What did you do in FM23 today?

[ShavedBadger]

Did the 350z FM2 series yesterday, and man, then engine in that thing is a bit of a nugget until you put an exhaust and intake on it. They're still doing a great job with the audio though - I didn't like it in real life and I don't particularly like it in-game either, so it seems accurate.

Fun series though, I note that the rear of the 350 doesn't seem to be able to keep up with the front end, especially on bumpier corners like those at Sebring and some of Road Atlanta's ripple strips (which can be insta-death) as it bounces and rolls into oversteer. Road Atlanta is a brilliant track though, and I had so much fun hauling in the leading S15 and 350z in my race there in the partially-wet conditions.

 

[ykiki]

Since there's only a couple days left, I finished up the Porsche series with the Rear Engine 10-lap race at Silverstone. I started with Medium tires, which I got to last for 7 laps, then pitted for a set of Soft food the last couple of laps. I ended up winning by over 20 seconds with the difficulty on 6.

 

[ClydeYellow]

Started painting a quick livery for the 488 Challenge. Decided, "what the heck, may as well give it the proper number pads and sponsors for the 2019 Ferrari Challenge".

Fun was categorically not had.

So, I went for the Challenge Europe... Then I realized, "oh, wait, there's non-European tracks in the rotation! My car is going to look totally out of place!". And since I hate my eyes and sanity in equal measure, I've decided to cook up three paint schemes (one for the EU Challenge, one for North America, and one for the Asia-Pacific) with appropriate number pads and all.

Anyhow, you can now get them under filenames #25 Bauer, #25 Xpel and #25 Weathernews.

 

[Nacho Libre]

I realize I let the Porshe tour lapse, so I didn't get the car... And I'm perfectly fine with it, that tour was awful.

 

[Rob192005]

I just finished the Forza 3 championship in the R8,also totally forgot to lower the suspension after upgrading it but we did alright.

 

[Jezza819]

Took the Honda NSX from week 1 around the Nordschleife. Got it as close as I can to the max level for B class with sport tires. It's a very nice car. Not the fastest but boy did it handle all of those curves like a dream.

 

[AEKara38]

As I had some money to burn I bought a few E-class classics as I love the older cars. Took the Bugatti Type 35 on a race round Fujimi Kaido in the damp with 23 other Bugattis. Really fun. All too often I dropped it down a gear to get past the car in front only to find I was now in reverse! Give it a try, it's 12 minutes of fun.

 

[Jezza819]

I've been on a bit of a buying spree lately. I've got about 28mil in credits so I've put some of it to good use. Last week I bought the Sauber C9, Jaguar XJR 9, the Ferrari 360 CS and the 09 Corvette ZR1. The Ferrari and Corvette were from the featured section. Today I bought the Toyota GT One. Put the #27 Esso livery on it and ran it at Spa for it's first race. It seems to be one of those cars that needs 1st gear in the very slow corners to get moving. I'm guessing a lot of turbo lag. But I spun it coming out of La Source but I'm learning how much throttle it can stand before it lets go.

The Jag is the better of the two to me. It's very planted and has good grip whereas the C9 wants to slide in low speed turns but it's still a nice car.

The Ferrari sounds nice and drives good. But it's in that quirky division where level 5 is much too weak and level 6 is far too strong. The ZR1 is just a wild child but I'll still use it a lot.

 

[DG_Silva]

Not today, but I had a series of really good races in the Golf Spec Series last night - very low powered/high grip racing meant we could go side-by-side or bumper-to-bumper with no malice, extremely close racing, and some unexpected moves including overtaking another driver around the outside of the double right/chicane after the hill at Lime Rock.

If anyone is getting jaded with FM, I'd heartily recommend it - it's got to be one of the best Spec Series that's ever been on the rota.

 

[Rob192005]

Did the Ford GT series,couldn't wait to get out of that one to be honest,don't usually drive cars like that,then I bought an Escort Mk 1 just for the hell of it,my thoughts turning to the next open class challenge I guess,seems okay so far still working on the balance.

 

[UKMikey]

Did the Ford GT series,couldn't wait to get out of that one to be honest,don't usually drive cars like that,then I bought an Escort Mk 1 just for the hell of it,my thoughts turning to the next open class challenge I guess,seems okay so far still working on the balance.

I'm with ya buddy, I always despised the GT since the FM6 days and barely used it until this event forced me into it. I don't like the way it looks compared to its classic predecessors and it doesn't really handle all that well for me. Ended up putting a slow grip tune on it and whacking the difficulty down to 5 or 6.

 

[Rob192005]

I'm with ya buddy, I always despised the GT since the FM6 days and barely used it until this event forced me into it. I don't like the way it looks compared to its classic predecessors and it doesn't really handle all that well for me. Ended up putting a slow grip tune on it and whacking the difficulty down to 5 or 6.

Oh,it was easy enough to drive,I just don't enjoy driving the majority of supercars,much rather race the wheels off of anything in E-A class.

 

[UKMikey]

Oh,it was easy enough to drive,I just don't enjoy driving the majority of supercars,much rather race the wheels off of anything in E-A class.

Me too. But I'll modify my previous opinion. It's not that the GT drives badly, just that other cars in the same class seem to drive better. It doesn't seem to me to be a classic like the GT40 to which it pays homage.

 

[ShavedBadger]

I just wish the GT didn't understeer so badly. It was a bloody freight train down the long back straight at VIR but damn it was hard work trying to keep up with the Vipers through the corners.

Last night, I jumped on and made a start on the Retro/Vintage Hot Hatch tour in the Builders Cup, with the AE86 Trueno. That car with a bunch of engine upgrades, all the weight removed and a racing diff & suspension is an absolute barrel of laughs. No setup adjustments required to be oversteering everywhere, and in the most controllable fashion.

 

[Jezza819]

I just wish the GT didn't understeer so badly. It was a bloody freight train down the long back straight at VIR but damn it was hard work trying to keep up with the Vipers through the corners.

Last night, I jumped on and made a start on the Retro/Vintage Hot Hatch tour in the Builders Cup, with the AE86 Trueno. That car with a bunch of engine upgrades, all the weight removed and a racing diff & suspension is an absolute barrel of laughs. No setup adjustments required to be oversteering everywhere, and in the most controllable fashion.

I didn't think the GT was that bad. Certainly not as bad as the P1 was. I generally try to stay away from the supercars because they have a very slidey feeling to me.

 

[WHO1]

I looked at the first VIP event and was pleased to see my previous time was still there - I forget the car but it was at Laguna Seca. I beat my old time (presumably from almost two and half years ago) by 3 secs. Nice to know my driving has improved in that time.

 

[ShavedBadger]

I didn't think the GT was that bad. Certainly not as bad as the P1 was. I generally try to stay away from the supercars because they have a very slidey feeling to me.

It doesn't have a lot of headroom in its class to tune around the understeer, and against level 6 AI I really had to concentrate to make up time in places where the understeer wasn't such an issue. The Vipers in that series looked to have far better turn-in and mid corner speed.

The P1 just likes to chuck great lumps of boosty oversteer at you in my experience - I guess a highly-boosted, electrically-assisted engine will do that for you!

 

[UKMikey]

I guess I just got better tunes for the McLaren as it outperformed the Ford GT for me by a large margin.

It's tough transitioning to the 2018 Porsche 911 GT RS in the FM7 tour after racing the Ginetta Jr and X-Bow in One Make. I'd forgotten what a heavy car it is and how slow it seems to be around corners as the weight affects its grip. Unlike its open-world cousin this game seems to hate Porsches as much as it loves Chevys.

At least the latest AI are more well-behaved around the La Source hairpin at Spa-Francorchamps. I need all the help I can get.

 

[notarjy]

I am trying more multiplayer these days to mix it up with the new events. I had fun with the group prototypes earlier this week, those are tough but fun to drive. It was not very popular though, usually only 2-4 entries per race.

Today I tried birth of grand prix series and the indycars. Both seemed much more popular. I chose the W154 for birth of grand prix because well yeah and made the mistake of running it with low fuel, it swapped ends on me every time I even got close to the brake pedal. Filling it up made it much more drivable but still really tough, I may have to buy a few more cars and see which works best for me.

The indycars were fun to drive but I found it very tough running in traffic with other real drivers, I put myself in the wall several times trying to avoid crashing with another driver. The center post of the aeroscreen in cockpit view didnt help, I didnt cave and try hood cam view yet.

Back in single player, I did the second to last ginetta junior event, I still find the AI behavior with this one make a little strange. 8 AI, in practice I spent most of the time in 24th spot a second off, while the Ai were all within two tenths of each other and slowly gaining speed by a tenth or so. I was gaining speed slowly too, but then last second I pulled off a miracle lap finding nearly six tenths and putting me in the fastest time. I kept AI 8 for the race and once again I found myself cleanly in first place by the end of lap 1, then P2 chased me anywhere between 0.9 to 3 seconds behind, I had to be clean and consistent but fairly easy win. Then I go do the P1 on bathurst, barely P8 5+ seconds off the fastest time with AI 8, only after 20 minutes of hard work finding speed.

I also did some free play, I am always trying to put together fun camel gt style race setups with the GTP/C and GTX multi class races. These can be fun running the 962 in group 1 and competing for wins or the 74 rsr in group 2 and just trying to survive being traffic. One annoyance is I find have to do a lot of experimenting in test drive mode to come up my fuel strategy for timed races since the fuel and tire estimator seems to break with long timed races, it often shows estimated 9,999,999 laps for timed races then gives up and shows 0 pit stops for tires, so impossible to estimate how much fuel to match for tires. I feel like this would be better with a fuel multiplier option but I'm sure no one needs to be told that.

 

[Jezza819]

Dammit boy. This was rough. Almost went with my own 962 but picked the Peugeot 905 instead because it had a higher XP number. The 962's just have too much grip and top speed. I had to get nasty at Nurburgring GP and Spa after I had been blocked and ran into on numerous occasions. I might go back and run it again in my 962 just to see what will happen. I guess in Open series whatever car you pick, that class will make up the majority of the grid.

 

[Rob192005]

The Ginetta was fun to throw around,I already had one but had to take all the mods off,the 911 GT2 was a bit meh but still decent to drive.

 

[UKMikey]

Just don't lock [the new events] to specific cars like the Spirit Of FM tour, T10. That'd be wack.

The only thing that turned out to be wack was my judgment as I've enjoyed the heck out of the One Make Tour. Even the Huracan was worth racing and handled surprisingly well. I'll be coming back to this one a couple of times until all the cars are levelled up. They were really good picks imo.

 

[notarjy]

All I had time for today was some hot laps in the honda indycar around road america in test drive mode. I just threw on a random road course tune from the setup manager since the default tune was oscillating badly on the straights at speed, and I was managing 1:53s on the soft tire. No idea if thats a good time in this game but fast times from real life practice today were 1:45s haha.