Project Cars career season 3 continues with the final race of the GT4 Asia Pacific Trophy at Bathurst. 18 laps around Mount Panorama in the Toyota GT-86 Rocket Bunny edition.
Having scored no championship points this season there was nothing riding on my results here (apart from maybe being fired as a driver). I started 20th, dead last, on the grid but I'd done some more tweaking of the car and was confident I could now lap several seconds faster than I could manage in the first race.
Unfortunately it was a wet start but despite an untidy first corner and the first two laps being a bit scrappy I settled in and the car was running well. The only disappointing thing about the race for me was that the weather changed at the worst possible time in terms of pit strategy. When the rain eased off the window for my compulsory tyre change stop was not yet open and I knew that two stops would almost certainly put me at the back and out of the running completely.
Consequently I had to run a couple of laps on full wets when slicks would have served me far better and it cost me some time. When I did get the call to pit, my stop wasn't particularly fast and I lost track position, rejoining the race in 19th place and had to set about playing catch-up once again.
On a positive note though, my efforts with the car did not go unrewarded, enabling me to lap some 3-4 seconds faster in the dry than I had in race 1 whilst feeling a lot more in control.
All in all not a successful season at all. Not sure if a driver has been fired by a team yet in Project Cars but I'm expecting that call ;-) We'll have to wait and see if there are any job offers for the new season!
For this one last hurrah though, I was happy to cross the line feeling as though I had run a good race and done the best I could in the circumstances. That's racing - enjoy the ride!
Replay footage can be viewed at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ZWTlQvRs8
