#supergt #2005 #reckless
The first thing that strikes an onlooker with a 4C Gr.3 is, of course, its comparatively tiny size, even with the flares and bulges. Being a rear mid–engined, tiny sports car, it's almost a foregone conclusion that the 4C would serve almost a Lotus Elise like niche in Gr.3, being the extremely lightweight, but severely underpowered surgical knife of a car that would compete against the bigger goliaths with reckless agility and unreal frugality, but take either a quick look at the Balance of Performance tables or a 4C running amongst its peers, and that seemingly foregone conclusion quickly fades away: the 4C is only the 9th lightest and the 16th least powerful car in the zany Gr.3 category with v1.48 Mid–Speed BoP applied, rendering it rather prone to being lost in the shuffle when it comes time to pick a meta car. For a supposed cornering car, it has a surprising ability to sniff unsuspecting rear bumpers: my GT500 NSX struggled to rein in the 4C in the wake of the latter's miniscule slipstream around Grand Valley, and Alex's 4C set a faster lap in clean air than my F1 GTR aided with some slipstream... around Monza. The 4C also has a strong top end possibly owing to its lack of drag, making it punch above its weight on tracks that explore the speed limits of Gr.3 cars.
But that is not to say that the folks at Polyphony Digital will give up that illusion of an agile car that quickly: the 4C has a front end so sharp and responsive that it seemingly reacts more to a driver's brain waves rather than their hands. With a full rearward brake bias of +5, weak ABS, and downshifting as aggressive as the caricature flares of the 4C, its rear end comes around just a slight bit under hard braking into a corner, transitioning over seamlessly to the intuitively progressive turbocharged engine when it comes time for propulsion to carry that momentum. Of course, as a short wheelbase RMR car, the 4C will wear its rear tyres out more than its fronts—about twice as fast on the outside from my time flogging it around Sardegna A—but the 4C's personality doesn't change all that much even as its tyres wear down, being mainly limited by front grip. It's only in extreme wear cases, at about 10% life left on soft tyres, does the 4C start becoming squirrely. In terms short and sweet like the lifespan of the production car, the 4C a delight to toss around corners in spite of its spec sheet.
...if the course fits the car well, that is.
Looks can be deceiving, and the tiny RMR sports car is hardly the ideal cornering Gr.3 machine. To illustrate, I'll be comparing it against the car that has been the closest thing to being my go–to car in Gr.3, the 2017 Porsche 911 RSR, and I took both cars out onto the qualifying Time Trial of last week's Daily Race B at Maggiore GP. The 4C is just a bit more prone to power oversteer out of corners, and the fictional car is violently allergic to kerbs, grass, and sausages, with the whole car seemingly surrendering all semblance of grip and control and going completely limp the moment there's an imbalance of traction on one side, often resulting in a rather embarrassing meeting with the inside barrier at a perpendicular angle. Tracks that necessitate heinous track cuts or kerb riding, such as Maggiore and Dragon Trail, might as well be minefields for drivers in a 4C, while the 911 simply wafts past these road imperfections as though a gentle, passing breeze.
While the 4C gives drivers neck–snapping initial turn–in, it doesn't have the same turning ability of the 911 at the same speeds, and it's much less communicative when approaching said limits, resulting in a confidence inspiring, if not frantic turn–in, only for the steering wheel to suddenly feel like it has hit a brick wall mid rotation. The 911, while not as ferociously responsive initially, is much more gradual and communicative with its grip limits to me, and have I mentioned the 911 turns more at the same speed? All this is most evident at high speed sweeping corners like turn 13 of Maggiore, the deceptively scary right kink leading onto the home straight of the West End Layout with minimal runoff area. It's a flat out corner in the 911—but there isn't much wiggle room in the racing line if the turn is to be taken flat. The 4C has without fail, asked of me to lift for the turn, even if for a barely noticeable moment and a tiny smidge, and this is even with as perfect a line as I could manage. I had considered the possibility of the gung–ho 4C being faster at that point, or just having its downforce more biased to the rear, but the 911 and 4C share identical downforce values according to the game, and the 4C similarly asks me to lift much more for Turn 8 than the 911; the final left hander in a complex of corners before the gentle chicane leading onto the back straight.
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