My car is off to ASM, hopefully being fixed very soon. But in the meantime, wanting to still compete in TT5 so I rented an automatic GR86 from my friends at Ottoline. These normally come with RS4 tires, so I asked if I could use my own wheels/tires and they were fine with that. Driving the car at COTA was just to get used to the car, as I knew it would behave different from mine.

First of all, Ottoline has put together a great package that allows for anyone to come out and play at COTA. Their hospitality is top notch, with provided garage space, a decked out trailer to rest and relax in, and full service support of the cars. This was one of the most comfortable weekends I've ever had at COTA, even with the rain!

Now about the car, it was a struggle adapting to the auto version of the GR86. I wasn't ready for the hesitance to downshift where in a manual it would be no issue to grab a gear. You had to either be on the brakes or slow down more than I wanted for the transmission to agree to downshift. For anyone exclusively driving the auto version, hat's off to you, it's not ideal. The super long gearing, especially in 5th gear is not great for a high speed track like this.

Chin is full of fast cars but was able to get some space on Sunday morning. I was trying to group up with a friend of mine but having to constantly give point-by's caused that to never happen, so I wasted the first couple laps heating up the tires for nothing. As you can see in the last lap in the video, the tires got too hot and lost speed. What started out as a fast lap with almost half second up, all of that was lost towards the 2nd half.

Still, this was great practice, getting to know the car. Hopefully can translate to some good times at NASA next weekend.

Ottoline rental GR86 auto
A052
XP12
Zebulon wing
No splitter