Italian DTM Legend Lands in the USA for a GT7 Gold Rush

While I've put my RX-7 in hibernation mode for at least a few months, I've finally found a buyer for my 1999 Suzuki SV650S. That can only mean one thing: I'll score plenty of driving marathons in Gran Turismo 7 until spring. The first one begins today, as a new Online Time Trial is available for us to participate in.

I scored an extra 250,000 credits thanks to the Bronze Record Reward with the Chevrolet Corvette C4 ZR-1. I was P38,505 overall out of almost 150,000 players. I'll tell you what I did with the extra cash in a minute, but first, I wanted to get straight to the point. Instead of buying three cars for additional practice this week, I first wanted to take a shot at the Time Trial.

The vehicle you'll drive is the 1993 Alfa Romeo 155 2.5 V6 TI, which I have fiddled with quite a lot in Assetto Corsa. Nicola Larini won the 1993 DTM series using this Italian race machine, and I'll rate it a 9.5/10 for the fun factor! With 413 bhp on tap, you can expect a top speed of 169 mph (272 kph). But the track we have to race on this week doesn't have a straight line, which is long enough for that to happen.

Before playing Gran Turismo 7, I never took much interest in Watkins Glenn International. We raced on the long course here a few months ago, using the Skoda Vision Gran Turismo. My best performance then was 1:38.333, about five seconds away from the fastest driver in the world. The Alfa Romeo is not nearly as fast as that Skoda, so I'm glad the game developers opted for the Short Course, which measures 2.44 miles (3,942m).

No one had set a time when I first hit play on the new Time Trial. I needed roughly 81 seconds to finish and found myself sitting in P114. That's never happened to me, but I knew it wouldn't last long. After about eight laps, I was at 1:18.197, while Tidgney was almost four seconds faster. That's why I included his tutorial below.

With a bit of cash in my amount, I headed over to the Used Car Lots and jumped with joy, noticing the Porsche 930 Turbo was back in stock. It ties in with a story I'm cooking up next for you. Driving it on Watkins Glen, I stopped the watch at 1:28.772 on my first lap. But I was still curious to see how much further I could push the Alfa Romeo.

The requirements for Gold kept changing over the past few hours. While Tidgney was number one in the world briefly, I still took his advice of being aggressive with the car. After 10 more laps, I finally scored a 1:16.871 using the controller. It's one of the most exciting Online Time Trials we have had in recent months, and I recommend you try it when you can.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what those two photos of a stock FC RX-7 are doing in the gallery, I wanted to see how much slower it is compared to the 930 Turbo. Turns out the answer is just under four seconds around this track.