Gran Turismo 7 Season 5(0) Division 2

Round 1: Autopolis International Racing Course - Custom Weather - Sunrise 9x - 24 Laps - 07/05

WELCOME to Season 5 for Gran Turismo 7!!
As always please take a couple minutes to read the following so you have an understanding of what is expected on race night.
If you have any questions, or want clarification on any of the rules or regulations please ask!

ROOM OPEN :
Room captains may have practice rooms open beforehand but should have the official room up by 7:45pm AEST. Please be on time, or let the room captain or div thread know if you may be late. If all agree, the room may wait for you, Within reason. Please remember we have drivers from NZ, and later starts mean a much later night for them.

SIGHT ISSUES:
Before qualifying, exit to lobby and spend 30 seconds in spectate mode, scroll through the list of drivers on track and make sure that you can see their car. If you can't see somebody (and they are confirmed as being on track), exit the lobby, re-join, and check again.Type the number of cars you can see in the lobby chat and cross check with other drivers to ensure clarity.

QUALIFYING : 8:00 pm AEDT for 10 mins.
Feel free to run practice laps prior to qualifying, The host will trigger a 'Room Reset' closer to the commencement of Qualifying.
Once 10 mins of session time has elapsed, finish the lap you are on and stop the car off the circuit somewhere near the start of the lap.

PITS ARE OPEN DURING QUALIFYING

RACE START TIME : 8:10 AEDT

LAG ISSUES / ROOM RESTARTS :
This is up to the room host/captains. If there is a Disconnection (or cars stuck on grid) at race start, it is sporting to try to get them back in, which may mean a new room to be set up. I would suggest only having 1 restart if required due to DSC, due to having to set up the room from scratch and also having to set timed laps in order to set the grid. Please be as reasonable as you can with this....

TURN 1 LAP 1 :
The old saying goes, you can’t win the race on lap 1, but you can definitely lose it. Please be mindful of other drivers on lap 1 coming into turn 1, and for that matter, the entire race. It can be very demoralizing to hot lap on your own for 45 minutes as I'm sure many of you are aware.

TRACK LIMITS :
As we are running with 'track limit penalties" OFF, we will run with our usual Raceonoz track limit regulations. This means you MUST have at least 2 wheels on the ripple strip OR white line that defines the track limit. If you do make a mistake and have to run outside the limits, be aware that you are not allowed to gain any advantage, position or time wise. Track Limits protests may be launched by any active driver in the race.

CONTACT :
Is to be avoided at all times..... If you make contact with someone and gain an advantage, YOU ARE EXPECTED to give the spot back. Occasionally, Gran Turismo track limits may teleport a disadvantaged driver backwards on circuit to ‘reset’ them, if this occurs at the hand of another driver, IT IS EXPECTED that the driver at fault will wait and redress the position.
Side by side 'rubbing' is racing is allowed and promoted within reason, but all drivers are expected to give racing room. For clarity surrounding racing room, please feel free to PM @Viperzed
Show each other RESPECT! It is difficult enough to drive the car at the limit on your own, without someone squeezing you within a millimeter of the grass.
So be patient and show respect to your fellow drivers.
If you are redressing contact, please do so out of the way of other cars, off the racing line, or if there isn't much room, off track.

PIT ENTRY/EXIT LINES :
Pit Line Penalties are ON so you will be penalised in game if you cut any part of the entry or exit lines.

BLUE FLAGS :
Please observe blue flags, and move out of the way of faster cars if you are being lapped. Failure to observe blue flags WILL result in a penalty

STEWARDS GROUP AND RACE PROTESTS :
This season, the Head Steward will be @Viperzed. If you have reason to protest, please SAVE YOUR REPLAY, and then let him know via a PM.
DO NOT BLOW UP IN THE FORUM OR IN THE ROOM CHAT. There have been multiple incidents where the replays from drivers have been different, so its true that sometimes things are not as black and white as they may seem. You have until MIDNIGHT, Monday night to register your protest via PM. Stewards may ask for video evidence from both drivers or room captains to make any decision.

SAVE YOUR REPLAY :
If the room host can ask all drivers to save their replay would be good before exiting the room.....once they exit out and the option goes, it cant be retrieved!

PARKING UP :
If you are unable to continue to race, please enter the pits and leave your game paused without selecting tyres so that your car stays parked in the pits. Parking up off track activates yellow flags in the sector, and even though penalties are off, we have reports of penalties occurring for passes happening near the parked car. Quitting off track results in a sometimes race ending lag spike and may be punished in extreme scenarios.

ATTENDANCE:
Could all drivers please inform Room Captains or make a post on the division thread if they do not intend on racing on Sunday night, Room Captains/ Lobby Hosts are advised not to wait for anyone who has not communicated their intentions. If you do not post in your room thread or psn chat that you cannot attend, a spot may not be held for you for the following weeks race.

TRACK SPECIFIC - Autopolis International Racing Course

A very technical circuit, Autopolis is very hard on tyres, so choose your compound carefully. All racing tyres are available, including wets. Keep an eye on the radar!

I think there should be some ghosting settings for the races. Early in the race I came around the hairpin to see an accident in front of me, I tried to avoid it but was greeted with a car sideways directly in front of me bringing me to a complete halt. Whatever strategy I had was done in the first couple laps. I'm pretty sure it happened to someone else too.

Round 1 Results

Qualification


Race Result


AikoM DSC Lap 5.

Unfortunately it will be a long season for me unless the tyre wear is tweaked.
I'm on controller and wow I had to take the mediums off before others had even taken softs off. I think other medium runners got an extra 3-5 laps out of them. I barely got 5 laps out of softs myself. 11 laps from the hards.
I'm not someone who can conserve tyres like crazy but i'm not normally known to kill tyres, it was mentioned prior on this thread about controller users being at a disadvantage but ouch it seems like a big disadvantage. I'll just have to build my strategy around the RH.

Bothered I was disconnected so soon, Melbourne weather is not being kind tonight.

This will make lead foot here very happy

First off: @Slartybar , your defensive driving was on point last night. With myself on softs, and you on mediums, you managed to frustrate me and shut down any chance I had to overtake you, up until the last moment. A+++ driving my friend!

To the report: My qualifying was very average. Got caught behind someone slower, so only qualified 6th.

Before the race, I noticed everyone ahead was on the medium strategy (1 stop), and myself was on softs (2 stops). I feared I was on the wrong one, so I knew I had to push from the onset. Got a great start, moved up a place, nearly a couple more on the first corner, but broke too late and nudged someone, so I let a few go back ahead of me, and was back to 5th. Dispatched 4th and 3rd pretty quickly, but @T-GT_Racing slowed me down for a few laps and was costing me, before I got past on the 4th lap. Caught up to Slartybar on the 5th, but as mentioned, he shut down all my attempts to pass. This did reward me with better tyre management, and managed 9 laps on the softs, still sitting behind SlartyBar. I thought my strategy was done for, as I needed 1:53’s to pull a big enough gap.

After a pit for fresh tyres (no refuel), I came out in 5th, but I had open air for my next stint, and managed low to mid 1:53’s for 8 laps straight (inc my FL). All 4 drivers ahead had to pit, so was ahead by the 12th lap. Managed a 20 second gap to 2nd by the end of the 17th, and did my final pit, new softs and a splash of fuel. Came out 2nd, and 7 seconds behind SlartyBar (my nemesis) with 7 laps to go. Caught up to him by the start of the 22nd lap, and then just decided to bided my time to make sure of my overtake and not take us both out.

You can watch the video to see the end result. Great wheel to wheel action.

I loved the strategy options with the tyre wear and fuel, and good to see so many different ones at play.

@btwong Wow, that full race time would've put you in 2nd or 3rd in Div 1B.
Well played.

My race was relatively uneventful, qualified well so I knew I had pace, but struggled with the new tire strategy.

I did two pits on mediums as I found by the end of eight laps my front left was down to around 20 - 30% tread. This cost me.

Could tell @btwong was on the softs with how quickly he gained on me early on.

When I exited from my second pit, I was roughly 13 seconds behind Thommo and @doodah27 who looked to be battling for third. I managed to gain some time on them with the fresher tires, but it wasn't enough.

Decent start to the season, but definitely need to work on tire management before the Nurb in two weeks.

Thanks btwong. For me this is what the fun is all about, racing, whether its at the top or at the bottom. I knew it would be a close one and that you would be gaining on me at the end.

I was short shifting through the race so that i didn't need to refuel and also trying to look after the tyres so that there was some life left at the end but you had fresher softs than my worn mediums and it was only a matter of time. There was no need to be too agressive to defend otherwise it would ruin both our race.

Im not normally a strategist with GT but it does help to practice and come up with one that suits your driving style.
Nurb will be a differnt story. Im not good there so it will be a case of limiting the number of offs.

I'm known for being a little hard on my tyres and destroyed 4 sets of softs in that race. i was just getting six laps out of them

And all is normal in the world...

mr equilibrium

New time trial should offer up a bit of practice for R2

Guys i do apologise for my no show on Sunday night. I completely forgot about it. With so much going on at home, unfortunately I will have to withdraw my entry to this season. I will just struggle to put any energy towards it. Goodluck to you all.

Will the qualifying disable the night time cycle? In my limited testing, it gets dark in the second lap. If this is the case, drivers at the front of the pack for qualifying will get an advantage over those who are at the back.