Friend of The Reticule Craig Lager recently challenged myself, Steve and another Friend of The Reticule, Mike Jennings to a Assetto Corsa Hot Lap Challenge. The mission? Complete a lap of Imola in a McLaren 12C GT3 as fast as possible.

Craig set the benchmark at 1:48:350 using a full wheel and peddle setup, then I took my turn. Check out how I did after the break.

I lack a wheel, let alone peddles, so I had to make do with an old Xbox 360 pad. From past experience with Assetto Corsa I knew that it would be suicidal to turn off all of the assists, and now knowing the car or track too well, I wimped out and stuck with the automatic gears.

In my best impersonation of a Top Gear celebrity racer, I gave myself a couple of laps to figure things out. Imola, secene of the horrific events of the 1994 Grand Prix has seen some small changes since I last raced it. That was back in 1996 while playing legendary racing game Grand Prix 2 from Geoff Crammond. While the tweaks are small, they certainly succeeded in throwing me off balance which meant my practice laps were a bit scruffy.

Sadly, as you can see in the video below, my Hot Lap wasn’t perfect either. A few small offs hurt, but what was cruellest of all was my spin at the start of an attempted second Hot Lap. With that spin, I knew things wouldn’t get much better and I promptly stopped the game and my FRAPS recording.

All in all, I don’t think 2:12:013 is all too shabby, though I expect Mike and Steve to better that by some margin.