Gran Turismo World Series 2024 Thread

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So, what was good and what was bad about this season?

The good:

1) No difference between GT1 and GT2/3 race lengths

I’ve gone on in the past about how GT2 and 3 runners like an enduro now and then just as much as their GT1 counterparts, and I was very glad to see that all leagues had the same race length this time around. Admittedly, there weren’t any races that could really be called “endurance” here – NC Rd1 was the nearest, and that only came in at about 45 minutes – but I’ve never really seen the issue with giving everyone the same length – I don’t think GT2/3 drivers are any more or less likely to quit out than GT1 runners, and I don’t think the races take much longer in the lower leagues – from lap times I was seeing a mid-B race in NC Rd1 at Dragons Trail Seaside was about a minute or so longer than an all-A+ race would be.

2) Races in Nations’ Cup using cars other than Gr3 and Gr4

It was nice to see something different in use for Nations cup, away from Gr3 and Gr4 cars – that’s what MC is for – even though none of the cars used were new to Nations’ with them all having at least one outing in the last 12 months. Personally the only thing I would have changed was ditching Gr3 from Rd4 and replacing it with a Kei-car race (like the Cappuccinos at Road Atlanta or the JImnys at Lake Louise), but I might be biased because I always do well at those :) . I know that the car choices might have put people off and that’s maybe why Round 4 was a Daily C style of a race, to get more people interested in the series, but I suppose I like NC being a bit different.

3) Saturday-only timetable

In the past I’ve been an apologist for the Wednesday-Saturday cycle, that’s because I can generally arrange things so I can race on a Wednesday if given a bit of notice, so it gives me a jump on the field a bit – but at the moment I’m too busy to prepare properly for more than one race a week so the schedule used here was a lot more comfortable. It’s probably too much to ask for the “proper” Online GTWS season to go to one-a-week as there are simply too many races to squeeze in, but if more Exhibitions could be run to this timetable that’d be great.

4) Strategy

I liked that most races had a strategic element to them, whether that be through changing track conditions (Tokyo) or when to pit for tyres, or even what tyres to use for a no-stop (Autopolis). A straight sprint (Eiger Nordwald) is good now and again, but I do like to see strategy rounds most of the time.

The Bad:

1) Still no GT1 races for morning racers

I do understand why GT1 has only 3 slots per day, due to the need to corral a limited player base into fewer slots to ensure a reasonable turnout in each slot, but if you are only having races on a Saturday, why concentrate them all in the late afternoon / early evening? To me that actually limits your player base further – many people are unavailable Saturday afternoon or evening, perhaps socialising, shopping, spending time with family, out watching live sport, being used as a free taxi service by their kids etc – so perhaps having one slot late morning or lunch, one slot afternoon (same time as current slot 1) and one in the evening (same time as current slot 3, or 1 hour later) would open the series up to more players who can get into A but not race GT1 (myself included – I do have accounts in A but limited opportunities to race GT1). I will admit this has downsides – It would be really annoying to get hit at T1, have a race ruined by heavy damage then have to wait 4 hours for the next slot, so I will understand people who would object strongly to this – but maybe in that case an additional morning slot might be considered in the future.

2) Gr4 Missing In Action

One side-effect of all leagues having GT1 rules (with the exception of damage and tyre wear in qualifying) is that Group 4 was absent from the schedule, which was a shame as I like a bit of mildly-modified racing. I understand that the Gr4 BoP needs a kick up the backside at present – but that seems to be the case with Gr3 post-1.49, so not much difference there now really. Having a “group” race in NC was an opportunity to add a bit of Gr4 into the schedule, but for whatever reason Gr3 was chosen instead.

3)The start at Monza

Excuse me while I put on my best AVGN shirt for this one – The most notorious T1 in Formula One, perhaps in all of racing. A corner where shenanigans can get so bad in real life that it directly contributed to a high-profile single-seater race being abandoned and the Clerk of the Course dragging the entire field into his office for a telling-off. And they designed an on-line race there to have a massed grid start a few hundred yards before this corner – all together now – “What were they thinking?”

(Apologies to James Rolfe, who is is borrowing my hairline these days, so it seems only fair that I borrow his lines.)

In all seriousness, if I could think of a scenario in GT7 online racing where I wouldn’t use a grid start, this car-track combo would be close to the top of the list. I can think of very few other race design choices that could cause me to gain 7 positions in one corner and I’d still think it was utter rubbish. And this was in GT2 – if I’d raced it in GT1 I think I’d definitely have used the strat of simply pulling over before T1 and only proceeding through the corner once the rest had gone through, then simply picking up many places by driving past slow damaged cars and passing all those who had to pit after L1 to fix damage. I’d have been practising the 1S-19M in Custom Race to get experience with running RM for 19 laps, that’s for sure. If there was a real need to add a grid start to this NC, then Watkins’ Glen would have been far better, even Dragons Trail wouldn’t have been as bad (chicane isn’t quite as tight and the run to it is much longer).

The Others (General Observations):

I believe that the new tyre wear model introduced in 1.49 is designed to make trye management and strategy a much larger part of the game. Tyres drop off sooner in the wear bar as well as wearing faster, and whereas before it was possible to run round for a lap on a fully red tyre – you’d be a fair bit slower but could do it, forget that now – in a lobby practice run for the NC round at Watkins’ Glen which was set up to mirror the real race as closely as possible – I know because I set up the lobby using GT-Engine as a guide – I managed to catch up a 17 second deficit on an A+ driver in 2 laps (18 and 19), cross the line to start the last lap level with them then go on to win by twelve seconds. Unfortunately, my tyre management skills are pants in terms of driving style – at the moment I’m resorting to using a harder tyre for longer – but I’m changing from pad (motion sensor steering) to wheel so hopefully I can use the opportunity to learn to drive differently.


After seeing some qualifying-session lengths deviate away from the standard 5 minutes in the last season to allow for everyone to get the same number of flying laps regardless of where they started in pit lane, here again there were a couple of rounds where the difference between 2 or 3 flying laps meant everyone had to leave at once and only those nearer pit exit were comfortable getting a 3rd lap. Admittedly this doesn’t really apply to me as I always wait and sacrifice any chance of the extra lap to gain a clear track, and I know that this could be considered a strategic choice of leave early or wait, but I thought that increasing the quali session a bit in the “proper” season was a good move so a shame to see a reversion to old ways here.


There has to be a way of publicising the “You can use any compounds, but you have to use more than one in the course of the race” rule that’s better than having “Required tyre type change = On” hidden deep in the bowels of the rules. Even people on this thread – including me – were asking about it initially, and I’d like to think that we here are more au fait with the GTWS than most folk. I’ve put this as a general rather than good or bad because although I thought it was a poor way of communicating the rule it did gain me some places which is always fun. FOUR minute penalty, though? Bit harsh – although I think the intention is to move them behind all other cars finishing on the same lap, so fair enough. I’d hate to see what the penalty would be at Nürburgring 24 though.
 
Here we go again: https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gt7/news/00_4286393.html

Nothing really stands out. 4 rounds, all Gr.3 for everyone, all 1x fuel. Rounds 1 and 3 are 2 tire types, Round 2 has 2(!) mandatory stops, at least for GT1. Round 4 is 5 laps at the Nurburgring with neither... wonder if it's gonna rain? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The only real surprise for me is that there's no Bathurst round to ape the most recent GTWS event.
 
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Here we go again: https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gt7/news/00_4286393.html

Nothing really stands out. 4 rounds, all Gr.3 for everyone, all 1x fuel. Rounds 1 and 3 are 2 tire types, Round 2 has 2(!) mandatory stops, at least for GT1. Round 4 is 5 laps at the Nurburgring with neither... wonder if it's gonna rain? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The only real surprise for me is that there's no Bathurst round to ape the most recent GTWS event.
Pretty weak season :(
 
Schedule tables

GT1
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GT2/3
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It seems I was off by a day. Glad that we're getting a new season.

I'm liking Road Atlanta and Nurburgring -- not so much Dragon Trail and Trial Mountain. I've never raced against humans at Dragon Trail Gardens reverse, and I suck at Trial Mountain.

Regardless, my choice of manufacturer this season all but guarantees that I'm going to suck everywhere.
gtws-mc-signing.jpg


Following my usual strategy of picking from the least popular manufacturers in Canada in the previous season that I haven't already used, it was a choice between Hyundai and Suzuki. All of the testing that I've done -- and I've done a fair bit over the last few weeks -- has shown that the Hyundai is the superior car. However, with this being a shorter season, I figured I'd get Suzuki out of the way now so I'm not stuck with it if we get a longer season in the future.

I did a bit of driving on Dragon Trail this morning and tested a couple things.
  • The weather/time-of-day looks like S03/Late Morning to me.
  • There is no difference in pit times between Custom Races and Free Practice.
  • I did a full-length custom race. It looks like the RM tires will last most of the race, but I didn't run them out to failure. I pitted early to repair damage. I plan to do some more testing on tire wear and strategy and will share my results when I have them.
 
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Decided to sign with AMG for this exhibition season, since i've been enjoying driving the AMG GT3 in the AMG VC.

Looking at the schedule, im looking forward to the Trial Mountain and Road Atlanta races. Also it seems like PD is slightly obsessed with the Nurburgring Endurance layout, because it's been featured in quite a few seasons now.
 
Of course they schedule Nurburgring the day I'm away seeing Iron Maiden. No chance of making that one.

Rest of the schedule is OK I suppose, and I'll try to do them all.
I'm a nice guy so I'll go to see Iron Maiden for you and you can race at the Ring 😋😁

A bit dissapointed that it's, again, a short season but Rounds 2-4 are nice. The Ring is always great but 3 laps.. too short for my taste. Round 1 is probably a skip for me.

On my main it's gonna be Lambo again or maybe BMW.
 
I just threw caution to the wind and on a whim went this Nissan figuring it was a fairly run of the middle car in GR3 but is fairly strong at Atlanta and Trial Mountain.

We shall see how this pans out....
 
I definitely threw caution to the wind this time as I picked my manufacturer at random before the schedule dropped. I got Renault.

Dragon Trail Gardens has me concerned with the zig-zag chicane. It feels OK doing that in free practice, but as an MR I fear the Renault's back end is going to slip out and murder me once the tyre wear kicks in.

My potential pace seems very strong so far though at least going by the leaderboards, so that's something to hold onto. I just need to find consistency. I had been doing 1:32.0s until I pulled a 1:31.5 out of nowhere. I think I'm currently the fastest Renault on the board, and it feels really, really weird saying that!
 
I definitely threw caution to the wind this time as I picked my manufacturer at random before the schedule dropped. I got Renault.

Dragon Trail Gardens has me concerned with the zig-zag chicane. It feels OK doing that in free practice, but as an MR I fear the Renault's back end is going to slip out and murder me once the tyre wear kicks in.

My potential pace seems very strong so far though at least going by the leaderboards, so that's something to hold onto. I just need to find consistency. I had been doing 1:32.0s until I pulled a 1:31.5 out of nowhere. I think I'm currently the fastest Renault on the board, and it feels really, really weird saying that!
YMMV but I've found the Renault to have one of the more stable rears of all the Gr3 cars. It seems there are two classes of MR handing in this game: on one hand you have the Lambo, Ferrari, Audi; but on the other hand you have the Renault, Ford GT 18, and McLaren.

I used it for Manu on one of my accounts last season and it was fine. If it rains at Nord, you're golden. It's Achilles's heal is top end.
 
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I definitely threw caution to the wind this time as I picked my manufacturer at random before the schedule dropped. I got Renault.

Dragon Trail Gardens has me concerned with the zig-zag chicane. It feels OK doing that in free practice, but as an MR I fear the Renault's back end is going to slip out and murder me once the tyre wear kicks in.

My potential pace seems very strong so far though at least going by the leaderboards, so that's something to hold onto. I just need to find consistency. I had been doing 1:32.0s until I pulled a 1:31.5 out of nowhere. I think I'm currently the fastest Renault on the board, and it feels really, really weird saying that!
I've also decided to go with Renault. After bonding with it at the recent daily race C at Nurb Endurance. The car is absolutely incredible since update 1.49 and it suits my driving style perfectly. Looking at the world leaderboard, I've just beat your time by half a tenth. The last chicane is incredibly tricky but there is a lot of time to be gained there is you're willing to risk it. I think my optimum is about 1:31.1xx Nice to see someone else representing the French diamond.
 
I've had a chance to do some tire wear testing for this first round of the Manu Cup. I'm driving the Suzuki. Lap times are definitely on the slow side. I'm not great at Dragon Trail Gardens reverse to begin with, but combined with this car, I'm even slower. These results are likely not indicative of what faster drivers in better cars will see.

Anyways, I can get the RMs to last 18 laps. The front left goes first, on lap 19. The RHs would easily last the entire race if that were allowed.

I've done two test races on each compound so far. I did 19 laps on RMs and 20 laps on RHs. I've constructed 'optimum' races by taking the better of the laps from each race.

Here's how the lap times look:
pubchart


At the finish of each race, tread levels were:
LapsCompoundFront leftFront rightRear leftRear right
19RM0%25%20%30%
20RH20%35%30%50%

If I simulate different strategies using the lap times from the 'optimum' races, the fastest strategies are:
StrategyTotal time
7RH-13RM31:57.252
8RH-12RM31:57.404
10RH-10RM31:57.872
9RH-11RM31:58.020
6RH-14RM31:58.189

It looks like the sweet spot is going to be 6-10 laps on RH and 10-14 laps on RMs.

Details in this spreadsheet.
 
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Oh my... I feel so stupid.. totally mixed up the tracks for round one. I thought we race on the layout with the death chicane reverse 🤦‍♂️ Thank god we don't... So I won't skip round 1 😂

Decided to stay with Lambo and take my nice livery (made by @MCL1974) to the races

19253d68e8e51-screenshotUrl.jpg


Took some practice laps and feel that there is still time to gain for me. Did 3 laps with the Lambo on pad. I think I will stay with the pad on my main. It's the safer option for now even though it's not as much fun as with the wheel. Going with the wheel on my alts.

19253d67da610-screenshotUrl.jpg
 

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