The lap

Blackwood Forest is the circuit Viper calls home, and it is the hardest in the game. The pit straight runs into a tight hairpin whose exit is already dropping; a downhill left kink and the bottom of a dip lead into the compression, a right taken flat out at the exact point the car is heaviest and the road is narrowest. Then the road rears up: a climbing left, a crest, and the widest straight on the lap. It rains. The sweepers are fast and wet, and the grip changes under the trees. Every width on the lap follows one rule: narrow where the car is heavy, open on every exit.

Corner by corner

  1. Start and finish on the pit straight.
  2. The end of the straight, braking boards in the rain.
  3. The hairpin, a tight right.
  4. Exit, already dropping.
  5. The downhill left kink.
  6. The bottom of the dip.
  7. The compression, a right taken flat out with the car at its heaviest.
  8. The climbing left.
  9. The crest onto the widest straight on the lap.

How to drive it

  • In the wet, brake a car-length earlier than the boards say and get it done before the hairpin, not in it.
  • The compression is flat out only with a settled car. Any steering input at the bottom of the dip unloads the inside tyres.
  • Standing water sits on the outside of the sweepers. The dry line is the inside one, even if it looks slower.

Race it

Blackwood Forest unlocks in the career for 38,000 crew cash, earned from race prizes. Once it is yours it can turn up in the championship and in the Daily Challenge, where a wet day means less grip. Your best lap here goes to its own Game Center board, and any lap can be sent to a friend as a ghost.