Apologies if this is off–topic, but I'd like to defend some of my favourite tracks that some have said that they dislike.
Mount Panorama is by far my favourite track in the game. Yes, it's unforgiving, and passing is nigh impossible anywhere but on the back straight. But it's such a unique track in GTS/GT7 precisely because it's narrow, unforgiving, full of natural bumps, some off camber turns, and sharp elevation changes that makes it my favourite place to test road and race cars alike. It tests for everything the Nordschleife tests for in about a third of the time the Nordschleife takes, from low speed corners, downforce, stability over bumps, agility, gearing... if a car makes me trust it around Bathurst, I will trust it everywhere easy. It's only at narrow, winding mountain passes like this that so many of the game's low powered sports cars, like the AE86 and Impreza STi, start to make sense and "come alive". Bathurst is also an exceptionally rare track that flips the script on RMR cars with its sharp downhill switchbacks, making FR cars a compelling case around the track. It also sports an (almost!) full day–night cycle, with the track going pitch black in most areas despite being public roads. Overall, it just offers a feel so extremely raw, intimidating, and authentic that many of the sanitised tracks in GTS/GT7 lack, and is my firm favourite. I just wish it rained there!
For many of the same reasons, all three Willow Springs layouts are also favourites of mine, even though I'm terrible at them! I know many have cited the complete lack of scenery around the desert, but that in itself I find is such a unique aesthetic, and I've shot some of my favourite photos there. Turn off "Correct Car After Going Off Track", and you can even have a small taste of what an open world game with GT physics feel like, with Big Willow's sparse barriers. Also, Streets of Willow and Horse Thief Mile are, to my knowledge, the only real world circuits that have reverse layouts. How cool is that?!
Lastly, Tokyo. I'm not going to pretend I like racing there, but being the sole city track in the game, I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. It's only with GTS/GT7 shying away from city tracks did I realise how important they were to the series, and how much I've enjoyed them in past iterations. It's the only track that gives that right "feel" when shooting road cars with licence plates, and I only wish we had so, so much more city tracks in other countries. I very distinctly remember my first time playing GTS and just taking a Roadster around Tokyo, feeling like a kid driving through his train set, cherishing that joy and wonder before that piece of road became just another circuit to memorise and obliterate. But that sense of wonder never went away, even until now. I still feel that spark of imagination every time I go around Tokyo Central. It's the only track in the game that makes me feel this way.
But what solidified Tokyo Central Clockwise for me as an ultra underrated track, and the reason why I'm even making this post to begin with, is when I tried to set a fast lap around there with a bone stock E30 M3 Sport Evo. The corners are ALL blind, and so you really have to commit the track's every intricacy to memory, and just "know" when to apex. The red parts of the road have so little traction, and there are red strips peppered into the braking zones of the corner to really throw off both the car and driver. It forces drivers to rethink how and when to apex, and to get the car rotated before the road turns fully red. The track asks for so,
so much commitment to power out of a turn you can't yet see the exit of. Most of the time, I end up eating walls, but when I get it right, god damn.
God damn. No other track makes me feel like a genius superhero to get right! And thankfully, the Central layout is a very short one, so the difficulty in having to memorise each corner intensely feels well balanced with its short length.
If you'd like to try this for yourself, here's a 1:31.690 ghost I've set. Maybe your opinion on Tokyo Central might change after giving this a try:
Gran Turismo Official Website
www.gran-turismo.com
If I were a Sport Mode player, I wouldn't enjoy any of the tracks I just wrote about, but as someone who mainly plays SP and enjoys road cars, most of the sanitised, wide, flat racetracks with barely any scenery just blend together and feel the same to me. I feel like a good 80% of the tracks in this game cater to the 20% of cars that are racecars in this game, and it just doesn't sit right with me. I therefore very strongly appreciate the off–kilter outliers that are in the game, and only wish we had more variety and personality in the game.
) after a lot of benchmarking of 700pp builds for the Clubman+ race there.
