If you didn’t tune into the ForzaRC Grand Finals yesterday, you missed out on some incredibly quick (and close) racing. A dozen of the fastest Forza drivers all faced off for the chance to call a 2017 Ford Focus RS their own, and it ended in a nail-biting 1-on-1 showdown.
Heavily favoured after he pulled off a clean sweep in the Week 1 qualifiers, TX3 Laige would eventually claim the keys to Ford’s latest hot hatch, but not without a fight. Lightning — one of five eSports+Cars drivers in the event — narrowly snatched pole position from the Frenchman at Watkins Glen. He couldn’t keep his #06 Focus up front though, eventually succumbing to pressure in the final third of the race to finish second. BAM ASIX13 rounded out the podium.
The second race took place at Catalunya. Qualifying saw Laige again lock up second place, with Lightning tumbling to third as his teammate Chemical secured the top spot on the grid. The front-runners swapped a bit of paint in the opening lap, which allowed Chemical and Lightning to put distance between themselves and the rest of the pack. Laige would briefly fall to fifth before working his way back up to a podium finish, as the eSports+Cars duo swapped places, giving Lightning the race win and the points advantage heading into race three.
The Nürburgring hosted the final planned race of the day. Laige would qualify at the top in Germany, with Lightning on second and teammmate Bbbox in third. Chaos broke out at the first turn, with all sorts of nudging shaking the order up. Bbbox emerged in the lead, with Chemical close behind. Lightning suffered a small amount of engine damage during the incident, potentially dashing his chances of victory.
Bbbox ran an impressively quick race, holding off Laige the entire duration to secure a win, propelling him to third place overall and earning $10,000 USD. Laige took second, while a late pass on Chemical netted Lightning third. For those keeping track, this meant a tie for first between Lightning and Laige.
This was obviously not planned for, as the hosts of the event worked quickly to decide exactly how the winner would be determined. Amidst plenty of calls in the Twitch chat for Ford to hand out two cars, it was eventually decided Lightning and Laige would run a quick 4-lap showdown at the same circuit, with qualifying.
We’ve already spoiled the results in the title, so there’s no beating around the bush: Laige clinched it, qualifying ahead and staying there for the race. It was a respectful duel, but with drivers of such high calibre in identical cars, errors are pretty much the only opportunity for passing at a circuit like the ‘Ring GP.
The entire event is available to watch up top. If you’d like to skip straight to the races, they’re at the 0:33:50, 1:42:00, 2:41:55, and 3:26:30 marks.
A hearty congrats to all who took part, and especially to Laige for winning a new ride!
Season Two Announcement
Ian Webster (@HeliosT10), Turn 10 Community Manager, was also on hand for the broadcast. Amidst the post-race celebrations, he quietly confirmed that a second season of the Forza Racing Championship will be coming this November. No other details were officially revealed — such as which manufacturer may sponsor the new season, or if it will migrate over to Forza Horizon 3 — so stay tuned to GTPlanet as we learn more.
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Fantastic racing… Watched it for whole 4 weeks :-)
And finals were tons better than Formula 1 in TV, much more action :-) Great fun, great show!
Four words: laige op pls nerf
I watched the second and third race along with the race off and it was quite thrilling to watch. Hard but respectful driving throughout the field and a high level of skill all around. I’d definitely watch something like this again. Hard to tell much about the car physics from watching from third person but there didn’t seem to be a lot of draft there which was a little disappointing. I’d think that you should be able to at least draft alongside on the front and back straight at Nurb GP but I didn’t really see anyone do that.
IMO the commentary and overall producing effort left a lot to be desired. The commentators were enthusiastic but not real good at describing what was happening on the screen and often missed important things. Things like claiming someone got a good run out of a corner and created a gap when what actually happened was a following car got two wheels into the grass and lost significant momentum as a result. We could see it on screen and so could they, so missing things like that was a little off putting. Their banter was a bit silly at times IMO as well. Much prefer the very enthusiastic but professional and well prepared approach of GTSport’s Tom!
Agreed, only caught from 3rd race onwards but was fun to watch, despite the slightly lacklustre presenting team. It’s a new thing though, so that’s fair.
I thought the main downsides for me were the lack of alternative views, some in-car stuff would have been nice, and lack of the driver’s take on things – pre-race interviews, some footage of them actually driving or whatever, getting an interview with the winner. Lack of that context, and what Kyle said about the somewhat anticlimactic shootout made it seem as though you were watching some AI bots pootling about.
Let’s hope they address that for the 2nd season. Overall though, colour me impressed.
That’s what I was getting at with the comment about the producing effort. Switching views and camera angles, footage from outside the event etc. I think GTSport will have more options in this regard and the instant replay is already a great feature. I think we’ll have to wait for Forza 7 for a little more polished presentation. Now that T10 is aware of PD’s direction with GTSport, I expect Dan will pull out all the stops he can to compete in the eSports arena. Good news for all of us really.
Also, JP, I think it was only us two that watched it haha
I watched it, though I missed qualifying for the second race (popped out for food).
Agreed with a lot of what has been said. FM6’s spectator mode isn’t very well-designed for eSports purposes, so I’m assuming it will receive a pretty significant overhaul for the next title, if the push to cover eSports continues.
IIRC, interior views aren’t available during live online spectating.