It's a well known and indisputable fact by this point in the game's 3 year and counting life cycle that Group 1 is quite simply the most whack category in Gran Turismo Sport. Consisting of wildly varying machines built with different rules and aims in mind that really should have no business racing each other, Gr.1 represents machinery from Group C monsters, break room VGT creations, and highly advanced LMP1 Hybrid wizardry. Gr.1 is also the only category aside from Gr.4 to feature different driven wheel layouts, with a mix of full time AWD, part time hybrid AWD, RWD, and FWD.
...wait, FWD?
Enter: The Nissan GT-R LM Nismo '15, a.k.a. "Longboi", a brilliant machine with no faults whatsoever that hadn't seen success in Gran Turismo Sport only because Gr.1 is a load of nonsense.
#21
https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gtsport/user/profile/2251741/gallery/all/livery/2251741/1/6917599474317526017
test car
https://www.gran-turismo.com/jp/gtsport/user/profile/10677143/gallery/all/livery/10677143/1/6629316319452857353
Also well known by this point is how the real car... didn't do as hoped, in the one racing event it was specifically made to run in: the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans, due to faults in its hybrid systems and debris, which are entirely out of the drivers' and engineers' hands, and therefore shouldn't be indicative at all of the car's merits. Because of its lack of results in both the real world and here in Gran Turismo Sport, it's difficult to even remember sometimes that the beloved "Longboi" is even in the game when lumped into Gr.TS050. With its three Achilles' Heels, parts failure, debris, and torque steer conveniently not being simulated in Gran Turismo Sport, is there a hidden gemstone buried deep in the shadows of the TS050 and 919, just waiting to be found six years after its initial debut? Had it been too quickly written off by fans and even its own manufacturer due to unfortunate circumstances? Is there a winning wolf sleeping underneath the stretched out sheep cloth-
...okay, maybe not.
I may say this in every racing car review: "It's very easy 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." *Takes quick glances around* But, with the GT-R LM Nismo, we KNOW it's horrible. It's proven that in real life by getting out-qualified by an LMP2 and not even covering 70% of the race winner's distance, thereby scoring a grand total of zero points. And if you need more evidence of its suckage, all you have to do is to shell out a million credits to buy one and drive it for yourself, preferably not into the pit wall as you wheelspin and understeer trying to navigate out of the pits. To review this car listing its faults would be as big a waste of everyone's time as trying to review a 3D Sonic game; We know it's bad. And so instead of a review this week, I thought we might just chill out in an air conditioned room with a cup of Starbucks coffee and talk in a very relaxing and civilised manner about our experiences in and feelings towards the GT-R LM Nismo.
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Results/05_2015/03_LE%20MANS/86_FIA%20WEC/201506102200_Qualifying%20Practice%201/03_Classification_Qualifying%20Practice%201.PDF
https://www.fiawec.com/en/race/result/47
Somewhere like... here, for example. Please visit soon with a team of friends. Atmosphere is amazing, cars are menacing, comes with Starbucks and lots of pretty OLs!
https://www.nissan.co.jp/GALLERY/HQ/ACCESS/EN/
To drive, the Nismo certainly requires a lot of driver adjustment and getting used to, not just because it's almost literally a one legged man in an butt kicking contest, but also because you'll need to decide on what little settings you can change in the game prior to driving it: For starters, you'll want to knock your brake bias far enough backwards to get lapped 159 times by the Porsche 919, a common trick in this game with hybrid cars to harvest more regen charge under braking. While this turns your typical MR LMP1 into a snappy tightrope balancing act with the rear, the Nismo remains true, straight, and stable under trail braking — almost too much so for your typical racetrack not named la Sarthe, thanks to its long wheelbase. And speaking of hybrid systems, the one in the Nismo works in mysterious ways; while other LMP1s can charge their batteries by holding a smidge of brakes at full throttle, converting fuel into electricity, the Nismo won't charge its batteries like that. The only way I've found to charge the battery for a hot qualifying lap is to use about, say, half throttle up to redline such that you aren't using battery power, mash the brake pedal, harvesting some charge in the process, then half throttle up to redline again. It takes about twenty millenniums to fully charge the battery as a result, and it discharges very quickly as well; you'll be lucky to have any charge left past mid fourth gear.
https://youtu.be/gYLz1zoCvLM
Once you get your brake bias and charging sorted, you'll then want to decide on whether or not to use Traction Control, and how much of it. While TCS is almost always going to slow you down in this game, I find it worth considering in the LM Nismo to save your tyre and battery life by preventing wheelspin, because the latter is unavoidable even with the full strength of TCS on at 5, not to mention it somewhat helps with power understeer out of tighter corners as well. However, it utterly cripples the car in high speed sweepers, where the car is more than capable of negotiating a bend with its tyre-crushing downforce, but TCS simply goes, "DAME DA NE!", and cuts power to the wheels like an idiot. Other oddities include a complete inability to cut any kerbs on a racing track, regardless of TCS settings, because the stiff as bricks suspension and the combined 1,354HP make the inside wheels spin up to the speed of sound and spontaneously combust the moment you give uneven traction to either front tyre, engaging the diff and ensuring it also brings the other tyre with it, resulting in a sense of paralysis from behind the wheel until you wait and wake from the nightmare, which is, needless to say, a very slow, odd, and jarring experience, especially when you're doing LMP1-H speeds with LMP1 mass and LMP1 gearb-
https://youtu.be/GlAgHE5jEQA
...actually, the gearbox in this thing is a five speed, for whatever reason I'm sure is only known to Prince, making the GT-R LM Nismo feel more alike a Nismo GT-R LM to drive than a LMP1 that requires frantic paddle work. To stretch five gears from 0 to 382km/h (237mph), the ratios each have to be longer than the wheelbase, not to mention wider apart than the distance between it and the 919. First gear is good for a whopping 150km/h (93mph), and that means you'll negotiate most corners with it — and be forced to deal with the Godzillian wheelspin being in first beckons. Despite the engine's generous looking tabletop like torque curve, the ratios are so widespread that you really do have to shift near redline and downshift almost as soon as you can without blowing up the engine, simply because you'll need all of the powerband to ensure the Nismo has the acceleration and top speed it needs with only a five speed box, giving you little to no leeway in shifting, and a top speed that only just nudges out a 919's despite the Porsche literally dividing its engine power to propel the car and charge its batteries at those speeds. While Nissan can justify the FF layout, citing aerodynamic efficiency and exploiting loopholes in the rulebook, I really cannot fathom the sheer amount of stupidity that is required to elect a five speed when everyone else is running seven — at least. While not employed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or even most of this game's Sport Mode races, the 5 speed means there is simply no good way for the Nismo to launch from a standing start: traction control bogs the car and drops the engine well below boost for almost 3.5 seconds before you get up to operating range, which means that the fastest way to get it off the line is to balance the throttle manually and keep an ear out for the tyres and revs to gauge for yourself how much wheelspin you want off the line without falling out of boost or taking off half the front tyres' lives at launch. It's not exactly intuitive, fun, or fast, needless to say.
Something tells me no one at Nissan considered it might rain on June 13-14, 2015.
Oh! I thought I wasn't going to poop all over the car today! もーもちろん！今すぐいいことを書く！いいことばっかりじゃないのほうが信じられるですから！はい！英語の読者はそういうものです！本当です！
Once you get going physically and mentally though, the GT-R LM Nismo is actually pretty pleasant to drive, especially if you're already accustomed to the grossly overpowered FF cars of Gr.4, which feel sloppier than melting French cheese on a hot pavement in comparison to the Nismo's composure and immediacy. As one can expect from a LMP1 prototype, the suspension is set up to be stiff as bricks, and as such there is none of that horrendous nose lifting on power that plagues the overly powerful FF cars in Gr.4. There is no perceptible delay between input and result from behind the wheel, and the gs this car can pull are nothing short of savage; on the default Racing Hard tyres and 0 Brake Balance, this car will go from its drag limited top speed of 342km/h (211mph) to zero in roughly 4.8 seconds, which I'm sure is a faster way to stop than plowing through one of the poor chaps' houses on Le Mans. Nissan proudly boasts the aerodynamic efficiency of the car in comparison to its contemporaries, and for good reason: where this car really comes alive and shines is at tracks with several high speed sweepers, such as Toukyo East, where the amount of grip on offer feels enough to dislodge my brain through a TV screen, as there was no comprehending the limits of the car at high speed corners. On the Racing Medium tyres we were running on race day, one barely even has to lift for the tight infield chicane with the bridge sheltering the connection between the two turns, with only one other slight braking zone off the main expressway. I personally feel that this thing generates more downforce in dirty air than a 919 does in clean air. It's mind bogging enough to drive high downforce racing machines wherein more speed gives the car more grip, but that go kart like immediacy at prototype speeds in an FF of all things is, quite simply, entirely unique to the GT-R LM Nismo.
https://youtu.be/T_r_UGx1RT8
So, we know that the car is rubbish in real life and in Sport Mode. *OOF!* But maybe, just maybe, with a car that's so out of the box, perhaps it might be prudent to look elsewhere out of our usual box for an area where the Nismo can shine. Just like the road going GT-Rs, the Longboi secretly begs to be tuned to bring out its true potential Nissan won't give you upfront. The GT-R LM Nismo is already the single most powerful FF in the series' history even when just considering its ICE output alone, but as Vic has already alluded to in his review, Godzilla LM Nismo can be tuned to achieve nuclear power, all of which shoved through the front tyres, because, you know, why not? What could possibly go wrong?
https://youtu.be/fw_2N3tGMEg
I highly recommend you give this excellent video by Jay Leno's Garage a watch, as Jay shares a very compelling and infectious appreciation of the car as he interviews the chief engineer of the project, Zack Eakin. At about 10:16 in that video, Jay poses a question to Zack, which prompts the latter to reveal that the hybrid system in the Nismo can actually drive the rear wheels, and that they were (then) currently debating whether to drive the front or rear wheels with the hybrid system, as they could do away with a lot of drive lines and complications if they went with a pure FWD layout. Of course, we all know that the Nismo is FF in this game, with no way of changing the drivetrain layout. But here's hoping that, when if GT7 arrives, we can change the drivetrain layout à la Forza within Extreme Modifications, and perhaps even give it a 7 speed sequential, which should make the GT-R LM Nismo a true force to be reckoned with, especially considering its already obscene power in comparison to its rivals straight out of the box.
Not even the Loudboi 787B could save me from the Longboi when tuned!
Until then, I thought I'd try a quick retune of the 5 speed box to cruise to hilarious victories in Campaign Mode's Gr.1 Monza race, where this car will very quickly earn you back the credits and mileage points you spend on it. Because come on, can you look me in the eyes and tell me you don't want a 936+750HP FF car in your garage?
SPOILER:
Max power, min mass.
Brake Balance: +5 (rear bias)
Tyres: Racing Hard / Racing Hard
Suspension: stock, lol, why would you waste time meddling with the suspension when adding 55% more power to a car? We're trying to GO FAST here!
Diff: As shown. Very mildly loosened from default for placebo effect.
Gearbox: This is the important bit: pay attention! These steps have to be done in this very specific order!
1) Choose the full custom gearbox.
2) Set the Top Speed to minimum (200km/h)
3) Set the Final Gear to maximum (5.000)
4) Set the Top Speed to maximum (400km/h)
5) Set the Final Gear to 4.580
6) Set the individual gears as shown.
1st: 1.160 / 176km/h (110.6mph)
1st: 1.160 / 176km/h (110.6mph)
2nd: 0.815 / 250km/h (155.3mph)
3rd: 0.653 / 313km/h (194.4mph)
4th: 0.555 / 368km/h (228.6mph)
5th: 0.487 / 450km/h (279.6mph)
Even on Racing Hard tyres, you can take the first chicane of Monza no chicane (what...) at high 90s km/h, which should still keep the engine on boost in first. It'll do around 375km/h on the home straight of Monza off hybrid assist in clean air, and will nudge 400 on Route X.
Also, you can't tell me this isn't the coolest exhaust backfire in motorsport history! I can only imagine what they must look like in real life in the dead of night from the cockpit!
Almost as if I wanted it, the GT-R LM Nismo comes up in Car of the Week just as I wrap up a way-too-long philosophical ramble about how results and lap times aren't everything, and that there is merit and value in cars that don't necessarily put down the best numbers. All the more ironic it is then, that the GT-R LM Nismo, a prototype racing car built only with the most objective of goals: to win, and nothing else, is perhaps the best car to exemplify that belief. Sure, it didn't win. It did embarrassingly, in fact. But look at the journey Nissan took with this car: it sought talent from unconventional channels, namely the GT Academy, to drive a multi million dollar machine. While other manufacturers keep their prototypes closely guarded secrets, Nissan was more than welcoming to the press, allowing photos of the car without its shell on and entertaining several interviews about the car. You can tell they were confident. You can tell they were excited. You can tell they love racing, new ideas, fostering new talent, exploring new possibilities. Don't we all wish our workplaces could be a lot more like that? Other manufacturers always love to claim how they're so different and unique from others (I'm a fanboy of one, but Hiroshima's a looong way from here), but Nissan not only talks the talk, but runs the race as well. Even after the cars' embarrassing results in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Nissan still continues to allow it to appear in games, which tells me that they are proud and unashamed of taking a risk that didn't pay off. And really, just because it lost horribly in a race due to debris and electrical failure, does that mean that their idea and interpretation of the rules had no merit? That new, possibly better ways to achieve the same result are not worth exploring? That courage, and the people at Nissan who engineered and greenlit this financial risk, aren't worth celebrating? I have a very distinct feeling Nissan would've been on the top of the world if they actually managed to win 2015's 24 Hours of Le Mans, and that we'd still be buzzing about it to this day. It really just goes to show that the line between genius and insanity is simply down to something as binary and barbaric as results.
And that I feel is a fault of us as humans, not the cars.
Yeah, don't review a car; review an entire species! Way to go, me! How much sugar did they put in this coffee?!
The GT-R LM Nismo may not have won 2015's 24 Hours of Le Mans. It certainly isn't going to win Car of the Year awards from us. But there is one thing it has won very convincingly: my utmost respect for the brand.
いいえ、ちゃんと褒めていますよ！悪いことなんて考えられない！何？「助けて！」って書いてない！本当だ！ま…まさか！このコーヒーに…！アアアァァァ！
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