R8 My Ride – GTPlanet

The latest Gran Turismo 7 Online Time Trial is now available, offering up to 2m credits to boost your in-game wallet for potentially only a couple of minutes’ effort.

Audi’s R8 supercar is the star of this week’s challenge, with the first generation of the brand’s first ever mid-engined production car taking center stage. Originally developed as the quattro concept in 2003 — which made its own debut in Gran Turismo 4 in 2004 — the car was made to celebrate Audi’s three consecutive wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. These were also the brands first wins, of 13 in total.

While Le Mans might seem like a good destination for the time trial, you’ll actually be heading to a more technical track at the fictional Dragon Trail location in the shape of the Gardens course. With Sports Hard tires strapped to the R8, it’s going to be a more slippery affair than the other time trial still running too.

Currently the world record for this combination is just sneaking into the 1:42s, which sets the gold target at pretty close to a flat 1:46. We’re already seeing the top times beginning to cluster, which is a good sign that there’s not an awful lot left in the lap, so for now we’re going to estimate a 1:45.5 might be enough to retain gold by the end of the two weeks.

Another week remains on the second time trial, featuring the rotary-engined time attack RE Amemiya FD3S at the Nurburgring GP circuit.

Times have dropped just a little further than expected, with a 2:01.273 now setting the pace at the top of the leaderboard. With the time trials featuring dynamic targets that depend upon your gap to the world record, that means the gold marker has now dropped to the bottom of the 2:04.9s — or about a tenth faster than we’d estimated.

That record is a decent margin ahead of second though, so it would seem it’s pretty close to the limit. Chances are that if you currently sit in the gold bracket you’ll be safe, but we’d suggest aiming for a 2:04.7 for some security against buzzer-beaters.

In order to access the Online Time Trials, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode, by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe single player hub. As it’s just you against the clock and not a direct, head-to-head multiplayer event, PlayStation Plus is not required.

You’ll usually need to be within 3% of the fastest time globally once the event finishes in order to secure “gold” status and a 2m credit bonus prize. There’s smaller prizes of one million for being within 5%, and 250,000cr for bronze at 10% off.

The events update every Thursday, with each individual challenge usually remaining available for two weeks and the oldest of the two events being replaced each week. You can look forward to the next new Time Trial arriving at 0700 UTC on Thursday August 28.