This is the Career mode. You start your career by accepting a contract from one of two GT2 teams
(Marcos or Agusta) and eventually work your way up through Prototype and then GT1. The races of
a championship are listed below in the rightmost column. The number in parentheses is the number
of laps that the race consists of:
Amateur
Professional |
GT2
Prototype
GT1 |
1. Mulsanne (10)
2. Arnage (10)
3. Maison Blanche (10)
4. Tertre Rouge (10)
5. Bugatti (15)
6. Reverse Mulsanne (10)
7. Reverse Arnage (10)
8. Reverse Maison Blanche (10)
9. Reverse Tertre Rouge (10)
10. Reverse Bugatti (15) |
During the course of your career, you'll be offered contracts to drive for other teams. Don't
accept an offer right away unless you're sure that you really want to drive for a particular
team next season. In general, it's best to wait until after the last race of the season
before signing a new contract since that's when you'll have the largest number of offers to
choose from. Also, it's usually (but not always) the last team in the list that has the best
car on offer.
Winning a GT2 championship won't automatically guarantee that you'll be offered a contract to
drive a Prototype in the next season, and winning a Prototype championship won't automatically
guarantee that you'll be offered a contract to drive a GT1 in the next season. If you don't
get an offer from a team of the next higher class this season, then just choose the best team
on offer. A better team means better results and eventually a team of the next higher class
will offer you a seat.
But, even if you do get an offer from a team of the next higher class, it's not always
a good idea to accept the first one that comes along. When moving from one class to the next
higher class, you have to keep in mind that you're moving from a top team of one class to a
'lesser' team of the next higher class. Your rivals will be more competitive and it'll be
harder to earn points. In Professional difficulty, it's very easy to get sacked if your race
results don't live up to your team's expectations. If you do get sacked, it ends your career
and you'll have to start all over again in GT2. For this reason, it's best not to accept a
contract from a team that isn't very competitive. Instead, you're better off staying with a
team of the same class for another season.
Choosing A New Team
In Amateur difficulty, the choice of teams doesn't really matter so much. But, in Professional
difficulty, choosing the right team is very important since it can mean the difference between
continuing your career or seeing that dreaded "Game Over" screen. The list below shows the
rankings of the teams of each class. My suggestion is to stay in the same class until you
get an offer from a team that's in the top 4 of the next higher class. As an example: if your
choices are Oreca, Larbre, or Kremer, then your best choice is Larbre since Kremer is well
oustside of the top 4 Prototypes and Larbre is the #1 GT2 team. As another example: if your
choices are Joest, BMW, or Lister, then your best choice is BMW.
| GT2 | Prototype | GT1 |
1. Larbre
2. Oreca
3. Roock
4. Cirtek
5. Konrad
6. Chamberlain
7. Agusta
8. Marcos |
1. BMW
2. Joest
3. J B Giesse
4. Courage
5. La Filiere
6. Philippe Gache
7. Pilot
8. Kremer |
1. Toyota
2. Nissan
3. Panoz Hybrid
4. GTC
5. Panoz
6. J B Giesse
7. Roock
8. Lister |
There is, however, an exception to the "best choice" rule. If you want to stay in the same
class for as long as possible, then you'll have to choose a team that isn't the #1 team of that
class. The reason is because, once you start driving for the #1 team, all future offers will
be from teams of the next higher class. So, if you're currently driving in GT2 and you want to
stay in this class for two more seasons, you'd have to choose Oreca instead of Larbre; that way,
in the season following the next one, you'll have the choice of either driving for Larbre or
moving to Prototype.
Difficulty Levels
Amateur difficulty and Professional difficulty are completely separate. To switch between the
two, you'll need to choose "New Championship" (as opposed to "Continue"), but doing so means
that you'll have to restart your career at the bottom of the ladder; i.e., you'll go back to
GT2 and have to work your way up to Prototype and GT1 all over again. The main differences
between Amateur and Professional difficulty are listed below:
| Amateur difficulty: |
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No car damage; hitting cars or other objects has no effect on car performance.
No tire wear; tires provide the same amount of grip from start to finish.
A full tank of fuel doesn't last for a whole race, so you're forced to pit once.
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| Professional difficulty: |
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Cars can be damaged in several ways, and damage will affect a car's performance.
Tire wear can affect how much (or how little) grip the tires will provide.
A full tank of fuel lasts the whole race. So, if you mount Hard tires and avoid car
damage, you can actually do a whole race without pitting.
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Other Notes For Championship Mode
- Be sure to save game progress regularly; this will allow you to reload and redo a race if
something goes terribly wrong. You can save the game after a qualifying session or after a
race.
- If you have a spare memory card, it might be a good idea to make a backup before
starting the last race of the current season; that way, you can restart the next season with
a different team if you want (assuming you haven't chosen a new team before saving the game).
Also, if you get sacked halfway through the new season, you can restart the season (by
reloading the backup) instead of having to restart your career from scratch.
- Since qualifying sessions are a maximum of 3 laps, you don't need to go out with a full
tank of fuel. Less fuel means less weight and faster lap times. You can also set the Rev
Limiter to maximum in Amateur difficulty; in Professional difficulty, the engine will last
about 2 laps with the Rev Limiter set to maximum, so you'll have to set it a few ticks below
maximum.
- For qualifying sessions, it's often a good idea to wait 10-20 seconds before starting;
that way, you're less likely to get held up by other cars.
- For races, you can safely pass other cars under a yellow flag and block cars under a blue
flag since there are no penalties for ignoring these flags. If this goes against your moral
values, then just remember that the computer-controlled cars will also pass you up under a
yellow if they can, and they have no scruples when it comes to messing you up when they're a
lap behind and you're in the lead.
- For wet races in Amateur difficulty, there's no need to use Intermediate or Wet tires since
Soft Slicks seem to work just fine for any weather conditions.
- For the Bugatti races in Amateur difficulty, the extra 5 laps may lead you to think that
you'll have to pit twice. In actuality, a 1-pit strategy (on lap 8 or 9) will suffice.
- Weather and light conditions for qualifying sessions and races are random; a wet qualifying
session doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a wet race. Also, if you've saved your game progress
and you don't like the current race conditions (night, wet, etc), you can reload and restart
the race with (hopefully) more desirable conditions.
- Use L2/R2 to decrease/increase the Rev Limiter. In Amateur difficulty, it's safe to set
the Rev Limiter to maximum since there is no car damage in Amateur difficulty. However, in
Professional difficulty, you'll need to keep an eye on engine temperature to make sure it
doesn't overheat when the Rev Limiter is set too high.
- For dry races in Professional difficulty, you can try to go with a no-pit strategy by
mounting Hard tires and avoiding car damage. If you've qualified somewhere in the front half
of the grid, you'll notice that some of the other cars are faster than yours. That's okay; just
hang in there and avoid any car damage. As hopeless as it may seem in the first half of the
race, you should start noticing a clear advantage in the second half (assuming you've kept your
car as damage-free as possible).
- For wet races (heavy rain) in Professional difficuly, a 1-pit strategy may work better
than a no-pit strategy. For a 1-pit strategy, you can mount Wet tires and go out with half a tank
of fuel. Just remember to refuel when you pit.
- If game completion (the collection of all trophies) is important, then you'll need to make
sure that you've won the trophy for the current class before moving on to the next higher class.
In some cases, you may be offered a contract to drive for a team of the next higher class even
before you've actually won the current championship.
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