After a less than stellar performance in the Daytona 90-minute race, the series is heading to Japan for a sprint race at Suzuka Circuit. Here’s what the folks at iRacing have to say about Suzuka:
“One of the world’s truly great race tracks, Suzuka has been the home of the Japanese Grand Prix since the 1980s and its flowing layout regularly puts the circuit at or near the top of the list of most Formula One drivers’ favorites. As if that weren’t enough, Suzuka boats three different configurations – Suzuka East, Suzuka West and Suzuka Full, the latter two featuring a rare figure eight layout where the back straightaway crosses the front section track on an overpass.
“Designed by noted circuit architect John Hugenholtz (who also designed the original Zandvoort circuit), Suzuka opened in 1962 and served primarily as a test track for Honda and as the site of sports car racing including the Suzuka 1000K and the 8 Hours of Suzuka and MotoGP motorcycle events. Suzuka was nominated to stage the Japanese Grand Prix in 1987 and has often been the site of the Formula One season finale. As such, Suzuka has been the decisive event in some of the closest battles for the World Championship of Drivers and has witnessed a number of controversial incidents, including clashes between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Suzuka also hosted non-championship NASCAR races in 1996 and ’97.
“In addition to its signature crossover layout, Suzuka features a number of notable challenges including a testing series of esses, the multi-apex Spoon Curve and dauntingly fast 130R corner. The race track also serves as the foundation for a major sports and entertainment facility including an amusement park whose giant Ferris Wheel is prominent in photographs and television images of the circuit.”
That’s all the good stuff. Let me tell you some of the bad.
Suzuka doesn’t race very well on Forza Motorsport 7. The first few corners of the race are a demolition derby, then the cars spread out and very little passing gets done. I don’t have any real life experience at Suzuka, but my guess is that the Forza version of the track doesn’t match reality.
One part of the track that may match reality—although I’m not certain of that—is the hairpin (turn 11). Coming out of the turn, there is absolutely no grip (as least for me). In order to get any launch out of the corner. I have to almost come to a stop. That might be how the turn is in real life, but I kind of doubt it.
Here’s another thing that is very unrealistic about racing at Suzuka on Forza. I get through turn 15 really well. When going through that turn, I gain a significant gap on the cars behind me. However, if that same car is ahead of me, he tends to go through the turn about as well as I do. It makes no sense, and it makes for very frustrating racing.
As long as I’m complaining, let me throw one other thing at you. It’s not unusual for the tires to not warm up until the third or fourth lap. Even so, they start to go off pretty badly come lap six or seven. I’m not very good at math, but that only leaves two to four laps where the tires are working well. Something similar happens at most tracks, but it seems to be even worse at Suzuka.
Having said that, every fourth or fifth race, the tires work really well from the beginning. There’s no predicting it. I’ve done a bunch of practice races, and about twenty percent of the time, the tires work well. But there’s no predicting when the good tires will show up.
Here’ my prediction: If I start near the front or can get to the front in the first few corners of the race, I have a chance to finish in the top five. If I start in the top 12-13, I think I can finish in the top 10. But, if I can’t make it into the top 15 in the first few corners, I don’t think I can finish in the points (top 10). Passing is at a premium at Suzuka, and starting too far back is a death sentence.
Here’s what the Suzuka Circuit looks like: