Gran Turismo 7 - Manufacturers Cup 2022/23 Exhibition Series - Season 1 - Round 1 [PS4 Pro]

My first ever official race in the GT1 League (highest league in the game consisting of A/A+/S ranked players)
So far one of my most exciting races ever! These A ranked players are indeed tough to beat, a far cry from the lower-ranked lobbies I've been in since my Gran Turismo Sport days until recently before I got promoted to rank A. Starting from P3, I was able to make it to P2 by 2nd lap but not enough to clinch the win at the end.
Having signed up with Suzuki for this season, I used the VGT Gr. 3 race car for this race. While I was able to use its insane top speed to my advantage especially with the Deep Forest's long straights thereby allowing me to almost overtake P1 (using the AMG GT3) in multiple occasions, P1 outcornered me every lap in the infield section of the track.
My gap with P1 was hovering around half a second to three seconds at most throughout the race. Almost had it when P1 got a half-second penalty at the final lap but sadly was not able to make a move.
Still happy with the result since I'm classified as top 14th in Asia (as of this writing) representing Suzuki, with 167 points after this round. 😊