Hokubu Circuit Guide

Introduction

Hello! This is a guide for the running Hokubu Circuit. So far, this is one of the faster tracks in the game that highly rewards good corning technique and managing your car at the limits of its traction. This guide will take you turn by turn through the circuit with some notes I’ve written down after many many laps in many different cars.

Turn by Turn Breakdown

• Turn 1: Hokubu starts fast on a fairly long straight. As you enter turn 1, its a gentle left sweep and you’ll want to take it at speed. Exit wide to the right and left the wheel brush the curbing slightly. This will set you up well for Turn 2.

• Turn 2: This is another fairly quick turn, but caring the speed from Turn 1 usually means you’ll need to slow down just a touch. Usually letting off the gas can be enough, but in Class A and faster, you may need to tap the break if you run out of grip. Slowing down here can shift the weight to the front. This is important since it is uphill and will need more front end downforce to avoid washing out to the right.

• Turns 3 & 4: I’ve decided to lump these together because you execute them as one smooth turn, hitting the apex on each. To do this smoothly, you’ll need to modulate the throttle a bit or in faster cars like S1, S2, and R Class, do some trail braking. If you lift on this section, you run the risk of a spin or understeer, so stay on the throttle to control the weight distribution. Remember to exit wide to setup turn 5.

• Turn 5: This is a tight hairpin with moderate banking. Brake as late as you can. It may take som practice to find your sweet spot. Use the cones as a reference. Clipping the checkpoint flag a bit here is ideal. Be sure to exit wide to help get yourself stable for Turn 6.

• Turn 6: This turn looks slow, but its fairly quick. However, it has a low-speed entry. More pwoerful cars like S1 and faster may need to watch their throttle to avoid sliding. This section can be tricky, so I recommend you practice it.

• Turn 7: This corner is pivotal as it determines how corners 8 and 9 workout for you.Cut this turn as hard as you can so you can buy yourself the right line to make Turn 8 easy. In faster cars above B-Class, you may need to brake on exit. Often, lifting off throttle is enough. By the way, the pitlane is straight ahead from this turn, for those of you who like a little immersion.

• Turn 8: Ease the throttle on entrance and go max attack on exit. Beware of entering this turn too fast as you can quickly understeer into the barriers and ad cards. You want to move to the left quickly afterwards for Turn 9.

• Turn 9: This is a fairly quick right corner, I find that most cars need to downshift once or twice to make this correctly. This is a classic corner where you approach wide, hit the apex, and exit wide. Just be sure not to overshoot your speed or you’ll lose all your momentum trying not to hit the barriers and cards on the right.

• Turns 10 & 11: Together, these corners make a compound turn that opens into the main straight on exit. Hit the apex on turn 10, but for turn 11, you want to stay wide so you can carry as much speed as you can on exit.

Conclusion

And that’s it! Its really not a difficult course, but there are some pitfalls you can run into. A lot of it boils down to avoiding oversteer/understeer on corner exit. This is a great track for testing the handling of tunes. That said, great handling at Hokubu often means sacrificing speed that might benefit you in other street and sprint races. So keep that in mind if you intend to use this as your main proving grounds.

Hope that all helps! See you in the next update!