. Then it was my turn. I overestimated how much slip I had and my braking point and hit the guy ahead. Decided not to take advantage and let him go, but the others behind me did not make mistakes. Also I had no idea what the strategy was so I just wung it. I probably should have paid attention. My one and only shot got me 9th. I think aside from the slip up and better strategy I could have fought for 7th but nothing to write home about.




Round 6

Unlike the last few rounds, I actually put in a lot of practice with the X2019 and Spa. I also paid attention to the others strategy. Unfortunately I couldn't convert my awesome TT time to qualy, and I couldn't get adjusted to the difference in track feel and conditions fast enough. Started 12th, I decided to gamble and start on the hards right away. I had a good launch and was minding my business around the outside. I knew someone was underneath me but I didn't expect 2. We both squeezed the middle guy, while at the same time there was an accordian effect just ahead. Guess who won the lottery with damage................. (ME!) I was at least able to stick with the pack until the pits......................then my biggest goofball moment. I just clipped the inside tire bails and it got me stuck in the pits. Being pissed and panicking, I switched to the softs and made the last as long as humanly possible! I did make up ground, but then when the Mediums had to come on, the others were on the softs. Luckily, a lot of the soft runners were too far back, even with me accidentally short fueling and had to conserve fuel the last half of the stint. Came home 9th. Knowing this wasn't good enough I got some food and got ready for the 11PM split, only for PD to throw me an unexpected error and the room crashed. There went any shot of me getting good points for the season. At least next morning when I checked PD gave us back the points from the 9PM slot.



I'm not going to bother posting my total results. This nations came at a bad time for me. Busy work schedule for the month of April, personal issue going on with an ex friend, and essentially 2 races I had no confidence in competing at a high level due to the combination. It was a throwaway. Going to focus on the Toyota Cup and Manu. Still stuck on manu choices. I'm not picking Porsche because I know everyone and their motha are going to pick it! Not like I have a shot at the world tour anyways

 

[fardoche]

GTWS RedBull, last round, GT1 11pm slot, very late for me after a day of backyard work...
Lobby is mostly B/S drivers. people like me who probably were downgraded after the GTWS registration.

Q7,
I Decide to go RS to start the race based on the QTime of other drivers, I though I had a chance to escape early on if I survive the first corner.

I had a great start, over committed on the first corner but it paid off mostly because of the skill and awareness of another driver. I was set to avoid contact at all cost, I was prepared to brake further to let him go, but he let me space. (CrazyAnz in the video was RH, he was faster then me overall as he passes me 10 laps later)
First 15 seconds that set the tone for the rest of the race (3rd person camera, but I play in VR):


An uneventful no stress race, I finished a satisfying P4.
68th GT1 in Canada overall, tie with our @Moose78 gtp friend. 🍻

 

[watto79]

I can't be the only one who finds it extremely odd that – while during the Nations Cup season one can follow the standings in GT1 with one day of delay – after the final round, all traces of the competition are removed, and there is no way to see who qualified for the finals, not even an announcement.

Click on "Event Archive". All the standings are shown there.

 

[Nakano219]

Let's play a quick pre-season game: What nine manufacturers (other than Toyota/Mazda/Genesis) do people predict are going to qualify? I'm interested to see if people agree on where the meta lies or not.

 

[Bojador]

Let's play a quick pre-season game: What nine manufacturers (other than Toyota/Mazda/Genesis) do people predict are going to qualify? I'm interested to see if people agree on where the meta lies or not.

Subaru because of Kylian, BMW and Honda because of Galo.

 

[rlx]

Click on "Event Archive". All the standings are shown there.

Thanks! Could be more prominent, but it's exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Spider-Racer]

View attachment 1352920
View attachment 1352919

Jumping straight into the season overview since Rd 6 was nothing particularly amazing..

This was the first official Nations season that I took seriously: I chose to race on the Canadian account, in search of more balanced lobbies, away from the dreaded top split. I am very happy to have achieved a place among the top 25 in the overall ranking 😁

Highlights:

• Round 1, at Le Mans, I achieved a better result than I expected, finishing in fourth place and adding 310 points. It was a tense race in a very strong lobby, 310 points!
• Round 5, at Daytona, despite not having trained and starting further back, I managed to move up ten positions!
• Round 6, with the infernal Red Bull cars, I ended up in the top split. In the second slot, I got the qualifying right and finished the race in fifth place, which allowed me to slightly improve my score.

Now, I look forward to the huge challenge that will be driving an Audi in Manufacturers! I will be back in my brazilian account as for Manu the Americas are bundled together anyway :-)

Nevermind Audi....
Gonna stay Canadian for a while longer

 

[Moose78]

Let's play a quick pre-season game: What nine manufacturers (other than Toyota/Mazda/Genesis) do people predict are going to qualify? I'm interested to see if people agree on where the meta lies or not.

Looking through the top 50 times in the Rd.1 ranking board, manufacturers are appearing in this order:

1. Subaru
2. BMW
3. Genesis
4. Audi
5. Honda
6. AMG
7. Mazda
8. Toyota
9. Chevrolet
10. Porsche
11. Lambourghini
12. Suzuki
13. Lexus
14. Nissan
15. Peugeot
16. Volkswagen
17. Aston Martin

I'd guess the top 10 are pretty much a lock, with a fight for the last two slots between the rest.

Edit: If I have to guess for the last two slots, I'll go with Lexus and Nissan, simply based on the number of occurrences in the ranking board.

 

[Interemptor]

Looking through the top 50 times in the Rd.1 ranking board, manufacturers are appearing in this order:

1. Subaru
2. BMW
3. Genesis
4. Audi
5. Honda
6. AMG
7. Mazda
8. Toyota
9. Chevrolet
10. Porsche
11. Lambourghini
12. Suzuki
13. Lexus
14. Nissan
15. Peugeot
16. Volkswagen
17. Aston Martin

I'd guess the top 10 are pretty much a lock, with a fight for the last two slots between the rest.

Edit: If I have to guess for the last two slots, I'll go with Lexus and Nissan, simply based on the number of occurrences in the ranking board.

Oh boy. Choose Alfa for my main and Lexus for my alt. Guess I'm gonna be very competitive 😂

 

[Talon16]

Looking through the top 50 times in the Rd.1 ranking board, manufacturers are appearing in this order:

1. Subaru
2. BMW
3. Genesis
4. Audi
5. Honda
6. AMG
7. Mazda
8. Toyota
9. Chevrolet
10. Porsche
11. Lambourghini
12. Suzuki
13. Lexus
14. Nissan
15. Peugeot
16. Volkswagen
17. Aston Martin

I'd guess the top 10 are pretty much a lock, with a fight for the last two slots between the rest.

Edit: If I have to guess for the last two slots, I'll go with Lexus and Nissan, simply based on the number of occurrences in the ranking board.

In fairness, this is based off Nord only yea? A lot of different types of tracks with weather likely at Fuji and/or Suzuka. Some cars not necessarily good at Nord will be good at the other tracks.

 

[Moose78]

In fairness, this is based off Nord only yea? A lot of different types of tracks with weather likely at Fuji and/or Suzuka. Some cars not necessarily good at Nord will be good at the other tracks.

Yeah, for sure. I'm just hazarding a quick guess based on the probably-flimsy assumption that the top 50 drivers at Nord are going to be the top 50 drivers at the other tracks, more or less. There's nothing at stake here, so I'm not putting much effort into the analysis.

 

[Interemptor]

Weather on Fuju and Suzuka won't be a factor in GT2 I guess or was there ever rain in Group 4?

 

[Moose78]

Weather on Fuju and Suzuka won't be a factor in GT2 I guess or was there ever rain in Group 4?

According to the GT-Engine archives, there was rain at High Speed Ring for Gr.4 cars in GTWS 2022 - Test Season 2. I didn't see any others.

 

[Roman_GT23]

Looking through the top 50 times in the Rd.1 ranking board, manufacturers are appearing in this order:

1. Subaru
2. BMW
3. Genesis
4. Audi
5. Honda
6. AMG
7. Mazda
8. Toyota
9. Chevrolet
10. Porsche
11. Lambourghini
12. Suzuki
13. Lexus
14. Nissan
15. Peugeot
16. Volkswagen
17. Aston Martin

I'd guess the top 10 are pretty much a lock, with a fight for the last two slots between the rest.

Edit: If I have to guess for the last two slots, I'll go with Lexus and Nissan, simply based on the number of occurrences in the ranking board.

Well that puts me in a predicament, my final two choices are not on this list and about half of the top 10 I struggle driving those cars.

 

[CMB350]

NA GT2 8p est slot. 159 pts available

Same group as me. I qualied dead last since I did almost no practice for this one. I went in with the mindset of 1 and done. Honestly, I was just happy to be in a top split again since I got screwed on the Daytona race.

I did 2H, 12M, 8S. Was really difficult to pass towards the end even with fresh softs. I had pace to finish P6 but couldn’t make it happen. Nevertheless, it worked out fine and P8 was acceptable all things considered.