Gran Turismo World Series (Nations Cup Exhibition Season: Jan 22 - Feb 1)

[Tazzy-91]

12:00pm: Again QT on mediums and that puts me 9th. Survived the first couple of laps and found myself in 4th chasing down the first 3. I was catching them and was convinced they were on mediums too but no, the baby Aston seems to have found some speed 🤣🤣 Anyway, pitted at the end of lap 8 as my pace on the mediums did not drop off at all really. Came out immediately behind the leading Ferrari but had passed him by Dunlop (angry Italian, he quit as soon as i got passed him 😅🤷‍♂️). After that it was just stay calm and don't bin it. Job done 👌👌🏆🏆🏆🏆

 

[MCL1974]

So I went again....

And this might well be my last race in GT7!!!



why?

because no way in hell I will ever have a race again that was this awesome....




I Qualified 4th with a 1.56.7 and a bit, fastest was a Ferrari with a 1.56.2 so I knew there was some real competition.

Start went fine, no one rear-ending me this time and in the last corner of the first lap the McLaren in third made a mistake and I had an easy pass for that third place. From that moment on I had a very nice fight with the cars in thirst and second. This lasted for 6 laps and because the cars behind us three catched up I decided to pit early to get out of that pack. At the moment I entered the pits I was in second place behind the Ferrari.

Got out in I think 15th or so, and a lap later a lot of cars pitted gifting me a number of places. The Ferrari leading the race also pitted and got out of the pits about a second in front of me. I tried to follow him but could not keep up with him on my fresh mediums and soon the gap was well over two seconds. Soon I knew why he was getting away... at the end of the lap he pitted again; he got the wrong tyre compound on!? Poor guy, he probably would have won the race!

A lap later I found myself in first place as the rest pitted. a South-African came out of the pits right beside me. I made sure to give him space and he braked at the right moment and got right behind me:

From that moment each lap he was a about a few tenths behind me. I was a bit scared he would rear-end me but after a few laps I realised thus guy is a clean racer. Still, I had to drive so hard to stay in front! I really did some of my best laps ever, my fastest lap on the mediums was faster then in any practice session!

Lap 13 he was still putting me under pressure. Then I made a small mistake at the Coca-Cola curve and he got right beside me. got in front at the first corner and then we made contact:



He definitely gave me the place back. Thanks so much to him! But he was again pressuring me for the rest of the race and after fifteen hard, sweaty laps I crossed the line as a winner with him just behind me. Honestly, had he won I would have been just as enthusiastic. Had so much fun in a hard fight with a real racer who just as much deserved that win.
I won races before, but never like this....and that also thanks to the other driver.

So, in the end the AMG '16 beat the AMG '20 in a direct fight!

This was really how on-line racing can be and should be. It's been a while that I had a fun race and I am not sure I will ever have a race as good as this again.

 

[RobertHammer]

GT2 B/S - 2 races

1st run: Qualified P6 with 1.57.868 pretty good lap but that cant be said for the race xD
Race started with Softs and went good as i managed to overtake 2 guys to P4 but then i somehow managed to get track limit penalties like a donkey... to pits after lap 6 for mediums then been in P5 but Soft tyre guys caught up with me and lost places thus ended in P8 meh @MCL1974 no worries mate - i did plenty of mistakes myself

2nd run Qualified P14 2.00.489 LOL worst lap ever xD
Race started with Mediums with time and managed to overtake even more cars from P14 like into P8 , thankfully this time i had 2 penalties went to the pits after lap 9 for Softs then i got into P5 when others went to pit , P4 guy in the 911 had mediums on , i been on his tail like remaining 6 laps almost got him the one guy in the AMG pushed me and lost 1.5 sec to the P4 ...
but got lucky in the end because 2 guys didnt pit - bam 2minute penalties that made us into the podium cool lol

in the end pretty good race - have fun out there 👍

 

[Talon16]

Did one on the AO this morning. Put the Renault on pole, though it took the second lap to get it. Started on RS. Q2 was a Lexus and I was concerned he would get a run into T1 as the turbo cars don't accelerate as hard off the line (although, I think PD 'fixed' this at some point as it's not as bad as it once was).

Those concerns dropped off however when he braked way too late for T1 and almost went off track. He was able to keep his place (as a Porsche in P3 also went deep). This gave me a one second lead. Same Lexus lost it on the chicane later that lap.

I hadn't done a tire test on the Renault so I decided to do the same 8|7 strat that seemed to work on the Porsche. The tires really started dying off after five laps and one of my laps on the RMs matched pace with the third lap on the RSs. I think I was just inconsistent.

There was an RXV that did RM to RS that was gaining towards the end, but the gap was too big. GGs

Season ends with Renault. Not a bad choice and a survivor of the new physics and BoP.

 

[newmedia_dev]

GT1 - Slot one UK/EU mixed B/A S lobby

QT ruined on the last corner so P10 (would have been p6)

Started on Mediums changed 5 in to 6 for softs went the rest of the race in P5 till the last lap and clipped the grass finished p10 with front aero and suspension damage.

Not going again sadly as I'm out tonight.

Wasn't a season to set the world alight but not going to complain. The Porsche is a joy with BB-2 now and the inverse strat worked although I should have stayed on mediums 1 or 2 laps more.

 

[stpatty]

I had two goes today. I did 6S/9M then 9M/6S. I didn't think there was a lot of difference between the end of my soft stints in either race.

First race was a mess because I hadn't done any practice on mediums and binned it at the hairpin on my first lap on them. Started 7th, finished 11th which was 10th because one guy didn't change tyres. Second race was better all round, with a few mistakes and a few problems with my HDMI cable leaving me to drive a few corners on instinct and prayers and maybe I could have fought for 6th if I was perfect but I'm still taking this as a learning experience, so it's fine.

First race time was a 30:25, second race was 30:19 which is actually quite disappointing since the second one felt so much better.

 

[A_Higher_Place]

GT2 Slot 1. Had no practice this week so wasn't surprised by my mistakes and lack of pace. Qualified p2 and managed a pass around the outside at the beginning of sector 2. Held the lead until lap three where I exited the final chicane wide and went surfing along the grass. From there I was bumped and bashed to P10.

Figured I'd put for RMs just to get some practice at the back of the pack. Brought it home to p3 14 seconds behind the leader. Easy win given away but feeling ready for the next one.

Not sure if I'll run GT1 tonight..

 

[newmedia_dev]

Just mind the T1 heavy damage and both my GT2 and GT1 races were almost contactless but I appreciate that takes 2 to tango in some cases

I'd go again if I had time on my main account although as I said earlier it does feel a bit meh as a race as there is clearly 3 skills gaps in the race. The fast, the furious and the lonely 🤣

 

[MIE1992]

Got a clean Q12/P8! I’d say that’s great, considering that my qualifying was held up a bit by two slow Nissan drivers.

 

[OJBrit]

Busy all day so only was able to run the 10am slot.
After being near the front pacewise last week I was brought back down to Earth this week with my times being my usual mediocre best. Not a track I enjoy compared to Autopolis. Car didn't feel good. Nurb GP is my cold rain night in Stoke of a track.
Managed 11th in qualy so a certain Medium start.
I was batted around a bit through the first few corners which left my car unstable through 3 which caused an overrotation which I caught but it dropped me down to P15. A spin got me up to P14.
A pretty boring race from there. I pitted at the end of lap 8 for softs and with some loosing battles I was shifted back down to 12th. However an off at the NGK got me back to 11th. The battle just ahead saw a Viper pick up a penalty late on. I stayed close enough to grab 10th on the line due to the penalty.
Not quite enough to better my score and a minor DR drop. Certainly some highs and lows this series but overall I was impressed with the GT-R.

 

[bliprunner]

Nice race to finish the season. Door 5, qualified P3 and finished P4...

Started on softs because I wanted to have a nice first stint but this was my first error. The start was fine but the pole BMW was on mediums and the Merc in front of me on softs couldn't find a way past, so we got a bit stuck early on...

Lap 2 I managed to get past the Merc along with a Porsche behind, I had the pace to follow the leader but missed a gear and went wide after the Schumacher S, and was pushed to the grass by the chasing Porsche... And as we all fought as the leader got away...

I fell back to 6th in this battle but that was useful as I could drive in some space without pressure and make my soft tyres last until the end of lap 8 before pitting. Came out in front of the Merc in P4 so it was a good overcut but one mistake on cold tyres let them back past. I was definitely quicker and spent the next few laps hassling them without being able to make a move, but then got out of shape and took a detour along the grass...

Now the Porsche who pushed me wide earlier was on my tail with four laps to go, but there were no more mistakes and the Merc in front was a useful rabbit to chase to the finish. I took seconds out of them so a podium could have been mine but was happy with P4 and 230 points. Just need to iron out the errors and better results will come!

 

[ZEE]

Well today was eventful to say the least in the Last round of the MCWS race at Nurburgring GP track. I personally like this track alot for it slow twistys and catchup straights, I have good pace with my Aston, but it didnt go so well as I hoped!

I did two time slots online today in sport mode, first was a 2pm slot, then I had to come beck to try and improve and do the final 7pm slot. For the second one I didnt realise my rank dropped drastically to B B for DR & SR and kidna snubbe my overall results.

But anyways I digress, the first race was atrocious, i had good pace in practicing and did a lobby yesterday tryin to keep up with A racers. But I could not find good pace, too many rammers in the race and nothing felt clean at all. I only landed 10th overall and felt gutted for this last round.

Took a break had some food, walked on grass, then came back to tackle the next 7pm slot later on today. Now this was a monumental mess despite me doing better and perservering. Practice was fine got a 1.58 time which was ok. I was plopped into GT2 but low B side I think, and had some real "intresting" characters in there. While qualifying as we all had only 5mins on the second timed lap, I was pushing pace to get a good time and this Greek ponce of a driver named "Starizos" decide to punt me at the last corner after the chicane, with no apology or expalnation, maybe he was childish sucka, that I passed him cleanly and just lashed out?

I tried to finish my last lap before timer ran out and then got pegged down to 11th place while he coasted onto 5th in qualifying. Oh joy bloody heck.

I called him out and he didnt even deny it and gloated somewhat, I was like fine ok then, typical asshat, leave it, lets go to race. Onto the race, and it was going pretty good, working up the field got up to 8th after some mishaps by other drivers losing control. Then on either on lap 4 or 5 I bumped a yellowy porsche guy on Turn 6 - Ford kurve, made him run so wide as I was not slowing down effectively enough leading into that turn, and just bumped him, which was my fault, I owned it and slowed down, but in doing so another Porsche rear ended me slowing him down as I wasnt ghosting just yet. Then the yellow porsche of that guy, eventually passed me as I slowed and I got back to chasing him. Resumed racing. then:

I tried to holdout on my RS tires but they got choppy till lap 10 and I was 5th, running away from a newly changed RM tires. I got caught by a porsche nearing my pit time and went in on lap 11. Then came out fresh and tackled the uphill fight to get some places back.

I chased and chased while a beetle span out on lap 13 and I got up to 9th, almost 8th but 9th was the best I could do keeping pace in the VANTAGE V12 on RM tires. It was a diffucult task and I didnt quite get good pace and unfortunatly some racers had no etiquette.

I clocked about 50 points so lets see how my standings are tomorrow. Back to chugging my Daily races and improving my rank and CE on Eiger Norwand!

 

[Danielsan]

I was not expecting too much when starting this season thus I'm really glad that I was able to place 1st in my local ranking list by increasing my totals with todays race.

I really enjoy this community and exchanging and reading about potential strategies helped me a lot here, since my racing time is quite limited.

 

[andyzim]

I'm quite a lurker here but I do enjoy reading the reports so thought to contribute my own. It's been my first time entering the world series races this time round. I'm a high B in sport and was placed into GT2 with Porsche. So far I'd finished 5th at interlagos, skipped Tokyo and finished 6th at Autopolis (a track I had only 7 laps of knowledge of before the race began and had no expectations of doing well at). This had netted me 188 points total but to move into the top rewards rankings (5%) in the region and in the manufacturers I needed a really strong finish in the final round.

Luckily the ring GP track is one of my strongest, on top of this the latest physics changes have been fantastic for me in the porsche as they even better suit my driving style so my confidence was high.

I entered the first slot of the day 9am GMT with the 12 door on the car, hoping for a podium finish, qualified 2nd with a 1.55.6 just 0.12s off a German porsche on pole. The rest of the pack were over 1s slower in Quali.

The race started well, I started on softs and passed into 1st cleanly at the hairpin halfway through L1 but was then bump passed by the German at the top of the hill after the Schumacher S when he tapped my rear bumper in the braking zone and sent me wide. Into L2 and he ran wide going defensive into T1, I passed on the right as I exited the turn and we made door to door contact as he tried to rejoin the track. I was able to pull about a 2s gap, pushing hard over the next 3 laps but ultimately took too much out of the tyres and had to pit for mediums at the end of L7, with the gap down to about 1s. The German stayed out and I exited the pits in 4th, with less than 1s gaps to the cars both in front and behind.

The porsche ahead of me ran wide at the hairpin that same lap so I slipped through easily to 3rd, taking 2nd at the end of L8 from a car in the pits. End of L9 and the German in the lead finally pits, I take the place back as he exited the pit lane and the gap again stabilised around 1.5 to 2s. I managed to nurse the car home the final 5 laps maintaining the gap, putting some solid consistent laps in to take the flag 1.7s ahead for my maiden World series win and 122 points.

I was ecstatic with the result and shaking with adrenaline for a while after!

 

[GT5Apex]

GT1 - A+/S

I only had time to do 1 slot today and that was the 5PM (UK) slot. I was door 7 in a 284 point lobby.

I qualified P8 and finished P6, which im pretty happy with since i picked up a decent amount of damage this race.

I decided to start on the mediums, and going into T3, fellow UK driver Crispy got in front of me, and as i went to slot in behind Crispy, a GTR and a Porsche who both started on soft tyres lunged up my inside and the Porsche bumped into the GTR, which caused the GTR to go into me, which damaged both wheels (suspension) on the left side of my car and it gave me front aero damage as well.

Annoyingly i was now in P11, but thankfully i managed to stay ahead of the GTR, plus a couple of cars in front spun each other out, so i was now in P7. I stayed on the mediums until the end of lap 8 and then changed on to the softs. Annoyingly i had to sit in the pits for an additional 7 seconds so that the damage could be fixed, which obviously cost me a couple of positions.

I was now down in P10 but thankfully the soft tyres allowed me to catch up and pass a couple of cars ahead, and then i managed to pass Crispy in P6 because unfortunately his wheel decided to recalibrate during the race, so that cost him a couple of positions. I probably could have finished P5 today because P5 finished 4.9 seconds ahead of me, so if i never had lost those additional 7 seconds in the pits, i might of finished in front of them.

 

[Moose78]

Just ran the first GT1 slot (6PM EDT) in the Americas. I was in door #3, driving the Citreon GT in a low A/S lobby -- @Kermit_2142 was there, too -- with 172 points up for grabs. I needed a P7 or better to improve my season point total.

Qualifying couldn't have gone better. I booked a time of 1:56.887, matching my best lap in Free Practice. That landed me Q7. I was 1.5s off of @Kermit_2142's pole-setting lap.

The race got off to a clean start. I survived turn 1. You can just see the wing of @Kermit_2142's car in the lead. It was the last I saw of him before he broke away. I came out of T1 still in P7.

From there, not much happened for quite a while. I managed to keep up with the P6 car for a while, but eventually they pulled away. I had a nice gap behind me, too, so all had plenty of space to focus on running my best laps. Midway through the race, I got promoted to P6 when one of the cars ahead crashed.

I pitted on lap 9 to replace my RMs with RSs. When all the pitting was done, I found myself in P5 with a healthy gap behind me and a Porsche up ahead that I was gradually reeling in.

My opportunity came at T1 on lap 14. I had the run and the inside line. All I had to do was get a good exit out of the corner to take P4. Did I?

Can mooses fly? Of course not. I got it all kinds wrong and immediately gave the spot back. Back to P5

From there, I gave up on attacking the car ahead just focused on running clean laps to the finish. P5 was way more than I had expected for this race. I just had to take it home.

The driver in the Porsche behind me in P6 had other plans. They were steadily gaining on me. On the final lap, they got a run on me through the Schumacher S.

So, of course, I panicked, getting RTL Kurve all wrong, and dropping down to P6, where I finished for 136 points and a slight boost to my point total and DR.

Despite being a bit miffed about the final-lap mistake, this is about as good a result as I could have hoped for here with this car (and this driver). It is a happy end to the season for me.

 

[appu]

Happy with the conclusion of my first GTWS as DR-A. This race was kinda chill because I have had a lot of practice with the new physics at Bathurst Daily Races. This race felt like just another Daily Race C.

I like the GT1 league way more than GT2. I will strive to keep my DR at A or above so that I always get GT1 league. The folks in GT1 are just fantastic. Fast, consistent, and clean. I hope I don't jinx it but I have had zero dirty incident this year. In GT2, folks often tend to spread apart after a few laps, making the race boring. While GT1 league is always a tight sprint from the start to the end.

I had door number 15, which was also the last. Qualified 14th. This race was pretty much decided when on the first lap, I saw that some folks ahead of me braked a bit early for the chicane. I saw that the yellow Porsche ahead of me also decided to brake early. I had a split second to decide whether I respect the queue line or whether I take advantage of this by braking slightly late. I chose the latter. I used my Alfa Romeo's excellent brakes and made the critical overtake on the Porsche, which turned out to be useful for the remainder of the race as it kept me ahead of constant duels behind me.

As planned I pit at lap 5 and ran softs till the end. This strategy catapulted me to P9. I am not gonna check the replay but I assume that my Alfa Romeo had a massive tire saving advantage, allowing me to do 10 fast laps on softs compared to probably 6 laps on softs for others. The softs also ensured that I was not overtaken by faster drivers behind me as they fell behind me on corner entries and could not catch up with my Alfa Romeo's great top speed and amazing brakes.

 

[Talon16]

Primary account, 20:00 time slot. This had to be top split as there was an S|S driver on the grid. I do not belong here! Lobby worth 366 points. Didn't want to do this one but felt obligated since I only had one scoring round for the series.

Board 12, Q13 with a 54.9. I made a couple mistakes, a 54.6 was possible. Pole was a 53.9.

Off we go and T1 is fine. We're all going through the motions while trying not to kill anyone. From what I could tell, everyone was clean until we would eventually all fell into line. I did have some fun side-by-side with the S rated driver going through S1 on lap 3... and for a split second I was ahead... I can say I passed an S rated driver on track, so I got that going for me.

I started on RMs and was planning on pitting on lap seven, but made a knee-jerk call and stayed out one more lap as the cars ahead went in. I wanted to do a lap in some free air as all of my laps were part of a train. Ended up being a mistake because I got undercut by the guy who was behind (GTR). Partly because the leader came out of the pits right as I was approaching T1, and I wasn't about to be a prick and hold him up so I went way wide to allow him by. I was a second down through S1 alone.

From there it was an AMG, GTR, and me. The AMG was struggling on tires so the GTR would get passed and eventually I did as well as the AMG had a moment on lap 13 (he'd recover but I was able to get passed). Finished in P14. I didn't expect a good result and got exactly that.

TL;DR - Q13, undercut on lap 7-8, P14.

 

[A_Higher_Place]

Well, I said I wasn't gonna run GT1... but I lied to myself and hopped into the last slot after winning a GT2 round an hour earlier. The extra practice persuaded me to jump in. I'm still awaiting a massive DR correction in the near future because I DO NOT belong this high up.

Low A+ lobby. Door 13. Qualified P9. Was happy to come home where I started, honestly. But the race panned out differently.

This happened on lap 2:


From there, I ran P3 until the end of lap 7 where I switched to RMs. Blah, it was a game of bleed as few positions as I could. Some of the RM runners were just as fast as me on RS so once we swapped, I was a sitting duck for a few. I made a couple of small mistakes and I tumbled down to P6. Right at the very last corner I had a shot at P5 but that driver got the better of the lines and powered down quicker than I could. P5 and P6 finished 0.03 from each other! So, P6. I can't complain about that. Been a really fun season!

 

[Dragonwhisky]

I'm rather pleased with my first foray into these GTWS Exhibition series. I've avoided the dailies like the plague since I got BS rated and just hit the Sport TT events.

Tonight, I entered the first slot for the western hemisphere and had decided to run mediums on the first stint for 9-10 laps, no qualify. Did that, one of the few to pit late on lap 9, or later, from 3rd, for those horrendous softs, came out in 9th with a nice gap front and back. Couple of mistakes ahead had me in 7th on L11 and catching the next 3 cars. They had a bit of a tangle into the chicane and I couldn't get slowed down quick enough to avoid and gave the car in front a good smack and got a 2 second penalty for my failed effort. How nice. 👋CRB. Now I get to go around an entire lap with an advertisement above my car for all the flat screeners, us VR drivers don't get to see those flags on other cars, thanks PD. Back to 8th I went and commenced to the chase once more. Couple cars decided to let me by, knowing they'll get a shot back at me when I serve that penalty, and the one I smacked the previous lap to get my penalty, drove it deep and off at Dunlop. Now I'm running 5th and about to serve that 2 seconds. Start L13 in 7th, manage to catch and pass 6th at T1 L15 and shortly after that 5th spins exiting T4 and I go by for 5th. That's where I finish and I'm satisfied with that.

I'd told myself earlier if I finished 5th or higher I'd let that stand. Well, as history does, I repeated caving in and ran off the next slot as well.

For this race I'd considered running the softs for 5 laps and see if I could qualify in the top 5 and then decided at entry time to not qualify and see how the 5S/10M strat worked out starting from the back. Kinda' glad I did as we had someone from A/A+ land, possibly on an alt account, qualify with a 1:55.xxx and several drivers not to far back from that. This room only had 14 in it. Pretty sure one or 2 dropped out when that driver dropped that q-time. I manage to crawl up to 6th, mostly through attrition and having softs against the mediums, by lap 3 and actually turned in the fast lap, 1:58.206 (ran high 57s in practices), which held up until that aforementioned A/A+ driver put on their softs later in the race.

I stick to my strat plan and pit L5 from 4th and get off those softs, the fronts seem to turn to jello about lap 4.5 and just don't want to turn in. Come out 12th of 13 now and thinking this ain't workin' out as well as I'd hoped. I do have a huge gap behind and a reasonable one to the front so get my "head down" and just drive.

That fast one comes out of the pit on L8, right behind me. Oh Joy! They get by me at Dunlop, I tuck right behind, hoping to just draft them some but car decides it doesn't want to enter what used to be called Schumacher S without any wind on the front and I lose contact and settle in my 10th place.

Lap 9 the fast one takes my FL away by posting a 1:56.018, which I only know from watching the replay, since PD doesn't think VR deserves to see that data.

By L12 I'm running 4th from pit rotations and the driver running in first at the time comes out of the pit about a half second behind me, which I have to guess at because, again, PD doesn't think VR deserves to have that data available. I'm not that concerned about his fresh tires relegating me to 5th, as that's as good as the previous race's finish was, so kind of a wash, and, there are 3 slots left to consider running to better that part. As it turns out, didn't have to worry about it much. Apparently, that Ford doesn't like the mediums as well as my Chevy.

Meanwhile, up in P1 is the car that started the race in front of me, not having stopped for the mandatory tire change, being caught by the pole sitter. P2 flies off the track between T11 & 12 on L15 and I'm so far behind they manage to gather it up and retain P3 before I can get anywhere near.

Well, if you haven't guessed by now, that driver that didn't stop got demoted all the way to 12th and I got a podium for their hubris/ignorance.

More than satisfied at that result. Might actually be encouraged to join the next Nations when it drops.

Have I mentioned, VR drivers don't get all the data the pancakes get? Yes? Well, consider it mentioned again.

 

[Nakano219]

I didn't do the round myself, it was a good day to do some gardening so I did.

There was one thing I'd like to find out though - did anyone here do this round for Subaru specifically, and if so, how long did your soft tyres last?

 

[newmedia_dev]

I didn't do the round myself, it was a good day to do some gardening so I did.

There was one thing I'd like to find out though - did anyone here do this round for Subaru specifically, and if so, how long did your soft tyres last?

There was a BRZ in one of my lobbies, can't remember if it was GT2 or GT1. Will see if I have the replay.

All of the cars seemed fairly matched wear wise it seemed. With the differences being quite marginal.

In my GT1 race me (911) and a guy in a beemer (m6) with the inverted strat stopped lap 5 and he went in at 6 but at the end we were gaining on cars but also slippy as hell in the last 2 laps.

I'll see if I saved the replay with the BRZ and let you know.

Round Nurbs though anecdotally it favoured the faster cars over the "handling" cars (RCZ, BRZ etc) seemed to struggle with so many fast straights.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Just ran the first GT1 slot (6PM EDT) in the Americas. I was in door #3, driving the Citreon GT in a low A/S lobby -- @Kermit_2142 was there, too -- with 172 points up for grabs. I needed a P7 or better to improve my season point total.

Qualifying couldn't have gone better. I booked a time of 1:56.887, matching my best lap in Free Practice. That landed me Q7. I was 1.5s off of @Kermit_2142's pole-setting lap.

View attachment 1378056

The race got off to a clean start. I survived turn 1. You can just see the wing of @Kermit_2142's car in the lead. It was the last I saw of him before he broke away. I came out of T1 still in P7.

From there, not much happened for quite a while. I managed to keep up with the P6 car for a while, but eventually they pulled away. I had a nice gap behind me, too, so all had plenty of space to focus on running my best laps. Midway through the race, I got promoted to P6 when one of the cars ahead crashed.

I pitted on lap 9 to replace my RMs with RSs. When all the pitting was done, I found myself in P5 with a healthy gap behind me and a Porsche up ahead that I was gradually reeling in.

My opportunity came at T1 on lap 14. I had the run and the inside line. All I had to do was get a good exit out of the corner to take P4. Did I?

View attachment 1378057

Can mooses fly? Of course not. I got it all kinds wrong and immediately gave the spot back. Back to P5

From there, I gave up on attacking the car ahead just focused on running clean laps to the finish. P5 was way more than I had expected for this race. I just had to take it home.

The driver in the Porsche behind me in P6 had other plans. They were steadily gaining on me. On the final lap, they got a run on me through the Schumacher S.

View attachment 1378058
So, of course, I panicked, getting RTL Kurve all wrong, and dropping down to P6, where I finished for 136 points and a slight boost to my point total and DR.

Despite being a bit miffed about the final-lap mistake, this is about as good a result as I could have hoped for here with this car (and this driver). It is a happy end to the season for me.

Thanks for the mention Moose and congratulations on another solid result .

My pole lap was about as perfect as I could’ve hoped for, I was really pumped and setting that lap!

Looking back at the replay it looks like we had a really clean lobby with a mixture of strategies all the way down the order.

I had a nice clean getaway from the line, p2 thought about going around the outside but didn’t have the tyre temperature to pull it off so we came out as we started the first sector.

The tyre temps were really down so I focussed on being as gentle as possible and not give p2 an opportunity to create a battle. As we entered the 2nd lap p2 was applying pressure and keeping within a few tenths of me. They had superior straight line speed in the GTR and I was feeling a move would come if I didn’t manage to increase my pace but the tyres were still not feeling at their best.

As we start lap 3 I decided I needed to give it everything and see if we could make a break away. We had a good lead over p3 so I decided if I lost the lead I would not battle it too hard and see how the race panned out.
I pushed hard, the car protesting on entry and exits, the gap was slowly increasing tenth by tenth but the GTR would always gain some back on the straights. The next lap the GTR makes a mistake on the exit of turn 4 and then bins it at the Schumacher Esses. A big relief but I have no idea if we’ve done enough to cover the medium starters.

I wasn’t sure about tyre wear etc and I’d heard a lot of people struggling with the softs on the new model. The tyres felt great to me with plenty of grip and even wear. I had 5ish seconds back to p2 now so I decided I would make the softs go as long as I could, backed my brake markers off a metre or 2 and not pushing overly hard on left handers.

I pit on lap 7 and come out in clean air. By the end of lap 12 everyone has pitted I had a comfortable lead. P2 initially made ground on me as I struggled with the front mediums but I managed to extend the lead with a strong finish.

A really surprising result following my disasters at Tokyo, I couldn’t have asked for a better race.


A couple of takeaways from the replay and post update I noticed:

• I have switched back to abs default and think it will be the way for me to go - more testing to be done.
• Soft tyres took 1.5 - 2 laps to warm up
• Medium tyres took 2.5 - 3 laps to fully warm up!! This was consistent across the grid, people didn’t start improving laptimes until their 4th lap on the tyre.
• My 7 soft laps were all faster than the following 8 Medium laps.
• In the M6 I had to run BB more to the rear on the medium tyres due to excessive wear on the front compared to the softs. Did I push them too hard when cold???
• I downloaded one of those sim racing dashboards for my phone which confirmed my tyre temperatures. I wouldn’t say it was necessary as you can feel through the car and see the effect via the lap time delta but it might be worth considering as an additional aid. There are some good videos from Tidgney and Womble on YouTube regarding this since the update where it seems tyre temperature has become a greater factor in wear and laptime.

 

[newmedia_dev]

people didn’t start improving laptimes until their 4th lap on the tyre.

That is so true, I set the fastest lap of the race on lap 7 on the softs after a slowish out lap.

And in my GT2 races was going purple on the mediums as late as lap 12.

But as you say, if you over cook the tires it takes a while if at all for them to come back to you. What I take from that is unlike before where recovering from a crash etc you'd donut out of it, it seems that just sensibly recovering keeps the temps down making it easier to get back up to pace


Edit:

And as the season draws to an end, considering 1 DNF (rage quit in a different parlance 🤣) I really can't complain given my level of ability and feel like I very much over achieved!

 

[Tazzy-91]

Checked my results there. I only did the last 2 rounds but I was happy enough.
1st Local Secondary
1st Local Area
41st Manufacturer
976 Regional

Forgot to take a picture but I am pretty happy with that after just 2 rounds. Will endeavour to do all the rounds in the future.

When are we likely to see this again? I have no idea as it's the first time ever trying it

 

[newmedia_dev]

When are we likely to see this again? I have no idea as it's the first time ever trying it

I hadn't turned my PS5 off since yesterday and when I went in to the manu screen it was replaced with a Nations event, so I am guessing that is what will be next. Probably to overlap with the live event happening shortly.

Edit: grammar

 

[Moose78]

A pretty good season overall, with a win at Tokyo and solid P6 finishes at Interlagos and Nurburgring. Autopolis was a bit of a mess, but I suppose that happens.

Driving for Citreon was an adventure, especially after the physics update. Prior to the update, it felt like a decent car. It was pretty good at Interlagos and fantastic at Tokyo. I really struggled with it after the update, though. I'm not sure how much of that was the car and how much was me, but it was a real challenge to get good performance out of it for the last two races. Though it's not shown in the screenshot, I placed 5th (out of 10) for the manufacturer in North America. I'm pretty pleased with that.

The mid-season physics change and BoP update felt hugely disruptive. It was just painful to watch Omega at Autopolis, for example, in the Mitsubishi. That car has been nerfed so hard. He just had no chance at all. It seemed wildly unfair to change the characteristics of the cars part-way through the season when drivers were already locked into their choices.

Looking ahead to next season, I will be facing a somewhat miserable choice between Hyundai and Suzuki -- those are the only two manufacturers that no GT1 drivers in Canada picked this season and I haven't already driven. Volkswagen was unpicked, too, but I've already done a season with them. I can only hope one of them received a huge buff in the update.

 

[MIE1992]

 

[Fezzik]

Didn’t make the VW GT2 podium

 

[Talon16]

Despite the poor showing of a race last night, that P14 netted me an extra 1.2mil so it was worth it!

Overall I give this season a 2/10. Four races is not enough.

Race 1) At least this race had some a strategy with the multiple tire compounds necessary. But Interlagos, again. Lame! 2/10

Race 2) Best race of the season. PD used a track that is rarely used within anything sport mode, and made it damp enough (they even went back and made it more damp to spoil any RH no pit strats) to require IM tires. Good strat here as well, as to when to pit risking certain death for a few more tenths of lap time. 9/10

*Insert new physics and tire models here. Big kick in the stones from PD to do this half way through a season. -5

Race 3) 10 lap sprint where some cars could make it fine on RS tires and some couldn't. My car(s), couldn't. Thanks, Kaz. 0/10

Race 4) See Race 1 (but replace Interlagos with Nurb GP). 2/10

Last I looked (just after the 20:00 race) my Nurb TT time was 252 in the world. Anything under 500 I make a mental note of and anything under 250 I am pretty happy with.

Hoping y'all had fun. Already looking forward to the next Manu.