GRM Project Cars 2 - Series 5 *Insert Clever Name Here*

Welcome to the (un)official GRM - Project CARS2  series #5.

This is a 9 round GT1 Championship series hosted on the PlayStation4. Although highly competitive the main focus of the racing is fun clean racing. Because of this, rough driving is highly discouraged. The Stewards will be watching.

The series will be run on **Wednesday nights at 9:30ET**.

The first race will be on: **November 28th, 2018**

PS+ is required to participate.

Car Class: GT1

This will be a multi-class series.  Human drivers will run their choice of GT1 cars.  Group A cars will available for AI drivers.

Rounds:

Rules:

• JOKER RULE:  At any point during the series, a driver may opt to change cars.  This may only be used 1 time per driver.  The driver is not allowed to switch back.
• Races will be based on time as follows: Practice 30 minutes / Qualification 15 minutes / Race 30 minutes
• Room will be reset / started exactly on time with drivers present in the lobby prior to starting.  This will be to minimize AI drivers in GT1 cars.
• Realistic Driving Aids
• Fuel usage is set to Yes
• Tire usage will be set to "Accelerated"
• Damage will have a visual impact
• Flag will be ON
• Standing starts
• Track Limit Penalties will be OFF
• Drive Through Penalties will be OFF
• Ghost cars will be ON
• AI drivers will fill the field and be start at 85%.  This will increase by 5% as needed to keep competitive
• AI drivers aggression will be set to 25%
• Competitive Racing License will be ON
• Time progression 2x

Points:

• 1st - 25pts
• 2nd - 20pts
• 3rd - 18pts
• 4th through 16th will be -1pt per position with 16th getting 5pts
• AI drivers will take points away from humans
• DNS / DNF / DQ will score 0 points

Championship Standings:

Replays:

Round 2 - Sakitto:

https://youtu.be/VDrOx41LluY

Round 3 - Sonoma

(Chaos at the start) https://youtu.be/WKLo16i4QEQ

https://youtu.be/tkkQ4Ojk9W8

Round 4 - Road America

(Chaos at the start) https://youtu.be/7XrrLVmuTOM

https://youtu.be/OoxxokVGGpY

Round 6 - Imola:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llRznHh_4vs

I didn't put in dates or weather yet because I wasn't sure if the peanut gallery wanted weather.  Thoughts?

How about a 60 min race in there somewhere like we did with Spa in GT3 cars?

The rain in GT3 cars was a fun challenge. With the 911's it was no fun at all. I'd want to see how GT1 cars are in the wet before I could have an opinion either way. Maybe a night race instead of a wet race?

We did run a rain race at Le Mans a while back with Prototypes.  The strange part was that although we where running very accelerated time, the rain seemed to dry in real time (so it took many, many hours of game time for the puddles to go away).  I think cars with aero will in general be a bit easier in the rain.

Don’t let the weather define the race. It can make the race more fun as does time of day. A race going in to the night or  early in the morning is cool.  Fog is another thing you could look at. Sauce and I tried different fog settings one time. It really impacts your ability to go fast especially if you don’t know the track.  

I have said it before. Racing you guys on track is fun. Racing against the weather is not. 

I tested out a few of the cars this morning at Nurburgring. I drove the Nissan, the McLaren, the Ferrari, the Toyota and the Merc. All pretty much using the stock stable setups. I'm not sure I did enough laps in any of them for my fastest laps to mean much, but I was trying to get a general feel for the cars. For all of these cars, I had to move the seat around to get the view from the cockpit that I wanted to be able to see the tach, shift lights and the track. If you drive with the cockpit view, changing your seat position can make a big difference. None of these cars has a rear view mirror and none will let me see the side view mirrors while looking ahead. That will make them a bit harder to drive in traffic than the other series were for me.

The Nissan is the heavy car of the class. Seemed ok to drive, but only did maybe 4 laps in it. Not sure why I'd pick it. I think I'll take it off my list for now.

I liked the McLaren. It sounds good, Sitting in the middle of the car is fun, but it seems to like to kill me more than the other cars. I may play around a bit more with this one and see if think I can manage it. This car is really fun until it isn't.

The Ferrari also sounds good and my first lap was faster than my fastest lap in the McLaren. It seemed less prone to kill me. No complaints. I think this is the one that has shift lights that just come on at the shift point and there is no sequential buildup using multiple lights. Not a show stopper, but something to get used to. I may play around with this one more as well.

The Toyota, I set my (at the time) my fastest lap in this car on the second lap. It was fast and easy to drive, but has the least outward visibility. I like that you can see the front tires for some reason. Limited livery choices here - only three options and they are essentially all the same. I'll play with this one more a bit.

Then I drove the Merc. This one I used my slightly modified setup from Wednesday night. Ended up getting my fastest lap beating the Toyota by a little. The sound is ok. I like the shift lights. Somehow I create a lot more tire screeching noises with this car than the others, but it does not seem to want to kill me. I think I'd have to dial out some understeer to make it turn in a little better. The only car in this class to have a hood ornament, so it has that going for it. Easiest car for me to catch a slide.

Haven't driven the Panoz yet and didn't test the Porsche this round.

For me the Merc and the Panos are by far the easiest cars to drive out of the box. Both work very well with my style of driving.  However, I really like the challenge of the Toyota.  I am faster in it if I get it right but it has that little bit of "I will kill you" that I also like.  The McLaren and the Ferrari are both very fast but I really don't have the time to try and tune them.  They are always trying to kill me.  At the moment my car of choice is going to be the Toyota.  

Just drove the Panoz. I was surprised. It was fast and easy to drive with the default tune. 

I felt the Merc and the Porsche drove fairly similar to each other. I was ok in the test race until I managed to the rear tire pressure up to 33psi with the fronts only around 28psi. That made it extra tail happy and I looped to many times. I think I can tame it. 

The McLaren wasn’t bad either. Highest top speed. Probably my number 2 choice. 

T.J. said:

Just drove the Panoz. I was surprised. It was fast and easy to drive with the default tune. 

The panoz is great. I really liked tossing it into corners. 

At this point, the Panoz is most resistant to my “abusive” driving style. It’s stupid loud,so it make it hard to hear anything else and I think it really needs to be driven differently then the other cars. I should probably play with the Merc more (MUCH quieter) to see if I can make it drive the way I want it too.  

All of the cars other then the Panoz seem to have that mid-engined “snap spin” thing, when combined with my need for high slip angles, that pissed me off about the Ferrari in the first series so I might default to the Panoz for my sanity.

The Toyota is louder than the Panoz

You can change the volume level of your own car in the options menu if it is too loud. There are like 5 or 6 settings for various sound levels you can adjust.

Also, just noticed yesterday that Sakitto is almost but not quite Suzuka. I was really confused for a few laps when I got to the parts that are not the same as the real track.

I hope to be on later. Want to do some tuning of the Toyota.  I will either  set up a 20 min qualifying and five lap race room. Or just a long practice room for tuning.  That is unless some one else is on and wants to host. 

I like the Toyota a lot. I have a setup I've been working on for Fuji. Mostly default stable setup with gearing and diff changes so far. Doubt I'll be on tonight though. 

Gave Sauce my Toyota tune and he goes out and gets my best time by 5 seconds and he was faster than the Ferrari he has been tuning.  This is why I became a crew chief. 

I'm dealing with a work production issue the night before a holiday.  It's highly unlikely that I'll be on tonight.  Have a great Thanksgiving.

Dang that stinks

I might be on tonight, but not sure.

In reply to dean1484 :

Yea, it really does... trust me, not having a fun day.

In reply to BradLTL :

Hope you get it resolved tonight and get an actual day off tomorrow. I worked Monday then have the rest of the week off. I kept thinking today was Sunday since I had two days off in a row.

TJ and I tore it up for a while. Fugi is interesting. After messing with brake openings and radiator openings I am getting very close to the 200 mph mark at the end of the front strait. Still fighting with the cars handling a bit but I know it is the driver not the car as Sauce showed me the other week. 

Dean, there are definitely 1:32's to be had at Fuji. I haven't gotten there yet, but still think I can with some more tweaks and just putting a good lap together. I played around with the suspension calculator this morning and tried those settings and was faster, but the car is a little more prone to killing me. I have a little more work to do and I may be finsihed with setup changes so I can focus on the nut behind the wheel.

Sauce and I got there. Well sauce did.  I think a 31 is possible.  Sauce seems to think so.  I am going to see about working some magic tuning on the mcclaren and the Ferrari and see if my tuning formula will work on those cars.  The Toyota has gone from wanting to kill me to an absolute blast to drive.  The tweaks sauce gave me to improve the rotation out of the corners was key.  I worked on maximizing mechanical grip and reducing the cars dependency on aero.  The biggest thing that I started working on first was to make the car curb friendly. That is a huge problem with the car out of the box.