Gran Turismo World Series discussion (2026 Manufacturers Cup Exhibition 2: Aug 22 - Sep 12)

[VillaJ100]

I have tried alla the cars for the next race… and whatever I take the first laps seems manageable but from lap 2 (when starts raining again) till lap 7-8 it is like “dancing on the ice”…

I have the feeling to be dramatically slow.
The leaderboard is showing timing some after more than 30 laps when the track is perfectly dry, so no idea about which are the performance in such poor track conditions.

Whatever car I choose I don’t find the feeling to properly brake and turn at T1.
Also the chicane is quite terrible, where I have no clue how to manage the trajectory and the acceleration.
Also the last curve could be interpreted in very different ways due to the rain and will create a mess with the follower thinking that you are living a free space to overtake… while it is not…

Even if I use TC at level 3 you feel the car reacting quite violently.

For sure I am not a good driver and in don’t have great experience with these cars that I have used rarely.

So at the moment my best time in dry conditions is with BMW with 1:30.5.
Under the rain I easily lap at 1:40 / 1:42.

I expect a dramatic race during the first 5-7 laps…

Regarding T1 in the rain, if you're braking at the start of the rest white kerb on the left of the straight you have to be kind of in the centre of the track with the front of the car pointing towards the apex to make the turn, at least that's the best way and most consistent I found. It'll feel sketchy and rumbly but you'll get enough grip to stop. Staying left and braking on the line I was often overshooting the corner by a long way.

 

[VTEC Driver]

Regarding T1 in the rain, if you're braking at the start of the rest white kerb on the left of the straight you have to be kind of in the centre of the track with the front of the car pointing towards the apex to make the turn, at least that's the best way and most consistent I found. It'll feel sketchy and rumbly but you'll get enough grip to stop. Staying left and braking on the line I was often overshooting the corner by a long way.

I am still using the "breaking area indicator" (the series of the horizontal red lines) and if I brake in that moment staying in the center of the track (far from the dry line) I am breaking too much and, before the T1, I have to partially release the brakes otherwise I am too slow. If I brake slightly later I am almost out of the curve.

Of course this point of breaking change continuously in the first 7-8 laps according how much rain is cumulating on the track, so I haven't found a consistent point to use it for more laps.

This is the behavior with W tires. Not tried the IM yet.

 

[AEther]

Doing some testing both in practice and custom races, the MRs definitely have more stability in the wet. Given the drying track when the rain stops, I lean towards IM even if they are marginally slower than full wets in the rain.

I put down my best lap in the BMW surprisingly, a 1:28.5 1:28.9 which isn’t too shabby but was in practice with empty fuel and no tire wear. The best I got in the Porsche by contrast in custom races was a 1:30.

The softs feel like a big gamble following the wet stint. I wore them down to the nubs after ten laps in the GR. It’s questionable if they’d hold up better in the other cars. They would almost certainly require an extra stop before the race’s end.

The last bout of rain around lap 25 is a challenge as well. Can the slicks hold on until the end? Will one more pit for IM be necessary?

 

[Moose78]

The last bout of rain around lap 25 is a challenge as well. Can the slicks hold on until the end? Will one more pit for IM be necessary?

They do in Free Practice. I did a couple 27-stints in FP yesterday in the BMW. It gets a bit slippery for a couple laps. I found I need to brake very early on T1 when it gets soaked, braking around the 200 board. Overall, I think I lost ~10-15 seconds off my dry pace, but I figure that's still way faster than pitting and being stuck on slower tires for the rest of the race.

I'm starting to wonder if a 14W-13RS might be viable. It would definitely be pushing the limits on both stints, but I'm thinking that second bout of rain could help the RSs last to the end. I really wish there was a way to do a proper test with the scripted weather and tire wear enabled. Maybe in GT8.

 

[AEther]

I'm starting to wonder if a 14W-13RS might be viable. It would definitely be pushing the limits on both stints, but I'm thinking that second bout of rain could help the RSs last to the end. I really wish there was a way to do a proper test with the scripted weather and tire wear enabled. Maybe in GT8.

Custom with R04-R06 in the first two weather segments was pretty close for me. I would throw in some R03 on segment 6 for good measure.

I doubt PD would let us access their proprietary weather for Sport races. What I wish for more is true random weather in cup races. That would, however, render some potential unfair advantages between time slots.

 

[Mumster]

This is what I came up with in my custom race for the weather, seems pretty in line with the practice. For me the W is faster and I have found the wear on the W to be not that bad, the track dries by lap 10 in my custom race with 16 in the field but off the racing line is wet. T1 apex stays quite wet until lap 13 so watch out for that in the race. That last one is R05.

 

[Moose78]

I did some custom races for the first time yesterday. I'm glad I did. In custom races, there is a much more distinct drying driving line than there is in Free Practice. I usually rely on the driving line assist to know where the dry line is, but at Fuji, there is an important deviation coming out of the Hairpin (T6). The dry line is well to the left of the assist line, so you really need to take a tight line out of there to avoid sliding off the track if you are on slick tires. The AI, of course, stupidly follows the assist line and slows to a crawl there. Beware!

The other useful bit of information that I gained from those tests is how the BMW uses it hybrid battery. I found that I was burning through a little bit of battery on every lap. It seems to deplete fastest on dry laps. In the one race I did on RS tires at the end, the battery hit zero just as crossed the finish line. That might have been an anomaly, though, because under the weather settings I was using the rain stopped on the first lap and I was able to to do 25 laps on slicks. In the one where the rain lasted longer, the battery lasted to the end with about 10% to spare.

On strategy, I'm now thinking I might try a W-RM strategy -- try to make some gains early in the rain and switch over to slicks as soon as possible, with the hope that everybody else wastes time running slow laps on IMs before they switch to RSs (or even better, RMs). In Free Practice, I can switch to RMs on lap 14. I expect the track to dry faster in the race with all the other cars on the track, so I might be able to pit even sooner. I'll be watching the moisture gauge to tell me when to pit. When it hits ~10% above the first tick mark, then I know it is safe to switch to slicks.

Of course, we'll get a lot more information once some streamers broadcast their races.

As always, good luck to everybody racing!

 

[Fezzik]

Random weather > scripted weather but we work with what we have. I look forward to hearing about everyone’s adventures in the rain.

 

[Mumster]

On strategy, I'm now thinking I might try a W-RM strategy -- try to make some gains early in the rain and switch over to slicks as soon as possible, with the hope that everybody else wastes time running slow laps on IMs before they switch to RSs (or even better, RMs). In Free Practice, I can switch to RMs on lap 14. I expect the track to dry faster in the race with all the other cars on the track, so I might be able to pit even sooner. I'll be watching the moisture gauge to tell me when to pit. When it hits ~10% above the first tick mark, then I know it is safe to switch to slicks.

Of course, we'll get a lot more information once some streamers broadcast their races.

As always, good luck to everybody racing!

I did a custom with W to lap 12 pitted for S (all the ai pitted after lap 12 too) and the S made it to the end with little issue. If you have time to run one, I recommend it. Also R05 wasn't enough at the end I'm going to change it to R06.