What we have learned from pre-season testing

This week (as I'm writing this) we had MCRO's first ever pre-season testing sessions, where GT and MTCC drivers could drive their cars in pure race pace for an hour. First up was GT on Road Fox-tlanta on Friday, then MTCC on Foxpark on Saturday. Both sessions went pretty well and they will be described in some detail below.

GT

Due to balancing issues, the GT car roster shrank down from 6 to 3 - most notable removal was the Porsche 911 RSR, which seemed too fast during S3. The Mercedes-Mclaren was however removed due to it being too slow, and Lamborghini was removed as it's no longer in the game. McLaren 720s GT3 stayed and was joined by Mercedes-AMG GT3 and BMW M4 GT3.

In testing, all of the teams joined the session and we could finally see all 3 cars in action. As RSR is gone, McLaren seemed as the fastest car, however sometimes the Mercedes was ahead of them - mostly thanks to the drivers, including the F1 and F3 champion Syrz. John, despite being retired joined the session and sometimes drove the Merc, keeping up with his teammate. BMW wasn't as close but still was kinda keeping up, especially in corners.

During the session, there were a few unofficial races hosted where we could see the real potential of those cars - the McLaren was an overall fastest car, with Merc being really close. The BMW wasn't that close to McLaren and Mercedes, but with a good driver, it could handle corners better than both of those cars. However, it was quite tricky to drive

MTCC

Next up was a brand new series - MTCC, which is a touring car championship, with 6 cars that don't exceed 160 MPH. This time I was actually able to parpicipate in some of the unofficial races, so I can tell more about the car's perfomances.

Let's start with the Ford - on Foxpark it was easy to drive and it handled corners easily. I barely noticed any slowdowns at corners and was able to keep up with likes of Sot or Lio. The only disadvantage is its acceleration, which will be noticeable in other tracks with longer straights. The Lotus seemed the fastest, as it won most of the races - especially if driven by Sot or Agg. The biggest suprise to me was the BMW M3, which actually was 2nd or 3rd fastest car - it had great cornering capabalities and good acceleration, but was really hard to drive. Driven by Lio, it was able to keep up with the Mustang and Lotus. Next up - BMW M4. In terms of pure speed, it was similar to the Lotus and Mustang and wasn't hard to drive. While iliart did well, Zorec, who is one of CDT's OG racers seemed tired and didn't do as well. Alpine, driven by Syrz was not as fast, possibly due to it having a bigger slowdown in corners compared to other cars. It didn't had the best acceleration either. And now we go to the slowest car - the Merc, which despite having a high top speed and good acceleration had a lot more slowdown in corners compared to other cars, even more than Alpine. If driven smoothly, the car can be quite fast, however. Overall, during the unofficial races the racing was quite close and it definetely wasn't boring.

Remember - this is only pre-season testing. Only 1 track per series have been tested, and some cars may be faster or slower on some tracks. But we know one thing - the racing is going to be more interesting than the previous series, at least in my opinion. See you in August!