After 60 attempts [full laps] with the Mazda Touring car & 15 attempts [full laps] with the Toyota Celica I'm still 0.7%-0.8% from getting gold, & it's extremely unlikely that I improve my times.
Road car on sports tyres, that's my bread and butter.
This car is quite the challenge to get right, particularly around such a technical track as Suzuka. The rear end is incredibly loose under braking which makes T1 in particular a bit sketchy, but once you understand how to control it, you can use the looseness to help point the car at corner exit. Being AWD also helps pull you out of any slides without too much trouble.
There's another 2 tenths to find in the optimum here, but I'll leave that for now. Got too nervous through the final 2 sectors because I could see I was up by 2 tenths on a .592. Missed my braking point for the hairpin, slightly slow through Spoon and then didn't take the final chicane optimally.
Happy to be in the top 100 for the second time this year.
Onto the MX-5 at Road Atlanta, which I'm happy to see is at sunset instead of midday again.
