This week’s new set of Gran Turismo 7 Daily Races, starting today, brings a highly unusual event into the mix with free vehicle setup and tuning playing a role for the first time in a good long while.
The race, which requires you to use the Suzuki Jimny, is placed into the Race A slot. This does mean that you won’t see any changes to your Driver Rating (DR) regardless of the result — with DR updates turned off — so it gives you a good chance to play around with tuning and settings with little consequence.
There are in fact three limitations: you must use the Suzuki Jimny, it must be equipped with any of the three grades of Comfort tire, and you cannot exceed a Performance Point (PP) cap of 420. Other than those requirements, you can do anything you like to your Jimny — including the “wide” body modification and engine swap — with the exception of fitting nitrous.
Once you’ve got the car built you have entirely free rein over vehicle settings, and it’s a surprisingly tricky event for which to tune it. The rollercoaster Alsace Test Course hosts the eight-lap race, and with the banked corner and the big drop and compression after the hill section, your suspension will be doing a lot of work.
One thing to watch out for here too is the False Start Check. You’ll need to keep the car stationary — use the brakes or handbrake — between the time of the final start light illuminating and all of the lights going off to start the race. Any movement at all will see you hit with a brief power limiter penalty, which is irritating at best and at worst will see anyone behind you pile into your slow-moving car…
Race B this week is standard Sport Mode fare, with the game’s core esports cars of the Gr.3 category taking on the Nurburgring GP course for a five-lap sprint.
Aside from the fact that the required tires are, unusually, Racing Medium, there’s really not a lot more you need to know for the race. Just pick your preferred Gr.3 car and get out there for a short blast.
This week’s Race C gives you the more rare chance to use the Gr.1 cars, for a bit of a beast of a race around Interlagos. That was, of course, the location for the Manufacturers Cup final in the live event at Montreal over the weekend, but you’ll be going a mite quicker in the class for Le Mans prototypes (and similar).
Indeed it’s an LMP — and specifically an LMPH — that you’ll want for this race, with the modern cars’ higher downforce and corner exit hybrid shove making all the difference for the twisty Interlagos circuit. The leaderboard is packed out with Porsche 919s right now, and it’s likely to prove the case in the race too.
It’s a 15-lap run with a mandatory pit stop. That requires you to make at least one pass down the pitlane — whether you take on fuel or tires or not — or you’ll score a one-minute penalty at the end of the race. It doesn’t matter when you take the stop, so long as it’s between the end of lap one and the start of lap 15.
You won’t need to top up or freshen up your rubber, despite the 5x tire wear multiplier and the required Racing Medium tires, but you may like to sacrifice a couple of seconds (on the interminably long pit lane) to get new tires just for late-race lap time benefits.
In order to access the Daily Races, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode, by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe single player hub. A PlayStation Plus subscription is required to take part.
With GT7’s Daily Races updating every Monday across the game’s life to date, the next new set should arrive on Monday, July 15.
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