Gran Turismo Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup Announced for 2024 Season

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Well... that was an eventful race.

I joined the 5PM (UK) slot, and i was door 15, and i qualified P12 and i finished P6 with a damaged car.

I used the Mazda for this race, and the race never got off to a good start because at T12 on lap 1, someone pushed the rear of my car and spun me around, so now i was in last, but thankfully the only BRZ in the race had a spin at the final corner, so that was 1 place gained. I slowly caught up to the back of the pack after a couple laps and thankfully they made mistakes and forced each other to make errors, so i gained a couple of more places, plus someone in front pitted, so was now in P9.

I dived into the pits at the end of lap 12, and i exited behind a fellow Mazda driver. We slowly caught up to the back of a pack of NSX's and on lap 19, we were all together, and i remember thinking to my self that i would probably get unlucky and get damage somehow. Lo and behold, i get wiped out at the end of lap 19 just after the final corner. 2 NSX's collided and that caused 1 of the NSX's to go into the Mazda in front of me, and that caused the Mazda to spear into me and 4 of us were in the barrier. I looked back at the replay and the reason this accident happened was because one of the NSX's brake checked the other.

Now i had suspension damage on both of my front wheels and i had front aero damage. Somehow i gained 2 or 3 positions from that crash so i decided to carry on. I gained another position a couple of seconds later because another NSX clipped the kerb at T1 and spun out. Thankfully i had a big enough gap behind me which allowed me to hold on to P6. Annoyingly there was a potential P4 or maybe even P3 on for me if i had avoided that pile up.

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I ran the first GT1 slot in North America. I was in door #5 of an all A/S lobby with 181 points up for grabs, driving the Mazda. I needed to finish P4 or better to improve my overall score.

Qualifying was a mess. I got held up behind two drivers who were battling each other. I dropped out after posting a time for my first hot lap. It was a disappointing 1:41.986, which landed me in Q14 - dead last on the grid. Not that it mattered much. Even if I'd have matched my best lap in Free Practice, I'd still have only come out in Q10. It seems I just really suck at Fuji.

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The nice thing about starting last is that you don't have to worry about anybody ramming you from behind on turn 1.

I spent most of the race buzzing around the back of a swarm of Mazdas, just barely fast enough to keep up, but not to challenge anyone.

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As the race went on, I picked up spots from cars that went off, or quit, or were damaged. By the end, I found myself in P8 without having done anything besides keeping the car on the track.

That's about as good as I could have expected, being so slow here. At least the DR drop wasn't too bad.
 
It is a pity that there is only a small interest in this series. As a C/S driver I would assume that I am part of the largest group of players. The qualifying at noon in Europe showed a wide spread of speed among the participants and gave me a pole position with a gap of 0.4 seconds. That should not be overrated AS someone can easily ruin your qualifying Run in this format.

So I was a bit nervous about turn 1 but there came no other arrow on my radar and soon I was 2 seconds ahead. In the end I saw no other player during 15 laps and got an easy win and also the fastest lap of the race.

I am bit sad that I got kicked out of the lobby right after crossing the finish line. That robbed my screenshot of honour with pole position, fastest lap and win - something that I don't achieve often...
 
Now that the GR GT Cup is wrapped up, the live event finalists are as follows:

EMEA
J. Serrano
B. Beauvois (R8G_Tsutsu)
D. Alunni (OP_ALU)
A. Lopez
P. Urra
M. Busnelli
C. Lopez
A. Tapai
B. Hencsei (instead of Antonio Santos due to age)

North America
T. Jeffrey (SV-RushRacing)
R. Haywood
Windfire1010

Central/South Americas
I. Fraga
L. Bonelli
R. Sternberg

Asia
BSCOMP+ Ryun
TakuAn
Okasana
R. Kobayashi (instead of K. Ishino/Speedy_ki0409 due to age, I was told)

Oceania
G. Barbara
J. Struik

The two Southeast Asian (TGR GT Cup Asia) and one Middle East (TGR MENA Esports Cup) spots are still TBD, with Southeast Asian finals in September October and Middle Eastern finals in October.
 
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This series was really good to me:
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Two wins -- Le Mans in the GR010 and Grand Valley in the Yaris -- and a 2nd at Catalunya in the SF23 car. As far as results go, this was my best sports mode event yet.

The races at Le Mans and Catalunya were the most fun for me. I feel like I learned a lot about driving in the rain at the Le Mans race. I really enjoyed working through the strategy options for Catalunya, too.

The other races were kinda ho-hum to me. I did well with the Yaris, but I didn't find that combo to be all that interesting. I'm not that great at Nurburgring GP or Fuji, so they felt like a bit of a slog. The Prius race at Laguna Seca was a complete disaster.

Still I had a fun time doing the races, and enjoyed the series overall.
 
So far after doing 6/7 rounds in the season, I do kinda regret not choosing anything but the BRZ for the last round. But at least I got 14 weeks worth of gold time trial money, with extras added. Did I try joining the local GT Cup? Yes, but by my own mistake I didn't.

Long story short, I won a "campus tour" event at a uni. But I didn't read that those who are participating said "campus tour" can't get a spot if they have already qualified the previous years tournament. Because I read that when it was too late, I didn't join the public qualifiers lol. Heck, I even wasted time sending an email to them about it, and messaged DannyR of all people about my blind concern...

On the bright side, I did find that Porsche E-Sports competition later on and might be more interested in that if it comes next year...
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Must’ve collected just a bit below 2.5m credits today from my results. My goal for next year is to be eligible for GT1 class, so I can earn potentially far more credits. I wonder if the grand finals later this year will feature a special all-new car? Could the rumored new Celica and MR2 models be coming, too? Heck, I’d even be fine with a Lexus/Toyota model that’s a bit older but never the less new to GT7, like the Toyota TS010 from the Group C era, or the road-going version of the Lexus SC430.
 
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Must’ve collected just a bit below 2.5m credits today from my results. My goal for next year is to be eligible for GT1 class, so I can earn potentially far more credits. I wonder if the grand finals later this year will feature a special all-new car? Could the rumored new Celica and MR2 models be coming, too? Heck, I’d even be fine with a Lexus/Toyota model that’s a bit older but never the less new to GT7, like the Toyota TS010 from the Group C era, or the road-going version of the Lexus SC430.
No TGR GT Cup Grand Finals ever featured an all-new car, though I hold my dibs for the GR Supra GT500 if they do. (That requires they also add the Z and FL5 GT500 too.)
 
It is a pity that there is only a small interest in this series. As a C/S driver I would assume that I am part of the largest group of players.
It is a shame, I went all in on this last year doing every round and came out with great results, but this year there has been more people without racing etiquette and I just didn't have the time to put in to doing more than one slot if things took a turn because of that.

I did the first two rounds this year and that was it, they were fun but wasn't worth the time to do any more.

I tried to improve my driver rating in daily races but also for the same reason have ended up with it going down instead.

someone pushed the rear of my car and spun me around

I looked back at the replay and the reason this accident happened was because one of the NSX's brake checked the other.
This sums it up perfectly, you can't have a good battle, like in BTCC scrubbing wing mirrors and pushing bumpers, because you can't predict what sort of stunt the other driver will pull as it is just a game to some and not IRL where I would certainly hope they would never think of brake checking someone on a track 😬

It's a shame as last year was great, although even then I ended up doing more than one race of each round too.
 
Now that the GR GT Cup is wrapped up, the live event finalists are as follows:

EMEA
J. Serrano
B. Beauvois (R8G_Tsutsu)
D. Alunni (OP_ALU)
A. Lopez
P. Urra
M. Busnelli
C. Lopez
A. Tapai
B. Hencsei (instead of Antonio Santos due to age)

North America
T. Jeffrey (SV-RushRacing)
R. Haywood
Windfire1010

Central/South Americas
I. Fraga
L. Bonelli
R. Sternberg

Asia
BSCOMP+ Ryun
TakuAn
Okasana
R. Kobayashi (instead of K. Ishino/Speedy_ki0409 due to age, I was told)

Oceania
G. Barbara
J. Struik

The two Southeast Asian (TGR GT Cup Asia) and one Middle East (TGR MENA Esports Cup) spots are still TBD, with Southeast Asian finals in September October and Middle Eastern finals in October.
Some correction: The date for the Southeast Asian finals will be on October 12-13. For reference, the TGR MENA Esports Cup finals will be on October 17-19, with races streamed on tape delay the following week (October 24-26).
 
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(Once passing through this entrance, tags will be given out past the registration.)

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(The guy in 1st place was the youngest countrymen in the event, he too had brought a camera like I did and expressed our dismay for the GR Yaris in general.)

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(I wanted to find a bottle, but couldn't and didn't buy any of the merch because merch prices.)

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(The cash prize was alone enough to start racing in the local races at Sepang lol.)
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(The GR Yaris only proved to be a fun addition when it's not tarmac.)

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(Did I mention how they mentioned how the 4WD-system saved most of the near crashes in this race?)

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(Less than a second after this shot, an incident happened.)

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(I wondered if whenever I took pics in this race, someone was going to spin out.)

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(The whole defense battle between M. PRATAMA and I. SUJI was a blessing for the top 3 as they were left alone.)

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(Five years went by for this moment to come through.)

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(Malaysia was placed 2nd in the Country Championship behind Indonesia, and ahead of Thailand.)

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(For the first time, a Malaysian driver will be in the TGR GT Cup Finals with T. AIMAN!)

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When the championship was over as well as the broadcast, there was a catering for dinner, while a DJ session played at the same time.

I'll be honest, this whole trip was a weird one because most of the people I've interacted with (mostly some of the racers who had done an not-broadcasted exhibition round a day before) did not realize that I was the guy that was sort-of on the leaderboards when it comes to online championships sometimes.

But did I try to get into their circle with my cold feet? Other than a few small talks, absolutely not :embarrassed:.
 
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