JBR-Kiwi

Just wanted to say a massive thank you to @GazzaGarrattand everyone at FG for the surprise parcel posted through my front door containing GT7. Like Lee mentioned, my playtime has been massively reduced thanks to the arrival of my son in my life. I wouldn’t wish things any different but things are not the same as before in many ways so it is so difficult to play up to date games with everybody nowadays. Hopefully I will see you all back on online real soon and I really can’t express enough thanks for everything you guys and girls do 🙂

I would very much be up for this especially as I have just bought a new crash helmet for a potential return to my racing past 😄 Whilton Mill near Daventry is another possibility if you are looking at other venues. Brilliant circuit well maintained and great on-site facilities (restaurant etc) and are open to group events like the one I am participating in this Easter Sunday for charity(70+ entries).

Congrats

Big congrats to Mr @phil bottle on his win last night! I believe that this is the first race in three seasons that hasn’t been won by @Grebothor myself, so I’m pretty sure we are both going to work extra hard in next weeks race to try and restore the status quo! 😂 This weeks race seemed so simple but it was clear that from the off in practice that tactics were going to play a massive part in the outcome of the race. Drafting played a incredibly important on this track with a good draft easily saving you half a second on your lap time. From lap one it was clear that fuel saving was going to be the main strategy with Phil being the only person to say fuck it and go balls to wall every lap 😂 I’m absolutely gutted that I made my move half a lap too soon and ran out of fuel exiting the final corner!!

It was a shame that you missed this weeks races mate as I think you and the GT86 would have suited this track with the Toyotas low tyre wear and fuel saving capabilities! Really enjoyed this weeks race especially the race long battle with @Greboth in our aircraft carrier length Stuttgart specials! Shoutout to @GazzaGarratt whose pace in practice and qualifying certainly worried me as I think there was even more pace there, and if you can nail the race pace as well you would be extremely difficult to catch! The Mazda race was absolutely hilarious between @GazzaGarratt @Greboth @slamminbones @phil bottle and myself and until the last two laps it genuinely could have been any one of us who could have won it! However I am extremely glad it turned into demolition derby and I could get away 😂 I urge everybody to get on for next weeks race if they can as it will likely be one of the funniest races you will ever compete it!!!

😂😂😂 ive been promised that I will still get Thursday nights but we shall see if that actually happens! If he doesn’t get a wriggle on then it’s looking very likely I will miss next week at least… It was really unlucky for you fella clipping that barrier it would have been a really close race at the front between @Mikepjbell @phil bottle you and me. Well done @phil bottle on the podium, it was a really good race and I was rather worried that I had made a mistake by choosing mediums instead of softs, but thankfully the pace (whilst slightly slower) was quicker then the hards which gave me a chance at running long.

Couldn’t give a shit about the landscape stuff but does look great and I can see people that are really into that side doing some pretty impressive pieces. I’m not a massive fan of too many concept cars, and I really hope they don’t focus on this too much as I do enjoy a wide range of “normal actual” cars, but I do like the look of some of the old school stuff like the merc clr-gtr’s. The racing gameplay was a bit disappointing and despite all these advances in graphical power, it really doesn’t look too different from GT Sport. I was expecting a step up in graphical “realness” and didn’t really get that impression on first view ☹️

My appearances might be sporadic during this season as we are on the countdown to due date now. I will still aim to try and attend but it will just depend on more important things unfortunately 🙂

Teams - I love the idea and it’s been good seeing how people encourage their team mates. I just think this game doesn’t support that side well enough and unless we do a relay race like suggested it’s difficult to see the benefit of this side unless the whole grid was a lot closer. Manufacturer - Despite being one of the people that has suffered hugely because of my choice, I have really enjoyed this as it has seen a lot of strategies built around their car choices. I would like to keep this for next season and one manufacturer, but maybe mix it up. Either; A) lowest team/teammates get to choose first B) whatever manufacturer you chose this season you can’t use next season C) most of us regulars have most cars/coins you so we just get assigned a random car at each race and we do the best we can. Guaranteed to mix some races up! Races - I’m happy to do either one or two races each week although I might miss quite a few races in this next season if little lad is difficult😭 Endurance race - not really a fan but willing to give it a try if people want a go at it (like rallying...). My worry is that long races are quite draining and a people lose a lot of interest if it isn’t close racing which is where our shorter races work so well.

yeah I never use Time trial if I do any practicing because to me it feels like the difference between playing on LAN vs online so it will also give you the feeling of more grip and car responsiveness when turning and on the brakes. That could be just a placebo effect of course... If I want to try the circuit I will always try and set it up as an online lobby with BOP being the first thing turned on as I have been caught out with that before! Looking back, I think I was struggling to exit cleanly through the corners especially onto any of the high speed straights which was punishing me massively due to the beetles poor top end.

1st race this week was an absolute disaster for me which kind of started off as early as the practice. I had done about 5 laps the previous night to learn the circuit in GR3 and had got down very quickly into 39s which was promising and then come race day couldn’t get anywhere near that and was even struggling to break the 41sec barrier in quali. And then the race happened... After apparently walking under a ladder whilst smashing a mirror and crossing Luna my black cat, I got the mother load of bad luck and a reasonable start ended up with me getting knocked into the gravel at the first corner and then then unfortunately rear ended at high speed at the chicane, which left my race in tatters, especially on a track like Sardegna. Just one of those things unfortunately ☹️ 2nd race was a complete surprise considering my lack of pace at Monza but I think there’s a different BOP for ovals compared to normal circuits, but either way the beetles high cornering speed really helped overcome my limits in straight line speed. So overall a mixed result with the circuit I expected to do well in ending poorly and the oval I expected to struggle on I ended up doing well The joys of GT Sport!

Ok me and @Macca89 will be going VW for this championship

Sorry if this has been covered but are we enforcing a pit stop in this championship? There are some cars that easily do a full race without stopping whereas others will definitely have to stop

I’m up for some races but will understand if people want to give it a miss for a week 🙂

No Fuji or Autopolis??? im disappointed @phil bottle.... 😡

@GrebothWould this be the Toyota with the GT86 and the Supra? 😜

Massive thanks go to you @phil bottle for getting everything sorted for this inaugural season. Getting all the tracks sorted and setup with the cars, tyre and fuel settings is definitely not a job I would have wanted to do so great job! Honestly from my side it's been a brilliant season and I genuinely wouldn't have wanted to finish in any other way than for it all to go down to the last race of the season to decide the final positions. It's been great seeing all the fights all the way down the grid and I know I have said it multiple times at this point, but it's brilliant to see everyone's progress through the whole season, and how everyone has developed their own style and race craft. I know everyone has taken it seriously but at the same time it's been great to have a good laugh with everyone because at the end of the day it's only a game 🙂 @GrebothIts been great racing you this season mate and i definitely have had to up my game to get anywhere close to you especially after my slow start to the season and thinking "how fucking fast is this guy???" Looks like we might have our work cut out for us for the Summer season especially with the rate of improvement of of certain individuals! The race reports were great to have a read of when i should have been working on a Monday 😀 Roll on the Summer season and let's get a full grid every race if we can!

I went for @GazzaGarrattfor the simple reason of it has been a tough errrr “couple” of weeks in terms of results but finally looks like you cracked it and secured a brilliant result in race one on a track that isn’t forgiving at all if you make a mistake. Second race you were also blisteringly fast and pushed me all the way until the last lap or so. Looks like @Mikepjbell should be thanking his lucky stars that this form didn’t start a couple of races ago! 😄

Tuesdays or Thursdays will be good for me. Mrs will be very happy if it’s Thursday as I’m told Bake Off will be returning at some point which means avoiding a fight over the TV on Tuesday night 😂

I think everybody has become so much better over the course of the season that it’s now meant that if you make any sort of mistake you will unfortunately be punished for it, especially on a track like Laguna this week. One lap pace from everybody is incredibly quick and you can see it in qualifying where when everybody hooks their laps up, the whole field is covered by only a couple of seconds whereas in the past you might have been talking 10+ seconds from the front to the back. I think where people are struggling a little bit is dealing with the tyre wear and fuel management and the effect that it has on your car and your race and now, with everything being so tight, people are having to think a bit more strategically about it so we are seeing a lot of interesting strategies. I warn you all when @GazzaGarratt finally gets everything to click he will be a monster on the track! 😄

Portimao was an ok race, but baring a few moments of excitement, I could have easily fallen asleep to the race. The width of the track on the straight all the way down to turn 1 is simply a bit ludicrous and with the DRS it made it almost impossible to defend from someone as you had the width of six M25s worth of space on either side so all anyone needed to do was just dummy one way and then switch back. Bottas once again was the bridesmaid never the bride. Started off so well but as soon as he got into a period of managing tyres especially on the hards he just didnt have the pace. Getting done by Hamilton and Verstappen rattled him and I think he already knows his chances for this season are done. Fastest lap is a small consolation for a track where he has always been quick over one lap. I think the low rake design of the Mercedes definitely helped at this track especially with the wind that was massively affecting the high rake cars like the Red Bulls and the Ferraris. Whilst all of the drivers were complaining about the track over the weekend, with its lack of grip and cold track surface temps, you could see that Red Bulls in particular, suffered badly with aero balance especially over the last couple of corners which hampered Verstappen getting close enough for a pass down the straight even with DRS. The Mercedes engine was definitely the one to have at this track, with Mclaren all weekend, and the Williams of Russell in quali, showing some ridiculous pace down the straight. The thing to remember with this season is for a lot of teams (excl Merc and RB at this point of the season), they are putting little to no resources (Haas...) into this season as the regulations are going to change for next year and it would be prudent to concentrate a lot of your efforts on the next phase of the regulations. Start too late and you will pretty much write off the next 2-3 years as you will be playing constant catch up. Thanks to the token development system, Ferrari couldnt actually do to much this year (new engine and a small bit of suspension work) and knew they would struggle, but they have made a massive step up from their troubles last year. The financial cap that has come in has also meant they have had to diversify their staff and operations rather then lay them off (big no no in Italien law i think), so expect them to do a massive push into GT racing with the new hypercars, but they wont be going away from F1 anytime 😉

Dropped my vote in for @crispymorgan especially after his mega quali where he managed to stick with me all the way around the Red Bull ring to snag a front row place 😄 was extremely impressive with the mother of all tows!