Round 3 of the Project CARS Esports NVIDIA Challenger Series took our drivers across the globe, to New Zealand’s Ruapuna Park.
The short, two mile course at Ruapuna rewards smooth driving. The short-lap means than small mistakes can cost you a lot of time. Ruapuna is also a very flat circuit, with little elevation change to speak of, but don’t let that trick you into thinking it’s an easy place to drive. Many of the corners have wide apexes, encouraging drivers to experiment with different lines to find a route that suits their own driving style. Turn 1 is also a mighty challenge, forcing the drivers to negotiate a flat-out left kink just before a heavy braking zone, making it very easy to lock up the front tires and miss the corner completely.
To add to the challenge, the organisers selected the Ford Falcon FG for this event. Made famous in the Australian V8 Supercars series, the Falcon is a high-powered but heavy touring car. It has little to offer in terms of driver aids, and it loves to spin up its rear tires. This makes it a great fit for this Fixed Setup Series, because it makes for a real test of the the driver, rather than of engineering skill. With no way to dial-out this car’s unique handling through setup tweaks, all of the drivers had to use their feet, their hands and their senses to master this event. On with the results.
The short, two mile course at Ruapuna rewards smooth driving. The short-lap means than small mistakes can cost you a lot of time. Ruapuna is also a very flat circuit, with little elevation change to speak of, but don’t let that trick you into thinking it’s an easy place to drive. Many of the corners have wide apexes, encouraging drivers to experiment with different lines to find a route that suits their own driving style. Turn 1 is also a mighty challenge, forcing the drivers to negotiate a flat-out left kink just before a heavy braking zone, making it very easy to lock up the front tires and miss the corner completely.
To add to the challenge, the organisers selected the Ford Falcon FG for this event. Made famous in the Australian V8 Supercars series, the Falcon is a high-powered but heavy touring car. It has little to offer in terms of driver aids, and it loves to spin up its rear tires. This makes it a great fit for this Fixed Setup Series, because it makes for a real test of the the driver, rather than of engineering skill. With no way to dial-out this car’s unique handling through setup tweaks, all of the drivers had to use their feet, their hands and their senses to master this event. On with the results.
CONSOLE DIVISION
| Team Shark Racing bounced back on console this week, after a tough time with penalties in the previous round. Yinato took his second win of the season with a 1:17.629 to close back up to within 1 point of SDL Motorsport’s SoniK at the top of the driver standings. VP-Drivers’ jralphy was second at Ruapuna, just 0.020 off the pace set by Yinato in an incredibly close fight. Rotax was the top SDL Motorsport driver this week, coming in third, just 0.09 behind jralphy. Team Shark and SDL both had drivers sprinkled throughout the points-paying positions this week, though Team Shark’s pilots were closer to the sharp end. This means that Shark has closed in on SDL at the top of the team standings by 41 points, with SDL on 332 and Shark on 243. It’s still a healthy lead for SDL at this early stage in the season, but both teams will be fighting to find a bit more consistency in the coming Rounds. Elsewhere, BAM Racing’s Console team found a bit more pace this time out to get a couple of drivers higher up the points, with Flawless 10th & SanKa 13th. It was a very good weekend for Team TBA too. DaBomb330 and Zakspeed_TV finally scored their first points of the season, while kie25 and eol- also added to TBA’s total, which keeps them in a solid 4th place in the team standings so far. Unfortunately, Gturbo is currently excluded from the results of this round. His ghost was not present on the leaderboard until after the event closed, meaning it could not be checked. Without video evidence for the SMS staff to check that his lap is valid, he cannot be included in the results. As stated in the Driver Briefings... "If you think that your lap is close to the limit of the track at any point, please save the replay. Then if we ask you for any additional evidence, you will be able to provide us with chase camera footage of your lap. Failure to provide this footage can result in your time being excluded from final results. We may also request this same video footage if you claim after the event that a lap deemed to be invalid by SMS staff, was legitimate. The procedure is the same as the one above. Failure to provide this footage will result in your time being left out of the final results." |     |
PC DIVISION
     | On PC, the pace was very similar to the Console Division, with some incredibly close battles throughout the points scorers. BAM Took its first victory of the year, with Khaki behind the wheel, setting a 1:17.620. SDL Motorsport’s Masa had to settle for second place for the first time in 2016, just 0.035 behind Khaki. Mangator, also of SDL, came in third once again. These three drivers have shown absolutely amazing consistency in the first few Rounds of the 2016 NCS. It will be a tough task for the others to break into the podium positions if they can keep this up, but we could be looking at an astonishingly close, season-long battle. Elsewhere, Speeddemon91continues to fly the flag for FAF Motorsport, with another strong finish in 4th place. 5Aces and pCarsPOL are also picking up a good run of points thanks to the consistency of IJJauTaH and TomiKilos who came 7th & 8th respectively this time out. Revolution Sim Racing Alpha and CQR Club eSports have also found some form early in this season, with both teams improving from week-to-week. RSR scored some decent points this week thanks to Cluck in 9th and JetPistol in 12th, moving the team up to 6th in the team standings. CQR Club is just ahead of RSR in 5th, after getting three drivers into the points for the first time this week. At the top of the PC teams standings, SDL Motorsport still leads, but BAM has closed the gap to just two points. There’s then a bit of a gap to the chasing pack, led by 5Aces. However, third to eighth place in the team standings are separated by just 29 points after the first three rounds. |
