Test Drive Tuesday: Bentley Speed 8

A small post for now (still exam season): I had taken some time off for a new car in the Test Drive Tuesday list - last week was a repeat of one I already did, and the week before was a variant of one I already done as well! So today was the 2003 Bentley Speed 8, a 24hrs of Le Mans prototype car. It's a beautiful car and really fun to drive. It has great stability and can brake almost as hard as a Formula 1 car. Its also good in straight line acceleration, but can be quite squirrelly accelerating out of corners. Other than that, I had no major problems with the car it was fun to drive and I didn't kill myself all too often!

There is some video footage, but I wont get time to sort all that out until after Christmas. So for now here's how the car stacked up:

• At Daytona and Bristol Motor Speedways, the Speed 8 weighed in 7th (of 17) overall and 3rd in class (of 4, Class: GTX - Prototype and Supercars)
• At Martinsville Motor Speedway, Watkins Glen and Laguna Seca the Speed 8 took 3rd place overall (of 17) and was 1st in class - beaten only by McLaren Formula 1 cars of 2013 and 1988!
• At Longstone pass the Speed 8 managed to pass the 1988 McLaren to take 2nd overall!
• Looking at combined times; for the 3 oval tracks, the Speed 8 is 7th overall, but falls to last in class (4th). But for the road tracks it triumphantly takes first in class by over 10 seconds and takes 3rd overall!
• Again in the combined times, for speed tested tracks, its 5th overall and takes 2nd in class, behind the Zonda R. For stability tested tracks, it takes 3rd overall (again, behind the F1 cars) and 1st in class. Finally, in braking tested tracks, the Speed 8 takes 2nd overall and 1st in class.
• All tracks combined, the Bentley Speed 8 is the 3rd fastest car I've tested in the Test Drive Tuesday series - beaten only (again) by the McLaren MP4-28 and the MP4/4.

Test Drie Tuesday - McLaren MP4-28

Honestly, I had bought this as soon as it came out that it was the TDT car this week! I've been waiting for a modern F1 car for some time on Simraceway (affordably anyway), and I was not at all disappointed with my purchase!

Being an F1 car, there's not much to say about its performance other than it being completely fantastic. Stability, speed, braking are all superb, as you'd probably expect from the pinnacle of motorsport. It does take a while getting used to the sheer pace of the machine, but once you get to grips with it, the pace is fantastic. The only car that comes in comparison is the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 which we did a few weeks back. Despite being 25 years older, the MP4/4 is surprisingly on the pace of the MP4-28, but still the advances show, with the MP4-28 being faster on more of the tracks.

The mechanical perfection of the F1 car makes it very difficult to talk to about. You point it in a given directions and so long as you can keep it bolted down on braking or accelerating - thats where it goes. It all then boils down to just how aggressive you can be without losing control. I tried a 30 minute time trial at Silverstone. The fastest time was 1:32.0 which is roughly on par with pole at the 2013 F1 Silverstone GP. At that race, the 107% time was ~1:37.6 and I managed a time of 1:36 - so I would have made the grid but not well!

I've included the full track day on my youtube channel. That and the hotlap and crashes videos are below too:

Test Drive Tuesday - McLaren MP4/4

So apparently I forgot to post last weeks TDT until 10 minutes ago - woops! So this week, we continue the advancement through the years in Formula 1 development with the 1988 McLaren MP4/4. This car looks and feels much more the modern F1 cars we see today.

Between the aerodynamics and the faster engine, the car has blazed up to 9 seconds off the lap records of all the other cars I've tested in the Test Drive Tuesdays. Despite my constant protests that I am much better in front wheel drive cars than I am rear wheel, I do technically have more simulator experience in F1 cars over the years - nearly 10 of them in fact! Despite the trouble I usually get myself into with rear wheel drives, with Formula 1 cars, I can just make them work which is good for my happiness!

So the MP4/4... well, it is fundamentally better than the previous two F1 classics in very way. Advances in aerodynamics make the world of difference in corners and with the faster engine, you can get good traction out of the corners, as well as being able to maintain a higher cornering speed. All round, the car is great fun to drive and isn't massively hard unless you try to push really really hard.

I had alot of fun in this car but sadly, at $18 on 50% discount and $36 normally, it was just too expensive to justify buying. If it comes down in price or can be bought as part of a worthwhile bundle, I would recommend you take it for a spin!

Test Drive Tuesday - McLaren M26

So, continuing with the new theme of TDT cars, we have another classic F1 car. This time, we have James Hunts McLaren M26 from 1977. I won't be able to get the video online until next week (for some, that might be a good thing), so this brief review will cover the car for now :p

After the Maserati 250F from last weeks TDT, 20 years of development in Formula 1 took place and the advancement in the car is visibly evident! In this edition, aerodynamics exist now, so the car is fitted with, albeit crude, front and rear wings to provide downforce as the car travels. The tyre width has greatly increased providing greater traction and stability on corners. In particular, the rear wheels are substantially larger than the front which provides increased grip on the rear wheels, which drive the car, thus providing better traction when accelerating. All these things together make for a car much better suited for taking on tracks with corners!

With a faster engine and a better suited body, the M26 performed much better than the Maserati 250F, and even a good couple of the supercars of weeks gone by! You can see how it compared overall on the Hotlaps page. The car handles very well and I didn't lose control all that often, however, it became quickly obvious from the off that my controller is broken: my upshift paddle keeps sticking, costing me *alot* of time on the track and I had to call it a night pretty early.

One interesting peculiarity I noticed about the Simraceway model is that, while the rear wing falls off if you so much as sneeze on it, the front wing and the wheels are impossible to remove from the car! I even tried a head on crash at around 120 miles and still, nothing comes off! So there are definitely a  few things that need sorted with the model, but otherwise I enjoyed the car. For $5.37 (or $2.68 on offer), it's not massively expensive if you enjoy your classic F1 cars and is pretty fun once you get into it.

Hopefully I can my controller fixed before next week!
Thanks for reading!

Test Drive Tuesday - Maserati 250F

So this weeks Test Drive Tuesday car was the first car since I started reviewing the TDT's that isn't a GT1/GTX supercar. Today we take a look a back to Formula 1 in 1957 with the Maserati 250F. The car was very interesting as I've never really delved much into classic cars - as I usually pipe: modern front wheel drives are my strong point. Despite its differences, the car had very similar characteristics to last weeks Koenigsegg Agera R, albeit for very different reasons. In the Koenigsegg, you had too much power, making it very easy to spin out. Whereas the Maserati is very much designed for speed in a straight line, hence the very narrow wheels,  and as a result the rear end loses traction very easily on the exits of corners.

Of course, it is quite difficult to comprehend why these cars were designed this way, but if you take a look back to the 50's, you find that grand prix tracks were very different from how we see them today. Back then, the gearboxes couldn't handle alot of gear changes before burning out, so it was preferable to find a route that allowed cars to get to their top speed and stay there. This meant that cornering wasn't really much of a concern when designing the cars and hence this is how finished product turns out!

So as a result of the narrow wheels, exiting corners was a bit perilous but once you got used to how the car handled, boy did it flow together well! In fact, the oversteer characteristic meant that if you nailed the corner entry, then you had very little input other than regulating the throttle so you didn't spin out. It doesn't sound like too much, but in practice, what it meant for me is that I could really push the car right to its limits - something I was never able to do with any of the previous cars - which was exhilarating. It really is just great fun knowing that one millimetre more on the throttle, or one degree round on the steering, and you've gone from a beautiful lap to being fodder for the tyre walls!

The alien nature of the car (compared to the more modern ones we deal with regularly on this game) does take a lot of getting used to and is still fairly challenging even after several hours practising, but is seriously fun and provides a very welcome brake from what has become a bit of a supercar-grind. Its funny to think that driving supercars could become boring! By this point, the Maserati has gone up to $15, so its a bit pricey, but if it ever comes down in price on is part of a bundle, I'd heartily recommend getting it!

This review has got me thinking a bit, and I might do a bit of a re-purposing of the blog for a while - more will follow in a day or two!

Test Drive Tuesday - Toyota TS020 GT1

Game: Simraceway
Car: Toyota TS020 GT1
Cost: $7.85

So today's Test Drive Tuesday car  is the Toyota TS020 GT1, a 24-hours of Le Mans contender from 1998. Being of the same pedigree as the Mazda 787 from a few weeks ago, I was sadly mistaken that the cars would handle very similarly. This is very much not the case! While the car accelerates and brakes reasonably well in a straight line, it is very heavy around the corners and makes for quite an uncomfortable drive in my opinion.

After trying the car across my testing tracks, I have to say that I didn't have alot of fun in this car. I tried pushing the car, but much in the same way that you *could* push a bouncer, it's only going to end in pain! This was the crux of the problem for me: while I could spend quite some time getting to grips with the car, I just didn't find it fun enough to want to.

Even when racing later on, the car would go off on a spin for the simplest of errors. While this is probably a realistic representation of the car itself, it does make it very irritating to drive. From my point of view, I have already found a great GT1 class car for myself so I really don't want to invest the resources to be able to drive the car flawlessly as I wont enjoy myself on the way. By all means, if GT1 cars are interesting for you, then check it out, but I wont be purchasing it for my collection.

Test Drive Tuesday - Pagani Zonda R

Car: Pagani Zonda R

Cost: $18

So yesterdays Test Drive Tuesday on Simraceway was the legendary Pagani ZondaR. I would have liked to review this in audio, however due to a technical fault (my hard drive ejected itself), I couldn't record at all yesterday. I did manage to record some racing vidoes, these will pretty much have to serve as my indication of how the car drives! One is online now, I'll upload the rest after editing.

So,the Zonda R. Off the line, it's alot harder to drive than the 787 last week: the 787 can take some serious pedal without loosing control, but you have to be very gingerly on the controls with the Zonda. While the 787 is slightly faster, the Zonda is a beast of a car and you can find yourself out of control very easily accelerating or braking. I also find the car quite heavy in corners so all things considered, it really pays to be slow and in control.

Once you stop trying to thrash the car around the track (as I did with the 787!) the Zonda really comes into its own and you can get the full power down on the road. It took me a good while to get used to car, and as the racing videos show, I still get caught out from time to time, but otherwise the car is pretty good drive. Unfortunately, this will (again) completely miss the Test Drive Tuesday offer, so the Zonda is available for $18 on the Simraceway website which, as much fun and illustrious as this car is, I'd still try to get it for a cheaper price - either in a bundle or on another offer.

Again, due to aforementioned technical difficulties, I've not been able to do the lap comparisons for this car. I'll do another post when I've rectified that! Until then, here's a few races at Silverstone in the Zonda:
 
PS - no idea what happened to the video quality on this one will try to get it sorted

Mazda Racing Vidoes

Now its uploaded, here's the Mazda in action at Watkins Glen for 2 races!

Test Drive Tuesday - Mazda 787

Game: Simraceway Cost: $7


So today's Test Drive Tuesday was the Mazda 787 and I have to say, I spent about 20 minutes trying it out, then quit the race to buy the Mazda. I said of the Maserati last week that it was the most fun I've had in a supercar, but the Mazda wipes away all the other cars I've tried. The straight line acceleration and braking is phenomenal and the aero package in the car means the car can sustain very hight speeds in corners as well as being able to hold very heavy braking and hard acceleration. Kitted out right, at 220mph, the Mazda is one of the fastest cars in the game that I've driven. Both me and my friend found the car a very easy drive and a very enjoyable one too. The car is both fun and easy to drive for people who are not used to rear wheel drive vehicles, or who aren't used to racing games at all, and weighing in at $7 out of promotion, its one of the cheapest supercars I've come across on Simraceway, and I'd thoroughly recommend purchasing it. Also, much like the lap board in Top Gear, I'm starting a table of personal best laps around 6 tracks in the cars I test. The reason is that trying to review a car is very subjective. Your experience of a car depends on your skills and preferences in driving, which will differ from mines and other peoples. I've chosen 6 tracks, 3 ovals and 3 circuits: Daytona is a test of the pure flat out speed of the car, whereas Martinsville and Bristol form a great test of accelerating, braking and steering stability. I've come to love the Watkins Glen long track for its fast opening section and I feel that the latter stage is a good test of the stability of the car in constant-speed corners. Similarly Laguna Seca is a good mix of fast corners testing the stability and acceleration of cars. Finally Longstone Pass is a tricky track with many medium and heavy braking sections that push the boundaries of of the car your driving. So I'm currently working my through the list of cars I already own, I'll announce how the cars stack up against others. Just now, the Mazda is first on all counts! I'll finish off the videos and get them uploaded when I can. Unfortunately because the Mazda was so easy to drive, the Test Drive Madness videos won't feature this week as there was no hilarious crashes. I will put some videos of the racing performance though. Thanks for reading!

Test Drive Madness - Maserati MC12 GT1

Another weekly I want to start. After reviewing cars during the day as part of the Test Drive Tuesday, me and my friend (Sozedge on screen) like to team up and do some races in the TDT cars. This always ends up in shambolic disasters as opposed to meaningful races, so this series is more for the yuks than it is a legitimate review of racing the TDT cars. This week, we bring you the Maserati MC12 GT1 at Watkins Glen, Laguna Seca, Silverstone and Daytona.

Again, I apologise that out microphones are quiet and hissy in places, will try to get it sorted next week.

Test Drive Tuesday - Maserati MC12 GT1

Game: Simraceway
Cost: $12

A great feature of Simraceway is that every Tuesday, they allow you access to a car that you might not have. During which time, they host a good variety of quick races and you are free to drive the car in practice mode on any track you like. If you want to buy the car, its discounted to 50% off for the duration of the Test Drive Tuesday event. I have taken part in a few TDT's and have done the last 3. I'm thinking of turning it into a weekly regular feature on Youtube and this blog, with driving and racing in the car. Unfortunately, due to my very slow internet, I doubt I will ever get a video online before the TDT event ends, but the review will feature on Wednesday or Thursday.

So this Tuesday, the car of choice was the Maserati MC12 GT1, which I took for a spin on the Watkins Glen Long circuit. My video review is above (I do apologise for the sound on the videos, my microphone is of lack-lustre quality at the best of times and can be quite quiet).

In brief, its probably the best fun I've had in a supercar since starting the Test Drive Tuesdays. As someone who's not well experienced in high-powered rear-wheel drives, I found that this car is very stable though corners and a can accelerate and brake well in a straight line. It is still quite easy to loose traction and spin out powering though corners, as it is under heavy braking, but its certainly good fun to drive a nice open track like Watkins Glen and its not that powerful that I got caught out every lap. At $12 its probably a little too pricey to buy myself, but if I had to get a supercar in my collection, this would probably be my car of choice.

Videos of racing to follow!