GT-R
There perhaps is no letter combination, no word, no name, as deeply revered and iconic in motorsports. The GT-R badge has always had a rich heritage of motorsport domination, and even just listing the accolades for the current generation of "Godzilla", the R35, is a bit of an exercise. It steamrolled Super GT GT500 in its debut year, claimed Nürburgring lap records Porsche couldn't believe, is a renowned drag monster, aftermarket tuner darling, and even held the Guinness World Record for Fastest Drift. As hyperbolic as this all must sound, it still feels like it's impossible to oversell the success of the R35 GT-R in any and all areas of motorsports, and the effect it has had in the automotive landscape as a result, just as the Godzilla in the movie had.
It should come as a surprise then, that, in my opinion, the GT3 variant of the R35 we tested this week sucked hairy, oversized, radioactive lizard balls.
The specific car we got in Gran Turismo Sport is the "Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 N24 Schulze Motorsport", a car which raced in the SP9 class of the 2013 24 Hours of Nürburgring, and finished 22nd in its class. All in all, a pretty forgettable result, and by extension, a very forgettable car. I'll say this with every race car review: It's very simple to judge a racing car; if it wins, it's good. If not, it's bad. Quite literally nothing else matters in a racing car. Truly, the only reason this car gained any mainstream attention at all, and continues to maintain any relevance, is because Kaminori Samauchi drove it in the aforementioned race.
I know I just said nothing else matters on a racing car, but I cannot get past how AWFUL this thing looks.
MY EYESSSS!!!
As irrelevant as aesthetics should be in a racing car, the car's UGLY AS SIN looks I think is rather telling. Being a 2013 car, it is among the older cars in Gr. 3, with only the Aston V12 being an older GT3 car. This age is reflected in the bodywork of the GT-R: more modern GT3s, such as the R8 LMS, RC F GT3, and Huracán GT3 all have fenders flared much wider, boasting ducts, air channels, stretched out and sawn off bodywork to accommodate bombastic diffusers, swan neck wing stands, and what have you, to aid them around a track. The original purpose built Gr. 3 cars of 2017 barely even resemble their production cousins with how much changes their bodywork underwent. Put this 2013 car beside almost anything else in Gr. 3, and the differences are as obvious as the car is ugly.
Nate's long time Manufacturer's weapon, versus mine!
The 2013 GT-R GT3 on the other hand, looks almost looks fresh out of a Nissan showroom, with the only telltale signs of it being a racing car the gutted interior, roll cage, racing slicks, dropped ride height, tasteless overabundance of vents, and the too much for road use lips, splitters, and wing. Really, this car looks more like a GT4 car than it does a GT3 by today's standards. And I'm sad to say that it shows on the track as much as it does in the livery editor.
For the first race of this week's meet, we were racing at the GP Layout of the Nürburgring. Even at the very track it was set up to run, the GT-R felt no less a fat fish out of water than it did any other track in my practice sessions prior the race. The suspension I find too soft for my liking, making this car feel like a sack of pigs to haul around corners despite being the exact mass Gr. 3 seems to be centred around: 1,300kg (2,866lbs), untouched by BoP currently. This soft suspension makes car feel ambiguous and numb, and it's not a fun recipe when mixed in with the torque spikes of a highly boosted engine. Most importantly, I feel as if the alignment of the wheels just... isn't right. On tight corners like the Turn 7 hairpin, it was always the INSIDE front wheels that were scrubbing and screaming instead of the outside. That's just... not right, come on. I highly suspect the "one size fits all" suspension settings of this stupid "simulator" has fucked up the performance of this GT-R more than its Gr. 3 rivals, and it's... stupid, because the in-game description of this particular car claims that "the driving data gained from this machine did succeed in bringing new advancements to the simulation engine of Gran Turismo", in the copy and paste description from Gran Turismo 6. Why and how then, is it allowed to be so god-awful in GT Sport? Kaz himself drove this! How could he let this atrocity happen?
Below are the default setting sheets for the suspension of the car, from Gran Turismo 6 and Gran Turismo Sport, respectively:
Even quickly glancing over the most atrocious of differences, it's clear that GTS has Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition the car's suspension setup, and it therefore is no surprise that the car is horrid to drive as a result.
Ride Height (GT6)
Front: 67mm Rear: 73mm
Front: 2.63in Rear: 2.87in
Ride Height (GTS)
Front: 70mm Rear: 80mm
Front: 2.76in Rear: 3.15in
Spring Rates (GT6): Front springs are nearly 61.5% stiffer than the rear.
Spring Rates (GTS): LEL ALL SPRINGS ARE THE SAME
Toe Angles (GT6)
Front: -0.50° Rear: 0.63°
Toe Angles (GTS)
Front: -0.25° Rear: 0.50°
Because of the FUBAR suspension setup, the car struggles immensely with the tight first two sectors of Nürb GP, squirming under every command and struggling for grip through every corner. It always feels heavier than what it weighs, even with uprated Racing Medium tyres. It has immense trouble tucking its nose into apexes, from initial turn in all the way to apex. It's a painful chore to drag and wrestle this heap of materialised lethargy through switchbacks and chicanes, such as Turns 5 and 6, and the Schumacher S.
Part of this is perhaps due to the weight balance of the car: even with the front driveshaft delete and a full 100 litres of fuel on board aft the cockpit, the GT-R GT3 feels very nose heavy. Gran Turismo 6 claims a weight distribution of 54/46 F/R, which might be okay for a road car with AWD, but are disproportionate, lopsided pig figures for a GT3 car. Yeah, imagine giving players weight distribution figures in a racing simulator! Metric units for measurements! What novel concepts, eh PD?
Needless to say by this point, the car struggles to put down its 594PS, at an eyeball widening, cold sweat inducing 108% of its original 550PS with Balance of Performance applied. The boosted to hell and back VR38DETT struggles with moderation as well, either giving you everything or nothing depending on the revs and its mood, thanks also in part to Gran Turismo Sport's non-linear throttle pedal, adding yet more nails to a coffin that is already more nails than wood. This car feels so uncertain, numb, and snappy in corner exits, and it lets go with such suddenness, it really did feel like the rear tyres sporadically run over loose floor mats strewn across the track every corner exit.
That said, I do have 1,525km on my GT-R GT3. That's because, for a very long time, the GT-R GT3 was an absolutely necessary evil in Gr. 3. It had such ridiculous power in a straight line and top end performance, nothing else could come close to it on power inclined, or even top speed exploring tracks, such as Monza, Bathurst and Suzuka. This meant that, for a very long time when the GT-R was the king of straight line missiles, anyone who wanted to do well in races at these tracks had to learn the very specific way to drive a GT-R GT3 that didn't upset the moody car. It was so bad at its worst, with numbers so far beyond what it was originally intended to cope with, it didn't feel like a GT3 car at all, true to what its looks would suggest. When one thinks of GT3 racing cars, they most likely have a baseline of expectations of how they should handle and drive. The GT-R GT3 falls WAY below that threshold of reasonable expectation for a GT3 car, especially in its prime when BoPped to carve out its competitive niche.
With BoP as it is now, the straight line missile award seems to be split between the Aston V12 GT3 and Viper GT3-R, with the GT-R nowhere to be seen, meaning the ONE thing it was good for, others do better now. I really struggle to find a single good thing to say about the GT-R GT3. It handles like sliding on shit, feels like its suspension is stuffed with shit, and looks as awful as if Godzilla had shat it out. Where it differs from shit is that shit is actually useful for something in the right applications; the GT-R GT3 is quite literally good for nothing, both in real life and virtually. Hell, the only comparison I can draw with this car that favours it is that, of Nissan's two Manufacturer Series cars, this is actually the more competitive of the two.
You know I'm sick of the car when I hop into something else over the course of the week's meet to try and beat the given week's car. I did a grand total of ONE race in the GT-R, just as a formality, before hopping into other Gr. 3 cars to soundly whoop any GT-R not driven by Vic, and even then, I was actually putting up a fight with our resident Stig. I drove over the course of the meet, the RC F, Atenza, and AMG GT3, all previous Cars of the Week (and also the RX-Vision, THAT car's turn might come soon enough ;) ). These are all front engine cars that aren't leaderboard darlings. And all of them will soundly whoop a GT-R GT3 around any given track. The Atenza and RX-Vision are by no means easy drives by Gr. 3 standards, but I could at least find a rhythm and groove in them. I could trust them. They were consistent and even predictable (in the Atenza's case) by comparison. Hell, compared to the GT-R, both were as easy to drive as shitting into a diaper.
HOWE is he so fast?!
You have SO MANY other options in the by now finely balanced Gr. 3, that there is truly no reason you ever have to bother with this... thing. It is a spiteful, necessary evil at its best, and simply disdainful rubbish at its worst. You really have to be either a masochist, or a Nissan fanatic to ever want to bother with this long since decomposing piece of shit.
I recognise that most of its shortcomings I felt in my testing are direct results of the disservice this rubbish game does to the car, with its stupid suspension settings and non-linear throttle. As valid as I feel those complaints are, it also feels like making excuses for the car. Car of the Week tested this exact car, along with other variants of GT3 R35s in Gran Turismo 6's Car of the Week thread, and the opinion back then seems to be unanimous that this car just... sucks.
Across both real life and different versions of virtual realities, it's consistently a Beater and binner.
Remember when we used to think Kaz loved his GT-Rs?
I've only one video for this week. We didn't have very good races this week, due to spotty connections, bad drivers who refused to brake for corners and refused to leave, and some bad driving on my part as well.
For some context, this was how bad the connection this week had been:
IYAA YAMETE URUSHITE KUDASAI DEKASUGI ANTA NO KODOMO WA HOSHIKUNAI NAZE NEITO SAN NO ME NO MAE NI SURU NO NEITO NO TAME NI MAMOTTE IRU NONI GOMENNASAI~!
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