GT Academy 2014’s final qualifier, featuring RJN’s NISMO GT-R GT3 car at the always challenging Spa Francorchamps circuit, is one of the toughest in the competition’s history, and time is running out if you want to make the cut for regional finals.
If you’re having trouble, check out this excellent video guide created by GTPlanet user Tidgney.
It includes a comprehensive turn-by-turn analysis of Spa, with in-depth discussions on racing line and gear selection.
Tidgney is more than qualified to give out advice: as of writing, he holds the fastest time in the UK, and was a Race Camp finalist in last year’s GT Academy.
Visit his discussion topic for more tips or to ask your own questions, and be sure to check out the rest of our GT Academy forum which will be buzzing throughout the rest of Round 4. Don’t forget – it all ends on Monday, June 16, 2014 at 06:59 GMT/UTC (convert to local time).
Thanks to Tidgney for sharing this great resource, and good luck to all GTPlanet members!
See more articles on GT Academy 2014 and GT6 Video.
Thank you tigney for you taking time to help other people who don’t understand the physics of gran turismo. without you it would always be the same people in the top 250. I ranked 92 (USA) a lot better than previous gt academy tryouts. cant wait for next year=]
I mean.. there is thorough, and then there is ‘love-to-hear-myself-talk’ verbal diarrhea. The info was great, but do you really need to stretch the notion of “Corners’ names are French, sorry if I mis-pronounced them’ into a 45s ramble? The whole video could’ve been 10min shorter.
I have cut off over 4s from my time after watching this video :) Thank you for your help, Tidgney!
However… It was not enough for gold and I have had no time for more training… :( I know where to gain another time and how, but I am not able to manage it :(
Great vid…thanks for sharing that.
Round 4 was fun :)
Yes! I’ve done it. Down to 2:16.6xx. Enough to be the 250th of Spain. Thank you very much @tidgney for sharing your wisdom. I’ve shaved a few tenths because of some of your advise.
Will try some more after viewing the tips video, thanks for the advice.
Excellent video tidgney!! Managed to take a second off my time, sill stuck at 2.19.XXX, determined to get top 500 in uk. The final chicane is a killer, I can feel im bleeding time there. For some reason I’m a lot slower through it on my wheel than on a controller. Anyone else finding that?
I’m not even gonna try… :P
To those who say gold is too hard in this event:
THIS IS NOT AN EVERY WEEK TYPE EVENT! THIS ONE IS SPECIAL AND MEANT TO FIND THE BEST! NOT EVERYONE DESERVES TO GET GOLD ON EVERY EVENT!
If you can’t get gold on this event, tell yourself “self, I’m just not that good.” Instead of telling all the rest of us it’s too hard and whining for someone to turn down the difficulty.
Perhaps they shouldn’t allow driver aids in these events. I’ve been doing them all without anything on, I even have ABS off because I don’t enjoy driving with it on.
After about 3 hours of trying on and off with a DS3 controller I managed it although we can’t adjust the car setup I found by changing the steering sensitivity to 5 really helped with maintaining speed in the corners maybe worth a try guys ;)
PD must alter the goal times into something easier so we can get gold easier.
Why? If you are driving right, gold is not that hard to get (even on gamepad).
REMOVE THE STUPID CONES~!!!!!!
I give up. The video doesn’t help me much. The cones get in the way and the time to meet is unrealistic.
One again spare a thought for casual players!
GT Academy is not for casual players… If you are driving right, gold is not that hard to get (even on gamepad).
Great guide but yea it does expose the physics… I have a thesis at the moment that GT6 Sports Soft tires behave the closest to real life slicks, I hardly ever use sports hard on my road cars. Personally I stick to road tires medium and soft depending on the car. Reason being I got a 7:17 in a stock F430 scuda’ round green hell on sports hard..it just felt so fake when I compared to the real life version something like 7:37. I have yet to attempt that same lap with those tires but should be close.
so far in the real world the fastest GT3 car around spa is a Mclaren I think it did 2:23 or something
BMW Z4 GT3 @ 2012 24hours of Spa did a 2.19:758 on a dry track during the race.
Who cares, got gold anyway
Who cares?
The same could be said of your pointless, selfish comment.
The effort Tidgney puts into his videos is greatly appreciated by many.
+1 (to Aussie_HSV)
Great guide. Well explained and easy to understand even for a less than average English speaker like me. I’m stuck at 2:17.6xx worth to be amongst the top 500 of Spain. I wish I could get down to 2:16 with your guide. The only thing I need is more free time to give it a try.
Cheers guys, glad it’s helping everyone out! Remember any questions fire away as I’m more than happy to help :)!
Get rid of the stupid cones!!!!!!
GT physics-the best way to kill you self in real life :D
I had a lot of fun on this, my controller was holding me back as I haven’t connected my wheel in a while. There are many places in sector 2 and 3 to shorten your times, thing about this car is it’s very rewarding if you get on throttle correctly as the car is incredibly stable. Gearing is another massive factor as the wrong gear can eat up tenths of seconds of acceleration time. Great thing is this cars’ powerful brakes they can stop you in a hurry.
My question, why is it no one uses the driving line? I’m sorry but that is a helpful tool because this game does not give you enough depth and no peripheral vision to aid in selecting stopping distances. I always use the brake points to judge about where I will brake if I brake at all. I wish all the seasonals with race cars were as delicious as this, while it’s still a game it does force you to use techniques like late braking, trail braking and coaxing rotation into your car.
One thing this GT Academy trial did was make me want more GT3 cars, they feel so much more pliable than the Super GT cars and not invincible like the LMP cars. I’d love to have a bunch more of these cars in the game. This is a great breakdown video, lots of good tips. Make sure you have an authentic DS3 controller, else like I found out cheap DS3’s that are officially licensed products but have weaker rumble and bad sensitivity(over sensitivity). PD do yourselves a favor and put out more seasonals in the same vein, and how about adding some elements like at night or rain. I thoroughly enjoy this.
Driving line is a little bit confusing in some places – there is no way how to reach best times with it turned on.
Excellent work as always. Tidgney, we all love you.
Thank you Tidgney, you do great work for this community and it’s much appreciated!
Great video and also very informative.
I’m very glad i finally won gold and the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 Team RJN after 18 hours in driving time, with standard Dual Shock 3 Controller, although this was before i knew about this video.
My time was long on 2:21.684 (for approximatley 12 hours) then i was able to get 2:21.3xx and finally, today i got my time down to 2:20.989
So i have now gold,silver,silver,gold in GT Academy 2014 :)
Great video but once again illustrates the flaw in GT6 physics, it’s all about manipulating the car into a slide to get it pointing the right way. Wouldn’t work in real life but it’s the fastest way in GT.
Interesting video, but that transmission would be completely screwed, and the engine was pretty tortured itself. If you’re interested in time and nothing else fine, good luck to you. If you want to comfortably gold while driving as if you are driving a real car, it’s still pretty easy, but allot more satisfying. There is a reason that the gold time allows for realistic driving and isn’t below 2.18 by default.
Actually it works in real life for pros, i.e. the F1 cars are always having just a little bit of oversteer when entering the corner to make car turn. But it’s so little that you normaly wouldn’t notice it except with the right camera at right angle.
@Samus you are completely right.
I did get my lap (2:16.760) without shenanigans… But, you are right about it, too. If the fastest guys hadn’t been sliding more than I was, the time gap would be smaller. I’m 2.7 behind the fastest guys – the result of not sliding much is greatly apparent in that I used the same racing line, but couldn’t achieve the same speeds.
Very nice! He always puts together nice videos!
Informative videos as well… Thanks to him, I found out that my braking points were terrible and used his well spoken hints and tips throughout all 4 rounds of GT Academy. All in all, I’ve improved my times in every round after watching, listening and learning from him and his videos.
Just another one of the great community members here on GTP, and will always get my thumbs up and my thanks for the time he spent and for sharing his insights!
Cheers
+1 on the informative videos…matching it has been tough though!
My own progression and learned knowledge of the course saw me hit 2:19.661 the first night, 2:18.983 the second night and on the third night of play I was against the wall with a 2:18.0xx forever…until I pulled a lap out of left field and logged my current 2:17.445. And here I sit, frustrated as I watch my time teeter on the brink of dropping out of the top 250, that I can’t get into the 2:17s again. Even a red lap. It was then that I turned to Google and found another of Tidgney’s video exploits (having used them in the past when stuck). My 2:17 lap was clean, wheels inline and well in control. Trying to adopt this slightly out of control approach has in some ways messed up my progression, though helped in specific areas. Turn 7 has improved in addition to 11 and 12. I still manage to throw things away at times in 3/4/5, 8, 18 and 20 after having been in the blue. The rage when I drop a donut coming out of 20…ARGH!
There is little chance of breaking into the top 100 but I have a personal goal of touching 2:16.xxx. The clock is ticking but I’m stubborn and will keep at it each night. DFGT user with a Wheel Stand Pro, ABS on 1, everything else off.
Not too bothered about improving my time, lol. I’m happy with a meagre 2:20:3. As always, I just did it for the cash… :D
You’re lucky, my best time is 2:25:xx :( And I want the car
SSQES: My best was 2:21:8xx :(