For a change

Last night decided to swap to Assetto Corsa (on PS4) for a change. Did some practice laps on SPA in the Nissan then decided to look for an online lobby and see how well I could do.

AC has more feel with the force feedback, you get a better idea of what the car is doing.

And then...

After the disappointing pole and being spun before the end of lap 1, I spent a couple of hours trying to improve my lap time at SPA, oddly enough I did not really improve more than a tenth or two.

At least I was able to complete laps without as many errors, so decided to try online again (had little to loose as my DR was plummeting).

First race, not great, spun when in 4th and ended up 10th. Next race started 2nd, ended 2nd... Next race pole and managed to get my first win!

Now on the verge of 'C' again (66 points short), I wonder if I can stay in 'C' for more than a few days?

 

R.A.G.E Quit....

So after dragging myself back to 'C' it was not long before I was bounced down to 'D' again... almost back to 'C' with last weeks races, but now it's a new week...

After not a great Race B (3 laps SPA in GR3), I did some more qualification laps and with my drop in DR ended up in pole for the next race...

All well until the final chicane.. incoming Brazilian Missile (how unusual!)... what I should have done was not turn in and he would have "exit stage left"... but I didn't expect the send...  Sitting facing the wrong way, with only 3 laps... "outta here" I went...

And down we go again!!!

Ok, so it's just a game...

I'm still a Sim racing newbie / novice, but I am trying to treat other "drivers" with the respect I would like to receive. I am making mistakes where I will miss my braking or run wide (sometimes hitting others, but not intentionally).

What is difficult to ignore is the blatant ramming if you get past them (even if its clean), I was hoping that the quality of sportsmanship would improve as I moved up the driver rankings, but I have yet to see much evidence of this. Even watching some of the YouTubers who are A and A+ level drivers, still have many incidents of "SimRage" or Overtake Revenge. 

So what is the solution? 

The easiest is to only compete with people you respect, but that requires someone to arrange / organize and have enough people to be available at the time you want to race.

The daily races are very convenient, within 20-30 mins you can join a race with others online, but obviously you have no control over how they behave. GT Sport has a penalty and driver rating system as well as a matching scheme to select players. The issue is that the GT Sport system is not very good at being able to determine the correct blame, it is not a simple task to decide who is actually to blame and you can argue that it's the same for everyone. It does not make it easier to accept a penalty when you have been rammed off track and get a 3 second penalty for hitting the barriers.

So given the penalties don't work and many players don't care about their DR or SR, if they are quick they can just set up a new Playstation ID and get back to C level quite quickly. Some of the YouTubers say that can 

go from E to A in just a few hours (or a day / two).

FIA Race at Laguna Seca

I was hoping for good results, given I know the track quite well. But I was hampered a tiny bit by the Aston not really being the best fit for this track, but what really set me back was having to qualify on hard tires! It happened to me twice, someone on Reddit suggests that you have to be careful and change the front tires first, hoping that is what it was.

So had a nightmare qualification and ended up 18th from 19 on the grid... well, lets just see what we can do with strategy... turn down the engine and extend the hard tires to save fuel...  

So at lap 4 I was 13th and headed for the pits with 70 liters of Fuel left, on with the mediums and 19 liters of fuel, away we go, back in 19th (last place)...

By lap 10 I am up to 9th place by running some consistent 1:32 / 1:33 laps, with this being a 15 lap race I wanted to try and get some benefit from the softs without having to try and save them, so into the pits we go... (as we had turned up the engine we had 40 liters of fuel left)

On with the soft tires and a splash of fuel (5 liters) away we go, rejoining in 14th place, what can we do from here to the end of the race?

Final lap, in 8th place battling with a Mustang and Ferrari, too much power with an inside wheel on the paint.... S P I N... around we go, managed to recover, only loosing a couple of seconds, over the line in 9th (as the Mustang overshot the last bend), promoted to 5th due to penalties for others (not using all tire types = 60 second penalty!). 

That was a good result for me, especially coming from the back of the grid. 8 FIA Points for that race.

 

Another FIA Race, what could possibly go wrong?

Well it was at the Dragon Trail (Seaside) track, one I know quite well, some hope... Well qualified 4th :-) but then the race started...

All was good, sitting around top 10, then a little tap from behind... "hello wall" moment followed by the usual panic to try and get going (which is painfully slow and tricky)...

During the rest of the race, not that many incidents really, I managed to spin (too much throttle on the curb stones) and another tap from behind (not blatant for a change, more racing incidents).

Ended up 9th which from last was better than I expected.



Last race of the weekend, did Race C - 15 laps, good qualification and by end of the first 3 laps, was 4th and closing in on 3rd fast... ooops too fast, missed my braking point by 100 yards!!! Did recover from the 18th but was annoyed as it was my own fault and it was going so well...

The only way is up...

Well being back at 1 point on my D grade Driver Rating, it can only get better...

We not doing well with the pedals, some research on the net, asking on a FB forum, still nothing conclusive on how to setup and "tune" the load cell pedals... swapped the springs and calibrated to about 40% force and gave it a try. My theory was that if I can max out the pedal then GT Sport won't recalibrate if I press any harder (as it will already be at 100% for the game)...
It seems to have worked, I can now apply full braking and trail brake into corners... Now to improve my driving...