Championship Update

The Championship Update (v2.8.1) is the eighteenth update of Asphalt 8: Airborne and was released in mid December 2016.

Announcement
Enjoy your winter holidays with amazing new content!

McLAREN CHAMPIONSHIP:

We will introduce, for the first time in Asphalt history, McLaren race cars! Take one of these beautiful high-performance racers for the ultimate test run around the world! Rack up trophies as you beat challenges and earn big rewards to ultimately unlock cars.

NEW CAR LINEUP:

A total of 8 new speedsters are coming, including the Aston Martin Vulcan and Mosler Land Shark. Look for them to come out one by one in the shop over the coming weeks.

JOIN THE HOLIDAY RUSH:

Dashing down the course, on a holiday racing spree... Unlock a GIFT from all of us if you play this Cup daily! Get the BMW M2 for FREE just for racing in the Christmas Cup every day! Stay tuned on our Facebook page for the dates!

NEW EVENTS:

Get ready for new Enduro and R&D events! Participate in them to get a chance to make the Chevrolet Impala and Arash AF10 yours!

New cars

 * Class C
 * BMW M2 (Elite Car)
 * McLaren M14A (Championship Car)


 * Class B
 * 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports (Elite Car)


 * Class A
 * Chevrolet Corvette C3 - originally from the Autumn 2016 Update (Multiplayer League reward)
 * McLaren Mercedes MP4-25 (Championship Car)
 * Chevrolet Impala (Enduro Car, Elite Car)


 * Class S
 * Mosler Land Shark (Elite Car)
 * Aston Martin Vulcan (Multiplayer League reward)
 * Arash AF10 (R&D Car)

The new cars will need the following Engine Cards:
 * V8: Chevrolet Impala (×16), Arash AF10 (×60)
 * Serial Racing Engine: McLaren M14A (×40)
 * Forced-Induction V8: Mosler Land Shark (×28)
 * i6: BMW M2 (×4)
 * V12: 2010 Bentley Continental Supersports (×8), Aston Martin Vulcan (×32)
 * Custom Racing Engine: McLaren Mercedes MP4-25 (×40)

McLaren Championship
Similar to Research & Development and Enduro Double Down, the Championship lets you "test drive" a car without owning it. It is a series of races with given objectives using the car at stake, much like R&D. Each time the user participates in race of the Championship, a Tire is used, and every eight hours all five tires are restocked, as do all three Proto Keys every three hours. Each qualifying race has a primary goal, and two secondary goals, which are unlocked when the primary goal has been fulfilled. The primary goal still has to be fulfilled while achieving the secondary goals in subsequent attempts.

The Championship also features new race types, Auto-Start (Time Attack) and Warm-Up. In Auto-start, you're dropped in the middle of a race and have to take over the wheel at some point; in Warm-Up, you need to keep your engine revs in a certain zone in order to get a good start into the race.

Completing all Grand Finales unlocks the car.

Various Changes

 * The McLaren M14A and McLaren Mercedes MP4-25 don't have the usual 5 levels of Upgrades plus 5 levels of Pro Kits, but 10 levels of Pro Kits instead; the same upgrade system in Asphalt Xtreme.
 * 2 new Engine cards added: Serial Racing Engine, needed for the McLaren M14A and Custom Racing Engine for the McLaren Mercedes MP4-25.
 * A new season appears after the Exclusive Metal Events (or Season 9: Beyond for non-iOS users) called McLaren Legends Season/Season 10: Future, which requires the user to own a McLaren Race Car (McLaren M14A or McLaren Mercedes MP4-25) in order to play it.
 * New Collections "Mercedes", "BMW", and "British Gentlemen" added. These Collections are currently the only way to view the BMW M2 and Aston Martin Vulcan.

Other Changes

 * This is the first update to require iOS 8 for all iOS users, this means that the iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th generation are no longer compatible.
 * The Chevrolet Corvette C3's Car Mastery Challenge 10 no longer awards and now awards a much smaller Token payout in addition to a Credits payout.
 * New loading screen of two McLaren Mercedes MP4-25's in San Diego Harbor.
 * This update is the first update since the initial release of the game up to the The Great Wall Update back in early 2014 to feature more than three loading screens.
 * New sound effects sequence for Engine sounds.
 * With this update, the first open-top vehicles since Asphalt 7: Heat are reintroduced into the mainline Asphalt series.
 * Open-top vehicles, such as the Ariel Nomad, also exist in offroad spinoff Asphalt Xtreme.
 * The driver now also appears in the car for the first time since Asphalt 7: Heat. This is currently only for the Formula One cars. The fully-dressed race driver is, except for the wheels, the only animated part of the car: he turns his head when the car turns, or moves sometimes a bit up and down. When the car wrecks, the driver disappears instantaneously.
 * In Infected races, should the car become infected, the driver also becomes fully rendered in green.
 * Monaco has been renamed to Azure Coast, possibly because the track is based on the real-life French Riviera/Côte d'Azur, whose name translates to "Azure Coast".
 * The logo for nanoFlowcell has been updated.
 * Starting with this update, it is now possible to watch video ads to gain free Pro Boxes or Double Credits for a race.
 * The reward for completing all 3 Daily Tasks was initially reduced back to from  but has been restored as of December 21, 2016.
 * For all cars, the amount of credits awarded for completing Car Mastery the first time has gone down for Challenges 6 to 10 and up for Challenges 11 to 15.
 * Chinese New Year 2017 decals added for the Chevrolet Corvette C3, Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe, and Mercedes-Benz CLA 45 AMG Racing Series.
 * Credits and Tokens awarded in Events are now in one combined sum instead of the separate amounts listed as a reward.
 * New sound effects introduced for Enduro Double Down.
 * The Multiplayer League ticket count has been extended to 4 from the original 2 as of January 12, 2017.
 * The waiting duration for Multiplayer League tickets to be restocked has been reduced to 3 hours for 2 tickets from the original 6 hours.

Trivia

 * This is the first update since the Santa's Gift Update a year back to feature a new car in the icon used for the update; in this case, the McLaren Mercedes MP4-25.
 * This is also the first update released in December of any year since 2013 to not feature any new tracks and also the first update released in December of any year to not feature the Alps in any promotional images.
 * It is also the only update released in 2016 and the first update released in December of any year to not add any new Class D cars.
 * It also marks the final update of 2016.
 * It is also the first update released in Q4 (October, November, or December) of any year to not add any Renault cars.

Bugs / Glitches

 * Bugged Button-based Control Schemes: All control schemes that involve on-screen buttons are bugged, now taking slightly more than one second to fully load upon the end of the countdown. This has resulted in time penalties for many players, leaving Tilt to Steer the currently only viable option. Gameloft has officially confirmed that they will be working on a fix for this bug, similar to the More Than 300 Decals Update (v1.8.1) fixing Cloud Save issues in the Decals Update (v1.8.0).
 * Unfortunately, even with Tilt To Steer - Auto accelerate, the nitro trigger and brake buttons will sometimes not respond even if tapped very hard. The only ways to get around this problem are lowering the graphics settings and/or using an external keyboard/controller.
 * A workaround to this is to pause the game as soon as the race starts and resume. While this will still result in a loss of time, only approximately 0.2 seconds will be lost instead. However, this doesn't work in multiplayer, as bringing up the pause menu does not pause the in-game action.
 * Bugged Engine Sounds: The new engine sound effects sequence will not always match up with the car's speed and location. It is possible for the game to switch to a low RPM sound effect just from a small bump and stay with it even if the car is back up to top speed. Going into a drift and out of it may fix the problem.
 * Incorrect Tuning Kit Increases: The McLaren M14A and McLaren Mercedes MP4-25 are stated to have a maximum rank of 1550 and 1766, respectively, yet when fully upgraded, their Tuning Kit increases may become much lower than normal, becoming only +10% (when MAX upgrades are all Level 0) instead of +27.5% (when MAX upgrades are all Level 5) like with all other cars. This may be because of the fact that the M14A and MP4-25 lack the normal five levels of upgrades and may be treated as though their MAX upgrades were still Level 0.
 * No R&D Professional Kit Box  in Arash AF10  R&D : Instead of the usual R&D Professional Kit Box that is awarded at the end of an R&D, the Arash AF10's R&D event instead gives out a McLaren Mercedes MP4-25 Championship Pro Box at Test 056. Despite this, the R&D still offers a chance for the player to purchase an R&D Professional Kit Box for.
 * Error 3000x: In Championship, upon using restored Tires, a race cannot be started because of a message called Error 3000x. See the Championship section Bugs for more info.
 * Missing Traffic in Iceland and London: For some reason, during this update, traffic has completely disappeared from the Iceland and London tracks, even in R&D and EDD events. This bug can be beneficial, though, as it reduces the risks of wrecking, especially for Flawless races (or races that have a "Knockdowns Without Wreck" or "No Wrecks" bonus star/subgoal) and races that require a certain race time to beat.
 * Cars Rolling Down: On tracks that start on a steep incline (e.g. Alps), the player's car can be seen rolling down during the race countdown. This does not affect the starting position as the distance covered is minimal.
 * Improperly Rendered Decals: On the Android version of the game, some decals (e.g. the Hex Edition decal for the BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage) do not render properly.
 * No Horizon Tilt : On the Android version of the game, the Horizon Tilt setting does not work on certain devices.
 * Missing Cars: A few cars like the Lamborghini Asterion and McLaren 570S have reportedly become completely unavailable for purchase.
 * Infinite Multiplayer League Races: Due to an oversight in the reduced waiting duration for ticket to be restocked, if the player joins a race when the ticket count is at 1/2, the game will not deduct any tickets, effectively granting an infinite number of ranked races. Leaving a pre-race lobby or rebooting the game will temporarily fix the glitch until it is attempted again.
 * While this bug can be beneficial in reaching the Elite League, it is unknown if frequent use of this exploit will put the player on the cheaterboard.
 * With the 4 tickets count extension, the effectiveness of this glitch is reduced as the game will grant another ticket once its waiting duration has passed. Subsequent races will restore the ticket count to 4/4, forcing the player to use all 4 tickets and waiting 2 hours before using the glitch again.