Disaster week continues. Sport Mode is a farce.
Decided to try Race C today. It was a very bad idea.
For those of you who love Race C... why?
Since I was demoted to B/A yesterday for the crime of being hit by others, it's decided the only correct match to make is to put me with 3 other B/A drivers starting 1-3, the rest a mix of a few C/S and mostly D/S drivers, because that makes perfect sense for a fair and balanced race.
Race 1: Everyone around me at the start is DR C or D. Both cars on the row in front of me false start, but don't ghost immediately meaning I have to avoid them. Somehow get an SR down for not touching them or anyone else. Mystery.
And so it goes on. I get tapped from behind, I get SR down. Someone brake checks, messes up their line without any contact or hits my side when I'm alongside, I get SR down. Every single time I breathe, I get an SR down. I somehow only lose a few SR despite this, probably because my actual driving was cleaner than the sheets at a 5-star hotel.
Race 2: Even worse. Almost all C/S and D/S drivers, I'm driving as carefully as I can, it's a nightmare trying to avoid the bizarre lines and random braking points of the people ahead, who all move chaotically and unpredictably making it impossible to pass safely, so I don't. Lap 5, the D/S driver behind me slipstreams on the long flowing curve near the end of the lap, taps my rear into the slightly sharper left halfway round and then he runs a wide. I get a 1s penalty for causing a collision, despite never lifting off the accelerator and contributing in literally no way to the incident. He comes back onto the track after I have been given the penalty and uses me as his brakes into the chicane, and shock horror I get an SR down and a messed up and slow entry to the pit straight. Final lap, in the S section, a silver car ahead going slower screws up and runs wide, I'm at full speed and the door is so wide open it's practically an airport runway. He hits the outside curb and somehow snaps back across the track towards me while trying to straighten out. Slams into the side of me when he becomes parallel, hitting door to door. I manage to hold it on the inside line putting just 2 wheels on the grass, while he once again spears off to the outside and onto the sand. I get a 3s penalty for 'forcing an opponent off the track'.
Demoted to SR B, lost SR 28 in that one race.
So yes, Sport Mode has decided it will do its usual when you stray below SR 90, whatever it takes to make/force my SR as low as possible by only matching me with drivers who are rated extremely low (can't maintain a line, brake in the right places, or pass without contact), all getting big blue S rises at the end of the races while my SR collapses like Jenga in an earthquake. I'm back to B/B, which I always hate because it's impossible to get a clean race no matter how hard I try.
The decent clean race streak I'd built up over the last week in B/S that got cut short yesterday feels like a very distant memory.
Why couldn't it match me with other DR B drivers at all? Why has it decided based on that terrible day yesterday that I am poisoned fruit and must be sent to death? This game is zero fun in the lower DR/SR leagues. It's stressful being unable to predict the movements of others and be at the mercy of them for any incident, and then be punished for it.
Sidenote: The Roadster TC's performance is wildly uneven between quali and race. Steering acts completely differently on the same settings between the two on fresh tyres, and mine somehow lacks acceleration or the ability to slipstream others. My lap times in race (accounting for other drivers) are significantly worse than my quali lap, and there is no good reason why that should be the case. It's the same issue my Gr3 Supra suffers from between quali and race - it just won't steer or grip the same way in quali and race.
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