I'm probably overthinking something that works best with no thought, but with my recent exposure to some really cool people around my age, I've been made to wonder how exactly it is one goes about making friends, and how to define such a thing.
Interacting with new people, even friendly, cool ones, is a bit puzzling to me. I super struggle to find anything that can sustain a conversation that isn't directly related to work, which I think makes me sound super boring and serious, not to mention I run out of things to say once work is done, and I struggle even harder to find an excuse to initiate a conversation with someone once work ends. I mean, yeah, sure, the obvious things, like food, weather, hobbies, etc., are on the table I suppose. But I can't seem to find a way to ease into the conversation. Wouldn't it be fucking weird if one day you woke up to find that a colleague is asking you about your favourite foods and hobbies?
My past traumas may be playing a part in this, it may not. But it all just strikes me as super creepy and transparently desperate, and I don't think that'll make a good impression.
I do have friends. Two of them I regularly talk to, and whom I trust with my life. I know these are excruciating rarities that I'm beyond lucky to have stumbled ass–backwards into having in this life, but I can't help but to wonder if I can replicate the process of finding people that could mean this much to me, whom I can in turn mean very much to. I know everyone's different, and that there therefore is no fixed "process" to befriend everyone, and thus me saying in the beginning of this post that friendship is something that works best without thought; I'm willing to say with certainty at least that sincerity and truthfulness is paramount in any meaningful friendship, and neither of those two require thought. But as it stands right now, my honest and sincere thoughts and actions are, "I want to get to know you better and hang out more outside of work but I don't know how to ease into it in an appropriate manner that doesn't cross too many boundaries too soon and therefore I will sincerely just sit here like a paralysed statue and hope that you see something in me that piques your interest or goodwill enough to invite me out to a dinner or whatever it is you social butterflies do now that we're in Phase 2 Heightened Alert and can't dine in no more and hopefully then I can leave a better impression on you that you'd invite me out again beyond the first dinner *WHEW*", which I don't think "normal" people will very much get. I mean, if I see a quiet, desolate kid, I'd think he wants to be left the fuck alone, too.
Small talk is a death sentence to me. I brought this up with - once and she offered to role play a new employee who happens to have sat across the table from me during lunchtime, and I think I hit a solid brick wall about four sentences in. It's strangely apropos that I bring - up, because I think a big reason why I struggle with small talk is because I struggle with boundaries. I don't want to talk about the weather. I don't want to talk about food. I want to talk about something I'm interested in, something that can stimulate my brain into working. I want to talk about personal things. Challenges. How you deal with them. How they make you feel. I want to know what you like and dislike, and why those are so. What are your hobbies. What it means to you. I want an insight into you as a person, and fucking food and weather probably isn't going to give me that information about you. But, again, boundaries. Not everyone is willing to divulge that information on the first, second, or even tenth meeting. It's just that the foreplay confuses and bores the shit out of me. Is it really such a weird concept to want to know if I'll click well with a person and want to be their friend in the first meeting, instead of wasting weeks and months of my life trying to read a person and build a profile of them in my head, only to find that they're child molesters and animal abusers?
But that also begs the question, right? "What are friends, exactly?" Again, I have trouble with boundaries and non binary thinking, as noted by -. At the mention of the word, "friends", I think of the two aforementioned guys, whom I consider my brothers, whom I'll entrust my life to without second thought. I think of celebrating their birthdays, helping them out, having heart to hearts, being there for their important occasions, meeting weekly, where we'll have nothing to talk about but end up talking endlessly for hours, etc.. But there are more "levels" to friends than that, I think. Maybe there are friends out there that aren't so tight. With whom you keep contact with but never depend on them on anything super personal or important, or feel guilty to. Maybe there are friends out there who aren't close enough to share every detail of their lives with. And it's these "grey areas" in friendship that I struggle to understand. I mean, why don't we try to get to know each other better, or try to like each other more? If I can't be 100% honest and sincere with you, if I can't let my guard down around you, then you're just draining me mentally. And I don't want that with a casual setting. It makes the occasion feel like a job meeting, wherein I have to be polite, appropriate, dress up, etc.. And if I'm in that "job meeting" mindset, I'd want something done. I'd want a goal. Then it becomes transactional. Then I'm reminded of how useless and worthless I am, being unable to provide of value for anyone aside from a stupid listening ear and a wall upon which to hurl your shit at to be promptly discarded when you're done. Then it becomes stiff. Then it becomes tiring. Then it becomes disingenuine. Then it becomes superficial. And then it becomes everything I dislike about an office job, and urrrgh. What's the point at this point?
I uh... really want to befriend some of my colleagues, but I just don't know how to ask them. My immediate thought was, "hey, can I add you on Facebook?" It gives me a sense of affirmation to be friends on Facebook, as it's visible, lasting proof that we met one day and liked each other enough to want to see what the other person is like in other aspects of their lives, hollow a concept as social media might be. It also lets me know more about a person without having to conversate, which can in turn help me in future conversations (though yes that does make me sound very much like a stalker). Thing is, I'm so out of touch with these young whippersnappers nowadays that I don't even know how they keep in touch with each other. "No one uses Facebook nowadays!", I'm told after mustering up the courage to ask. And hoo boy do I feel like an old geezer holding his back on a rocking chair waiting for death to finally claim him.
Why do I get this feeling that befriending someone is something no one taught in school, yet somehow everyone learned in school? Except me because I'm dumb?
It's often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but that had never held true for describing something as dynamic, and perhaps even organic, as a car. There's no such complication or poetry in this week's case however...
...because the 2014 Lamborghini Veneno simply, plainly sucks.
In the 2.7km (1.67mi) I've put on the odometer of my Veneno in my own private practice right before joining this week's lobby, I've overshot, understeered, and crashed this car about 4 times. The Veneno is one of the cars that are so horrendous to drive in this game that you could take one corner, stop the car, and then walk back to the pits in disgust. It understeers so much that it seemingly wants to cut right through The Omega of Big Willow despite my every effort to stop and turn it, even on uprated Sport Soft tyres we were running in this week's meetup (default are Sport Hards; you might as well be driving on bald toilet rolls at that point). It takes forever to slow for a corner too, often requiring braking well before the first distance markers for every corner, some situated 200m before the turn–in. I don't think I've ever driven a car that has asked of me to lift in "The Sweeper", Turn 8, of Big Willow before, but lo and behold, you'll need to lift hard to avoid going into the sand, or even dab the brakes a bit to hold a narrow line to brake in a straight line for Turn 9, the final corner. It's an absolutely abhorrent chore to drive, one that immediately puts a person into a bad mood upon undertaking the task, akin to disputing a BS legal case: The whole thing just feels like an argument wherein both parties try to shout over the other and nothing gets met in the middle nor goes anywhere.
And so after the first race at Big Willow, I spent the rest of the session trying to find cars that could compete against the Veneno, and just like another crappy Italian car we tested not too long ago, the lobby soon descended into "a free-for-all, bring whatever fits into the power/weight limits" battle royal: a sure sign that nobody likes driving the Car of the Week. At one point, we ran America's big three pony cars, all of which are infinitely cheaper, not to mention way more fun. The GT-R Safety Car, despite being of an ancient platform with "only" 6 forward gears and topping out at 324km/h gear limited halfway into the home straight tunnel of Toukyo East, pulls football fields on the Veneno in the straights, so much so that even with a higher drag limited top speed of 377km/h, the Veneno experiences a net time disadvantage on the straight—even when driven by Vic on a track characterised by its never–ending home straight. And don't think for a second that the ultra–fancy Veneno with its appearance and claim of a "aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype" can compensate for that in the corners, either, because according to the game, this damn thing has as much front downforce as my Honda Fit: a.k.a. zero.
Yes, I'll admit, all of the aforementioned cars compared against the Veneno were tuned to be as powerful as possible and be as light as possible within our lobby's regulations of 739HP (591kW) and 1,450kg (3,197lbs), the stock power and mass of the Veneno. I usually run comparisons with bone stock cars, but as with most filthy Italian supercars, the listed mass in this game is its dry mass, which makes legitimate comparisons against more ethical, honest, and sensible makes completely impossible, hence why I just made them as competitive as possible within the regulations. God I hate reviewing Italian cars. I really do. It infuriates me to no end. I hate their politics. I have no idea why they're so obsessed with the dry mass of a car. Has no one ever thought, "wait a minute, if we quote the dry mass in a self–proclaimed simulator and if it perchance handles like a constipated dog's stiff, dry poo in said simulator, what does that say about the real world performance of our car?"
There is one car I left completely bone stock aside from a tyre upgrade to Sports Soft to match the Veneno's, however...
Mechanically, I struggle to find much difference between an Aventador LP 750-4 SV and a Veneno. Both have engines producing the exact same power at the exact same rpm. Both are AWD rear mid engined cars. Both have 7 speed automated manual gearboxes. The only minor difference is that the Aventador weighs a slight bit more than the Veneno, at 1,525kg (3,362lbs) and less torque at 690.2N⋅m (509.1lbf⋅ft), in comparison to the Veneno's 720.8N⋅m (531.6lbf⋅ft). The Aventador also exhibits way more body movement than the tauter Veneno, but puzzlingly has less understeer than its more exclusive sister, allowing me to keep up with, and even pester Rick's Veneno on a few occasions around Suzuka despite the Aventador's deficiencies on paper.
Here's the thing, though: not only does the Aventador SV cost roughly a third of the Veneno, but it felt much more like a "proper" Lamborghini to drive. Yes, it still understeers on corner entry, but it was much more cooperative and capable than the Veneno under trail braking, and on exits, the car felt much more lairy and alive, requiring drivers to wrestle the rebellious car under their control, lest its rear end swings out with the more pronounced body roll over the Veneno if you simply gun it, despite being AWD. The Aventador may be lairy and rebellious like its styling suggests, but it can be wrestled into submission to bite an apex or even to have some fun with slides. In fact, it requires you to wrestle it to prove that you are worthy of its cooperation. It has a haughty elitism to it not just in its styling and price tag, but most importantly in a video game, also in its driving dynamics as well, which I've come to associate with a good Lamborghini like the Countach. The Veneno on the other hand, never gave me that sense of drama nor cooperated with me no matter what I tried with it. It isn't a tempting Tsundere with a soft and sweet side you have to prove yourself to see; it's just a bad bitch thorough and through, seemingly just for the sake or appearance of it.
Okay, fine, the Veneno is faster around a track than an Aventador. But by how much? I'd rather attempt to shave my balls with a chainsaw than to hotlap a Veneno, so I'll refer you to Alex P's Nordschleife runs:
2.876 seconds faster apparently... around a 7 minute lap.
Can a lap time advantage of 0.6% justify a price hike of 300%? What are you paying for exactly? The exclusivity? The fact that the Veneno is supposedly the celebration of Lamborghini's 50th Anniversary as a manufacturer? I think that fact beats the dead horse that is the Veneno's case even further, as it brings to mind other cars like the Ferrari F50 and the utterly brilliant Honda S2000 as comparisons, benchmarks, and expectations. Can the Veneno really live up to that sort of hype and expectations? At its core, it's simply a reskinned Aventador with a remapped engine. If you look in the interior of both cars, you'd find that they have the same A and B pillars, the same digital dash, the same air con vents... everything! Yet, for all its similarities to the Aventador, it's difficult to imagine that a simple reskin could result in a product that's so much worse. Perhaps this is what Chris Harris alluded to in his article, "Lamborghinis Are The Perfect Cars For People Who Can't Drive", wherein he describes that no two Aventadors handle the same, and perhaps the Veneno is circumstantial proof of that in Gran Turismo Sport. If the Veneno is supposed to be a symbolic icon of Lamborghini as a brand, then I can only be left to infer that modern day Lamborghinis are style over substance, show over go. And that they handle terrible. Hell, I don't even like the Aventador that much, yet here I am, making it sound like the second coming of your preferred deity just because it's in the same conversation as the Veneno.
If you truly must drive a Veneno over an Aventador for whatever reason, I think Sport Soft tyres are a bare minimum for it to be barely tolerable. Tune it if you can. Otherwise, don't bother with it.
If the automotive industry has taught us anything, it's that there's nothing quite as bewitching — and scary — as a pissed off Italian.
The Lancia Stratos won the World Rally Championship three years in a row from 1974. It looks more like a TAMIYA racecar than an actual, road legal, production car. It has a freaking Ferrari engine in it, which sounds like a swarm of enraged mechanical bees when you wring it out. It's shod with bias ply tyres. It has no ABS. And yet somehow, none of the aforementioned are the most outlandish part of the car. No — that distinction would go to its loose rear end, because the Stratos is easily among the most tail happy cars you can drive in this game, and yes, I'm even including air cooled 911s in this comparison.
To be entirely fair, the Stratos' tail happiness isn't unreasonable or unconditional, unlike those of an FC RX-7 or a Honda Beat. There is a logical, logistical flow to driving the thing; it's just that the Stratos has very little tolerance and forgiveness for an unskilled, imprecise driver. With soft springs, stiletto–thin tyres, a rather high cg, and — very puzzlingly for an RMR car — identically sized tyres front and rear, the way a Stratos corners is such that the rear outside tyres are always at the limit of their grip, since they are the limiting factor to how fast it can corner. Any slight twitch of the steering wheel once the car is off neutral having dove into a corner then, be it to adjust an ill–judged line or to correct an overzealous slide, simply causes the rear tyres to overwhelm instantly, sending the car into a spin or an inescapable fishtail. The Stratos is one of those cars that you need to constantly steer to keep straight, and as such, is very choosy with its drivers, demanding that they treat this maliciously moody mistress gently with due understanding and respect and be on top of her at all times, lest they suddenly find most of her svelte, supermodel–shaming 980kg (2,161lbs) body on top of them instead.
That said, for the professional dom who does manage to wrestle the Stratos to bend to their will, the Stratos is a properly quick car even by today's standards. It is pretty much THE N100 car in the game when detuned, and having a 5 speed gearbox in the seventies was a huge deal. The driving experience is so raw and so demanding that it'd make even hardcore 911 fans wince and Lotus purists' faces turn British Racing Green with jealousy. Just like a pissed off Italian supermodel, it's not really my thing. It's best enjoyed when admired from afar, and god help you if you ever get involved with her. And I don't tend to like being in abusive relationships that much.
The McLaren F1 Road Car is still to this day, the single, undisputed, best car ever produced in history, and the racing version of it that's under the spotlight this week is simply a better version of the best car.
That really could've been the end of the review. But no one's here for that, are they?
History and hyperbole aside, the F1 GTR is a bit of a misfit in Gran Turismo Sport. Originally a car built to GT1 specifications, it sits uncomfortably in between modern day's GT3 and GT500 cars in terms of outright pace, and is dumped by the game into the GT3 equivalent class, Gr.3, with severe crippling to its power and mass via Balance of Performance, such that it produces lap times roughly within the same century of the much more modern GT3, GTE and Gr.3 machinery. For some context, the F1 GTR is by far and away the oldest car in Gr.3, with the second oldest being the 2012 Aston V12.
Not that running at roughly the same pace helps the hypercar from 1995 to stick out any less in Gr.3 however, seeing as the only notable bits the F1 GTR boasts over the road going car externally is a pair of dinky lights on the bonnet, subtly redesigned bumpers, and an adjustable wing on the back. In that sense, the F1 GTR looks almost like an F1 Gr.4 if such a thing existed, and that's exactly how I'd describe the driving dynamics of the F1 GTR, actually: like a Gr.4 car given 600HP. Lacking the black magic of downforce both by design and technological limitations 20 years ago, the F1 GTR simply will not behave or drive like a Gr.3 car, requiring drivers to slow down for turns so much in comparison to everything else in Gr.3 that it's downright dangerous to share a track with them. Even after scrubbing off enough speed, the F1 does have a very strong bias towards understeer, built for a wide open, high speed, bumpy track that is la Sarthe. To give some context on how closely the F1 GTR resembles the road car, the road car can even annoy and harass the race car around la Sarthe when shod with the same racing tyres. Funnily enough, I think the road car is to the GTR, what the GTR is to the rest of Gr.3: fast as hell on the straights, but will sandbag dangerously in the bends.
In spite of all this, the F1 GTR is nonetheless a rather common sight in high level Sport Mode races, simply because, even with a 21% mass increase and 11% power drop as it stands with BoP applied at the time of writing, there is simply no blunting the intent of the Mulsanne Missile that is the F1 GTR when the roads straighten out for a long while, almost as if a car possessed by the will of its engineers. If you've ever had the far fetched fantasy of gapping a competitor of the same class as you in a sanctioned race as they sit in your slipstream, the F1 will grant you that pipe dream even if you didn't know you had that fantasy before, and as such, it's a rather difficult car to overtake in most good overtaking spots on tracks because its completely unethical straight line speed makes getting close to it, let alone lined up alongside it on hard braking zones a very difficult ask. At tracks defined by their cross-country straights then, such as Toukyo East and the aforementioned la Sarthe, only the cream of the crop of Gr.3, such as the Supra, Ford GT, Aston V12, or the GT1 DBR9 can even hope to hang onto the slipstream of the F1 GTR.
Of course, that's a very exacting scenario, one that, while not totally unheard of, is nonetheless not nonexistent. For most other scenarios, better balanced cars with an edge in acceleration, such as the Aston V12, will fit most of your Sport Mode needs regardless of prevailing BoP, meaning that the F1 is a bit of a niche car at best in the context of this game. It's an amazing car, don't get me wrong. It won a race it wasn't "supposed" to win. If that isn't the definition of a Sleeper, then I don't know what is. Sure, it's hard to blame a fish for not being able to walk well on land. But that's just where it finds itself in GT Sport, and it's either waltz or wilt on the racetrack, and, you know, this is a review, not a "gush about the McF1 for two million words" writeup, tempting as that may be. If you can somehow purge all knowledge and expectation that it is a Gr.3 car and simply experience it for what it is with an open mind, it's a pretty solid car. I bought mine the day it was released, just to be a pretty orange garage queen, whom I take out for a spin every now and then and for the occasional photo shoot, and haven't regretted it for a moment. It's why some of the photos in this review are dated all the way back in 2019 if you've noticed.
While it is a complete misfit in Gr.3, I'm very glad that's where it ended up in, nonetheless, instead of being relegated to the dumping ground of Gr.X, because it means that the F1 GTR still has some relevance and use in this game, unlike the P1 GTR. A part of me still wonders if it'd be a better fit into Gr.4 though, if Polyphony Digital had allowed its power to dip that low and mass to rise that high. And I'm very glad that, unlike the Group C cars lumped into Gr.1, the F1 GTR hasn't been given unrealistic aero just because of the category it's in. Plus, being a Gr.3 car, that means it comes priced at 450,000 Credits, which is less than half the million credit asking price of the road going variant (or you can just be sponsored the car without even being required to run one race with it and never return it; your call).
And speaking of Group C cars, I wanted to try pitting another Le Mans winner, the 787B, against the F1 GTR in the rain, seeing as the F1 did beat out purpose built prototypes due to seventeen hours of rain back in 1995's race. Of course, in the simplistic virtual world of Gran Turismo Sport, it's a safe, foregone conclusion that the 787B with its unrealistic aero would blow the brawns out of the F1 through the latter's eardrums, but as per our lobbies' usual restrictions, the 787B has been handicapped to bring it up to the F1 GTR's stock mass of 1,050kg (2,315lbs) and down to its stock power of 600HP (447kW), for a closer fight between the two. And hoo boy, what a close fight I wound up with indeed!
...just not with a McLaren. Instead, a rather fiesty Hyundai appeared to rain on the Le Mans parade:
Jaguar is no stranger to motorsports, with extensive success stories ranging from Alpine Rallies to the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans, to name just a few. Far be it from me to tell you about the brand's grandiose 86-year history, though, seeing as I had to Google both the above factoids just to write this first paragraph. Happily however, the Jaguar F-type Gr.3 racing car is something that needs no introduction or history books to be appreciated, because I'm almost certain the "F" in "F-type" stands for "Fun".
Being one of the only two cars currently in Gr.3 that is supercharged (the other being the Ford GT LM Spec II Test Car), the ferocious feline immediately stands out in its roster of racers, and don't think for a second that it's all meow and no move, either, because the F-type pulls hard on the straights with the aforementioned supercharged 5L V8. Paired to a bespoke, impeccably engineered gearbox that seemingly has a cog for any situation, the entire drivetrain is delightfully instant and linear, pulling hard from any speed, like a cat straight out of a litter box... which is helpful for when you actually find yourself in the sand. In the twisty bits, the Jag has such a wonderful, catlike balance and stability, letting it quickly earn the trust of its driver, while being difficult to upset mid corner, both of which encouraged me to try some braver than usual antics in it despite me showing up to this week's meet late and having no prior experience in the car, a testament to how easy it is to learn the ins and outs of this thing. The Jag's stability was such that it felt right in its habitat hunting game down the demanding downhill switchbacks of Bathurst, where other cars have cower and tiptoe around in fear of spinning out. In exchange however, don't expect this big cat to be as nimble as its mid-engined competition in a meandering chase, as the front end does start to feel rather inert when push comes to shove. Where I think it'd be most happy then, is on a wide open, high speed circuit where it can stretch its legs, and hopefully doesn't have to worry too much about tyres and fuel.
Personally though, if I had to pick a British Gr.3 car, I think I'd rather go with an Aston V12, seeing as it seems to be the straight line king of Gr.3 last I checked, and I oddly find the old, 2012 car much more nimble too. And, hey, it's a V12! But, don't let that dissuade you from giving the F-type a try if one comes lurking around your garage for cat food one day courtesy of the Daily Workout Gift, because it's a very solid, fun car to drive while not lacking in outright pace. It's just a car that is difficult to go wrong in, having all the right bits to be made competitive with another Balance of Performance tweak. And who knows? If you manage to make it purr, one day the gods of BoP might just shine favourably on it, and it might help chase off a Viper from your garage or claim the tongue of a noisy RX-Vision. Until then, you can keep taking cat pictures of it and show them off on the internet for some fame, because it's a superbly photogenic as well. It's a hell of a car, all things considered, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it this week.
Here's the livery link to the livery I used on race day. More photos on my GTPlanet album.
There are certain cars that seemingly define the market in which they reside, that everything else gets compared to and benchmarked against, such as the 911, Golf, and 3 Series for example. The Mazda Roadster however, seemingly stands alone both in its market and history books. While itself an imitation of an extinct class of cars, the Mazda Roadster has become so successful both critically and commercially, it seemingly created an inimitable market of itself, and could even be credited for giving Mazda's current identity of being the "fun-to-drive" car company, picking up the torch from the Rotary powered FD RX-7 and JC Cosmo, both of which were abysmal failures commercially, fun to drive in their own rights as those may have been. To sing the praises of the Roadster would be like trying to count the water molecules in the ocean, but chiefly for a racing game, its cheap, down to earth, fun to wring out, impeccably balanced, straightforward and endlessly engaging package lends itself well to grassroots racing events, as engaging and exhilarating to drive for both the amateur and professional alike. And this is proven by how the Roadster is the single most raced model in motorsports. To not include a Mazda Roadster Cup Car of some variant in your racing game then, would be an omission as glaring as excluding the Nürburgring; you simply can't call your software a racing sim if it lacks either.
Curiously, the variant of a Roadster Cup Car we got in the e-sports focused simcade, Gran Turismo Sport, is based off the first generation Roadster of the current four, chassis code NA6CE. In pre-release builds and trailers for the game, and even remaining in unused assets in the product we now have, there exists a fourth generation, ND Roadster with an obligatory carbon wing, lowered suspension, roll cage, and with tow hooks that look to have been lifted straight from the factory fresh, race ready NR-A spec, though oddly missing its bucket seats and harnesses. Residing in N200, it was clear that this ND Roadster was as much show as it was go, but with it being ultimately cut for unknown reasons, that's all we'll seemingly get to know. It is very possible that at one point, Gran Turismo Sport's take on a Roadster Cup Car would have been an evocatively sleek and modern ND Roadster, but instead what we wound up getting is a rehashed NA Roadster Touring Car from 2010's Gran Turismo 5.
The Roadster Touring Car as it appears in Gran Turismo 5.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, however. With flared arches, even more carbon bits, a roll cage, bucket seats, racing harnesses, and fire extinguishers, it certainly looks more the business than the "ND200". While Polyphony Digital could've easily copied and pasted the car as-is from GT6 to GTS, there are several substantial changes made to the car in its transition from the PS3 to PS4, bringing the pop-up headlight flaunting, chrome door handle wearing, Eunos badge bearing rust bucket of a NA up to date and e-sports ready while giving it a new flame spitting attitude: Power is upped from 197HP to a whopping205 (147kW to 153), and to help keep your neck from snapping in the corners and straights, the car is given more aggressive bucket seats and 6-point harnesses for both the passenger and especially the driver, who has a seat so all encompassing all you'd see is fabric if you turned your head. Also, yes, you read that right: it has a passenger seat! And turn signals! Reverse lights! Even a license plate! Hence why it's put in N200 just like the "ND200", together with the rest of the production, road legal cars in the game. Just... pretend the whine from the straight cut sequential gearbox is a supercharger whine, and uh... pray it doesn't rain... and that the roads are smooth as mirrors, because the car has no roof, and the suspension feels to have been stiffened even further, now being able to wear even Racing Tyres with no perceptible pitch or roll. Six other paint choices join what used to be the sole offering of Dark Green with White Stripes, not to mention you get to repaint it as many times as you want at no cost! All this work to bring the Roadster Touring Car up to date, and yet the price has been more than halved, from 167,000 Credits down to just 80,000! It'd almost excuse the updated car not having a fuel gauge in its revamped racing display, which is now finally able to read up to 9,000rpm, which the engine always had been able to do. But who cares about a fuel gauge? It's road legal! (I think!) You could utterly humiliate the poor chap and their Atenza diesel in an N200 race easy!
With the Roadster Touring Car's reintroduction into the series in Sport, one has to wonder if the floodgates have been opened for other cars in the Touring Car DLC pack, such as the RX-7, GT-R, and even the CR-Z and Prius Touring Cars could possibly be reintroduced sometime later in Sport's life span, or even in Gran Turismo 7, seeing as these DLC cars seemingly have the prerequisite poly count for the current generation of hardware, quite a feat considering these were put on sale in 2011. It's not at all often that we get a fictional car returning to the series, especially one that's so relevant and realistic, and the unmistakably retro look of a NA Roadster offers a very fitting nostalgic look at the franchise a decade ago, brimming with ideas and ambitions, perhaps to a fault. I do quite miss these fictional "tuned" cars, especially when afforded with the ability to customise them further, be it with actual tuning options or a livery editor, and it's such a shame that these cars have seemingly taken a back seat to VGT cars and e-sports. It's why I'm personally so disappointed to find that the GT Auto logo on the back of the roll cage has been erased; it'd have been such a throwback, akin to seeing Grand Valley East's layout as the Course Select icon.
Okay, enough of the old man whining. How does it drive?
With the Roadster being such a staple both in real and virtual racing, it is, of course, really plucky and agile as one might expect a race prepped Roadster to be. The stiffened suspension setup of the car now feels equally happy to wear racing slicks as it is for economy rubber, which is a feat that is quite simply magic. Its taut suspension makes weight transfer as immediate and no-nonsense as a full fledged racing machine, immediate and intuitive in equal measure. Despite its looks, it doesn't have race destroying downforce, fully encouraging closely fought racing in one-make races that is popular in all areas of the game, be it Daily Races, FIA, or even private lobbies (like ours!). All this attention, with all its history, and Japanese heritage means that the Discover section of the Roadster TC is absolutely flooding with liveries, from classic Gran Turismo Racing Modification replicas, the omnipresent 787B and Asparadrink liveries, Itasha, Mad Mike Red Bull drift machines... Hell, because it's a road legal car *wink wink*, you can even do up your own street special and role play a tuner! The possibilities with this car just seem so endless, and you can seemingly never go wrong with it. After all, "Miata Is Always The Answer", no matter what question you're being asked.
...or can you go wrong with a Roadster?
It goes without saying that no car is perfect. It's just that, with a Roadster, you'd really have to stuff your grey matter where your butt cheeks are to screw up something so simple and perfect... which the good folk over at PD seemingly have. Yes, it's lightweight and stiffly sprung, which makes the car every bit as darty and jumpy as a Gr.4 machine. Yet... somehow, the car just doesn't seem to stop as well as one might think a car weighing 795kg (1,753lbs) would, especially on the higher grades of rubber this thing can take without complaint. Over the course of our weekly meet, I never got used to how much distance the Roadster TC needed to slow for a corner. It has roughly half the power and two thirds the mass of the Cayman GT4 Clubsport, yet the Roadster can barely brake any later than the GT4 machine when shod with the same racing rubber. Sure, maybe if you're adaptive enough of a racing driver, you can learn when to brake with it and use trackside markers as a guide, but over the quick succession back-to-back races of our weekly meet, I simply could not believe or adapt to how long the Roadster TC needed to stop, overshooting many corners. I can't stop seeing the claustrophobic bathtub of an interior of a car I'm driving, the signature squarish pop up headlights staring back at me, and I expect the damn thing to stop like a Roadster should, but it simply doesn't!
Perhaps the wide spread five speed ratio and the accompanying lack of engine braking is partially to blame, but I think I have a more plausible theory as to why the Roadster just doesn't seem to have the stopping power its petite silhouette and racing car bits promise, and it's down to the alignment of the suspension. I usually only whine about the default suspension setup for racing cars, as I think those have less of an excuse to handle horrifically, and have more unforgivable consequences for doing so, but the Roadster TC... let's face it, it's a racing car that should never have been put into N200. It's every bit a racing car as a Gr.4 machine, just with less speed. I think the alignment of the wheels simply isn't right, as the car squeals its inside tyres before the outside during any turn, and the tyres themselves seemingly let go very suddenly with little in the way of warning or transition, nor do they feel like they've anywhere the bite that they should've. Honestly? Whichever tyre you fit on the Roadster TC feels almost like one and a half compounds less grippy than whatever you've put on as a result of having too much camber and toe in them, which can go some way in explaining why it doesn't stop like I think it should. Couple the misaligned tyres with its anorexic mass, and the Roadster TC will comically oversell any small bump or contact from its competitors, the likes of which would make Hall of Famers like Shawn Michaels and The Rock blush.
The drivetrain of the car is... equally unfortunate. No, I'm not just talking about how it lacks power; that'd be like saying water is wet. Rather, the fact that it has a five speed is just woeful, and the tall final gear ratio of the car certainly doesn't help move things along. As a result of all this, it can barely wheelspin from a standing start with its default Sport Hard tyres, fifth is completely unnecessary around most tracks, the car can't even hit its drag limited top speed of 241km/h even at the never ending home straight of Toukyo East, and you'll need to shift it at varying points for optimum acceleration, depending on which gear you're in, balancing mechanical advantage with the torque curve of the engine. In no other car did I feel the surge and recess of acceleration when shifting gears as much as I did in the Roadster TC, which means that you'll need to be very cognizant of which gear you're in and what speeds you're doing, which some may argue makes it a very involving, technical drive, but personally I just find it annoying as it really highlights the car's lack of power instead of masking it, not to mention the task of learning when to shift it isn't exactly intuitive, either.
For some odd reason, the car's newly fitted shift lights for Sport, and the game's HUD are both horrendously calibrated, filling and flashing respectively at around 8,200rpm, which is 800rpm below the redline of the car, and with a wide spread five speed ratio, 800rpm can mean a difference of 22km/h (14mph) in fourth, a big difference no matter who you ask. It's a small annoyance you'll need to learn to adapt to as a MT driver, but for AT drivers, the poorly calibrated in-game HUD means that the AI will upshift the car too early on acceleration, harshly punishing them for not changing cogs themselves.
The Roadster TC isn't just fussy with its gears in accelerating, but also for cornering as well, as I find that you'll need to damn near blow up the engine on downshifts just to get the rear end to rotate into a corner. For many corners taken below 60km/h (37mph), I find it imperative to take a quick dip back down into the first for the car to rotate into the apex of a corner, before quickly upshifting into 2nd to power out of it, which is another way the Roadster TC demands to be driven on MT. For some reason, the Roadster TC has an overly stable and tight rear end that's difficult to coerce into cooperating, at least for my tastes, and its utterly lopsided, Daihatsu Midget II-esque weight distribution of 54:46 F:R really doesn't help with the understeer, which is all the more astounding to behold considering the differential of the car I find is way too lax, meaning that the understeer is almost certainly down to the alignment of the tyres, seeing as there isn't much downforce on this car. Even with the accelerator pedal pinned to the floor and all the weight over the rear, turning the steering wheel too hard will invite the rear end out very quickly as the diff sits idly by watching, almost mimicking the road car's lack of one, and when it starts to slide, the diff is similarly content with sending what little power the engine sputters out to the outside wheel, converting all precious momentum into useless over rotation and smoke, meaning that hanging onto precious revs in this tall geared, naturally aspirated unit in the middle of a corner via spinning the wheels in a well managed drift is but a dream, and as you attempt to correct the car mid corner, the shifting weight can often cause the car to snap suddenly between over and understeer. This car literally has issues with both under and oversteer in all the wrong places, and I've had to set my Brake Bias all the way to the rear at +5 for it to rotate into an apex semi willingly under braking. To me, +5 BB currently feels like it should've been 0, with ±5 from there to cater to more driving styles.
While I personally find a lot wrong with the car, that's not necessarily to say that it's a bad car, per se. It's still very competitive in N100 with BoP applied, it's still an undisputed top choice for one-make races, all while looking amazing as it does all that. It is a very good car, a buy that's more a requirement in this e-sports focused title than an optional investment in my opinion. And why wouldn't you, at a mere 80,000 Credits? At the end of the day, it's a Mazda Roadster. It could stab me in the stomach and spit in my face simultaneously, and I'd still smile and say I love it. But I think it's because I love it so much that I hold it to loftier expectations in my head, and want it to be so much better. I want it to stop better, I want it to turn better, I want it to be better balanced. Hell, I even want it to drift better. I want it to feel more cohesive a package, rather than just a bunch of mismatching racing items thrown onto it with no thought of how those components complement and communicate with each other. After all, with a car that has established for itself and its manufacturer such a strong niche and reputation as the industry standard, is fixing something as trivial as the shift lights too much to ask? To me, the Roadster TC just doesn't have that Jinba-Ittai feeling I associate with Mazdas; only a feeling of itai sometimes. It doesn't have much ease and intuition in it, it doesn't "talk" to me, it doesn't make me smile when I drive it, nor does it make me want to drive it on whim. It simply doesn't feel like a Mazda to me, despite the modern emblem on the retrofit wheel staring straight at me every drive. Remember that part where I said you could even role play a tuner with this car? You might end up actually having to get your own hands dirty with the sliders to get this thing to drive like a Roadster should.
Especially when it had been specially revised for an e-sports focused title, the Roadster Touring Car can ill afford to have this many faults, as this game has no shortage of cars that would make for excellent one-make races. Cars like the Renault Sport Mégane Trophy or the Audi TT cup are much more of a requirement to own as they're the "meta" cars in Gr.4, while being their own one-make racecars as their names imply. Hell, the aforementioned Cayman GT4 Clubsport, a personal favourite of mine, is Handling Nirvana, a Bible on how to make a car handle delightfully, intuitively, playfully, yet precisely enough to make for amazing racing, while looking and sounding impeccably. Against these better engineered and more relevant machines, the Roadster TC doesn't hold a candle in terms of refinement, and criminally, even in the fun factor. I mean, sure, the Roadster costs a fraction of what those Gr.4 machines do, but if that's enough of an excuse for it to suck, then is that to say that the Roadster's only selling point is in its cheapness? I don't believe that. I believe it's something that can offer the most exhilarating of driving experiences at any price point, especially when race prepped. It's hard to tell if its shortcomings are deliberate to test the driving skill of its drivers, if it was built with GT5's expansive tuning options in mind, or if it's just good old fashioned laziness on PD's part.
The Roadster Touring Car doesn't quite suck, but as a fictional, bespoke cup car that's garners so much attention in an e-sports focused title, it has no excuse to not be better, either.
Here's a video from 2 years ago when I was actively racing in Sport Mode.
...and here are two excellent races from this week's meet!
The direct successor to the company's reemergence into to supercar market, the MP4-12C, is logically called the 650S. I don't suppose "MP5-13D" or whatever other fax machine catalog part number has quite the same ring to it. The "new" car shares 75% of its parts from the old, and is therefore still a 2 door, rear mid engined supercar with a 3.8 litre twin-turbocharged V8 sending power to the rear via a 7 speed DCT, with a "entry level" version of it called the 625, a convertible version, and a "LT" version of it, called the 675. Situated below it is the "entry-er level" McLaren, the 570S: a 2 door, rear mid engined supercar with a 3.8 litre twin-turbocharged V8 sending power to the rear via a 7 speed DCT, with a "entry-est level" version of it called the 540, a convertible version, and a "LT" version of it, called the 600. Above the 650 is the P1: a 2 door, rear mid engined supercar with a 3.8 litre twin-turbocharged V8 sending power to the rear via a 7 speed DCT, a track-only, non road legal version of it called the P1 GTR, a road legal version of the non road legal version of the road legal version of the car converted by an independent, aftermarket specialist, denoted with adding extra numbers to its name.
The specific car in question for this week however, is the 650S Gr.4 (the green car in the photo above), a fictional car in a fictional category based on a real category in a real driving simulator that seemingly has more arcade fans than sims. As an entry level racing category, Gr.4 cars are faster than the road legal versions of the cars, acting as a mid-ground between the road cars and the full fledged racing machines. As such, the non road legal, race prepped car produces only about 58% of the road car's power, while weighing more with the current BoP applied. The 650S Gr.4 borrows more than heavily from the 650S GT3, a real car in a real category slotted into a fictional category in this game, with pretty much a copy-and-paste interior from the GT3 car. But not the exterior, though; because while you only get one livery for the GT3 car and eighteen coats of paint with no livery to choose from on the road car, the Gr.4 car bridges that gap with six colours of one livery to choose from.
a-are you still with me...? Quick, where's my picture with the cute anime girl on it?!
So yeah, as you can probably tell, McLaren cars confuse the ever loving bebuddha out of me. Competition against the established Italian brands in the exotic supercar scene is much needed in my opinion, but I never really "got" what they're supposed to be about beyond competition existing simply for the sake of existing. They haven't the graceful appearances or the soulful songstress capabilities of a Ferrari, nor do they have the balls to the wall attitude, in-your-face attention grabbing presence of a Lamborghini. They've always struck me as a "we're just here to go around this track faster than anyone else" kind of manufacturer, which is roboticism I more readily associate with the Germans than the British. I guess the fragility of their cars gives them some flavour? Thankfully, I don't much have to try to figure out what's what this week, because the 650S we're putting on the track today is a racing car. So, is it the fastest thing in like, EVARGH?
Haha, of course not. It's Gr.4 post-2020. If you aren't in a loathsome FF in a Gr.4 race, you're obviously not in it to win it. However, when put in its RWD and MR company, the 650S is certainly... "rather brisk", I believe is the British way of terming it. While I didn't get to spend as much time with everyone during this week's meet, I did at least manage to sneak in my personal favourite, the Cayman GT4 Clubsport, and the formidable NSX Gr.4, a favourite in Gr.4 racing prior the BoP changes that made FFs overpowered. Even in the slipstream of the 650Ss (650S'? 650Ses...? AAAAHHH), I was barely able to do any more than simply keep up with the McLarens, which was a bit of a surprise in the Honda, given that it's also a fictional car built from the ground up to be a Gr.4 car, also arbitrarily blessed with seven gears like the McLaren, in contrast to the maladjusted Porsche with gears long enough to make the far fetched claim that it's the single best car in Gr.4 ever and anyone who disagrees needs to be shot on sight.
(Also, the NSX Gr.4 should've been this week's Car of the Week...)
To drive however, it's a little... blah. One might expect a rear mid engined racing car to possess the sharpest of turn ins and perhaps a bit of a cheeky rear end, but the 650S Gr.4 feels like it has the wheelbase of a 675LT with how... *ah-hem* overly stable it is. To illustrate, the 650S Gr.4 is one of the very, very few RWD cars in the game where I'm forced to set the brake bias towards the rear, just to get it to roughly imitate how a MR racing car should rotate into the apex of a turn. This problem I think is down to the downforce imbalance of the car, having too much in the rear relative to the front, because I think the understeer becomes more prominent at speed, such as at Kyotou. Even at lower speed corners however, the front end just feels numb and the tyres don't feel like they've much bite to them, in contrast to the aforementioned NSX and Cayman, lively and lovely at any speed. Also, the M838T engine, despite being heavily detuned from the road car, annoyingly retains its torque curve pixel for pixel instead of becoming flatter with an variable air/fuel restrictor, meaning that this turbo 3.8L V8 is all mid range shove and nothing else anywhere else. I personally find the best result shifting just before 8,000rpm, or about a whole thousand revs before its Honda-shaming 9,000rpm redline, which is just before halfway into the rev counter of the game's HUD. Yes, that means it bogs on standing starts as well.
Capable for sure, especially in the right hands. It's just no fun at all to drive, nor is it the fastest thing ever. The latter is usually easy to forgive in a car, but a McLaren? A racing car McLaren? That's like saying your perfume's only shortcoming is that it doesn't smell nice. At this point, what even is the point?
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