Haha, that was great. I figured the 23:50 race wouldn't be saved due to the maintenance starting mid race so time to blow of some steam. One driver 2 cars ahead of me screwed up T1, hitting 2 cars, one spinning out back into my path causing me to drop to last (not qualifying doesn't guarantee last place). Then he brake checks me in the mountainous part, braking hard for a corner you don't have to brake at all for. So that was the first to drive off the road.
Then the classic dirty blocker on the downhill straight, gave him a good send off as well. I had to serve the penalty so I could finish the race and he ended up in front of me again. I followed him close and clean for the next lap and initiated the same pass on the downhill straight again. What do you know, it worked, this time he picked a side and let me pass. Didn't punt me either. What the penalty system can't fix, players can.
At the end I had a red C, online save failed
OK a bit of a rant here. Feel free to skip to the next post if you feel the need for rainbows and unicorns.
I'm fed up with these folks that are lagging. You can't predict where they will be, and when you have contact they blame you for it. I just spent 2 laps trying to dodge the car in front of me whilst avoiding getting hit by the one behind. Many many times these people have yellow bars during warm-up, then magically the race starts and poof, one red bar or occasionally 0 bars. I mean, please, at least let us quit in the first 10 or 15 seconds without taking a ratings hit. I dunno, maybe it's me. 90% of the races I join end up with one or three people with bad connections.
And for sure they aren't members of any forum, or they'd know about lagging.
OK thanks for reading, not sure I feel better yet.
I've not been qualifying for over a week now and there are always one or more laggy cars while climbing up the field. Some are impossible to pass as they stall mid corner so you can never get a better corner exit, and you're always unsure where they actually are in the corner. Behind you is no good either, I had one impatient one today on Bathurst. I was following an uncertain slowish driver at the top of the hill and the laggy car behind chose to make a daring overtake, slamming his car right in front of me braking. Even superhuman reflexes couldn't have avoided a collision. It was only thanks to lag that he ended up in front of me instead of side swiping me. How to avoid cars that do not obey the laws of physics.
The jaggy ones in the corners are the worst though. The only hope you have is that their quantum car settles down a bit on the straight and you can draft pass. 'Luckily' they usually cause accidents with other cars. If you keep your distance you can pass them while the 2 cars ahead are ghost recovering.
Bathurst 4 laps without qualifying was a bit short to do well. My best finish was 3rd place, up 7 places with a lot of people not qualifying. Best overtakes was 9 with a 7th place finish. Avoiding the other cars went pretty well, plenty clean contact free races, however the game only remembers your last few races and luck will eventually run out on Bathurst. The last couple races (excluding that one at the top of my post) dragged my SR down to the low 80s.
The first one had someone spinning out right in front of me, 3 sec penalty for me and another car caught in his mess, nothing for the one that caused the accident. Then a car driving into me while I'm ahead on the inside practically scraping the inside wall never leaving it, 3 sec. I guess he was a lower DR than me as I did everything right, still got SR down, he got away free. The game should have a blue flag warning, give way to lower DR drivers....
Next, cars hitting the wall in front of me, 4 sec penalty even though I'm keeping 3 car lengths distance, still can't avoid a sudden stop bounce. I'm not sure what PD is thinking, bouncing off the walls is fine, bouncing into another car, other car is at fault. I guess the only solution is to steer yourself into the wall asap when you see the car in front messing up. However lag doesn't help to sort out what's a real wall hit and what just looks like a nice fireworks display from a laggy car scraping along the walls. It's so inconsistent, sometimes cars don't lose any speed in a wall scrape, other times its like they suddenly drove into... a wall.
Oh well, after the maintenance, everything will be fixed!