Project Cars 3: shame and loathing at 1,190 horsepower

Are Rivals events like New York Times crossword puzzles?  Is Saturday the day for sadistic challenges?  Why else would I be driving Project Cars 3’s most powerful car in the rain?  Why else would I be hydroplaning in a car so absurdly overpowered that it doesn’t even have a name?  Why else would I have done what I did to finish this challenge?  Why else would I sink to these depths of shame and loathing?

This is the sort of ridiculous challenge that rivals mode was made for.  To be honest, I have only myself to blame for not chuckling at the absurdity and nope’ing out until tomorrow’s event.  This is a pace setter event, so your logged time is the average of three laps.  If you screw up one of the three laps by going off the track, you don’t even get to log a time.  You get ten tries.

After failing five times, I did something I never do.  I turned on the assists.  All of them.  And I drove the event just as slowly and carefully as before, but this time with less slipping, sliding, and hydroplaning.  I’m not proud about what I did.  And afterwards, I immediately went back into options and turned off all the assists.  Although it is some small consolation that three of the assists didn’t actually turn on.  Project Cars 3 didn’t tell me they weren’t on.  If I hadn’t checked the leaderboards, I’d have no way of knowing I drove those three laps without anti-lock brakes, traction control, and extrasensory perception.  Here’s what my time looks like on the leaderboard:

The steering wheel and braking icon means the steering assist and braking assist were active.  But you’ll note the icons for ABS, ESP, and slippery road are greyed out.  Despite the fact that I’d enabled anti-lock brakes, stability assist (Electronic Stability Program), and traction assist, they weren’t active.  Did this rivals event disable them?  Or are they not features available for the Formula X, a car so powerful it doesn’t even get a name?  I have no way of knowing because the developers at Slightly Mad Studios are as bad at presenting information as I am at driving a 1,190 horsepower formula racer over a wet track.

(By the way, mad props to hmw48 for driving this event with his keyboard.)

Up next: the Corkscrew of the Antipodes!
Previously: how not to make a car