Get ready to burn up the track from sports cars to go karts, muscle cars, and vans. Our Gran Turismo 5 Primer loaded with driving tips, tuning advice, and means of making cash in GT Mode.

　　Driving Tips: Understand the basics of driving and beating the competition GT Mode: Discover how to gain money, levels, and complete challenges Tuning and Repairs: Learn how to build the best cars and keep them in top shape Playstation 3 Trophies: Gain new Trophies for your collection

Racing Tips

Short Turns

　　Most of the cars you're going to be using throughout the game will be able to handle sharp turns simply by undercutting the line while staying at top speed, eliminating the need to brake; at worst you may just want to lay off the gas a bit before heading into the turn. The exception here is, of course, areas where chicanes or short turns precede sharp turns; if you attempt to speed through one of these, then you may find yourself poorly equipped to deal with the subsequent turn.

　　The line also doesn't usually take into account corner-jumping techniques. While corner-jumping and rail-riding isn't often a technique that will net you a big position bonus, mostly due to the way that the courses are laid out, it's worth noting that the line will never indicate when it actually might be faster to ride up onto a rail or jump a corner entirely. A bit of experimentation in areas with grassy terrain may net you some speed bonuses, but you can expect to damage your tires a bit even when you do find a quicker line. You will also take a time penalty when more than two of your wheels hit the grass at the same time, so if you're looking for a new time record, then this isn't your best bet, but if you just want to win a race, then you could do worse than attempting to jump a corner here and there.

Brake In, Gas Out

　　The primary difference between simulation racers and arcade racers comes in their handling of turning. If you're playing an arcade racer, then you may be able to get through a turn by just hammering the accelerator and scraping along the outside wall until you come to the end of the turn, but in Gran Turismo 5, you're going to have to approach turns with a bit more respect. In other words, you're not going to be able to turn with the throttle open all the way; you're going to need to brake until your car hits a sweet spot of maneuverability and speed, allowing it to get through the turn as quickly as possible while still retaining control. When done properly, you'll gain speed over the course of a track, even if you spend a lot of time braking, since uncontrolled turn approaches will often send your car off the track, or force you to correct your path and cause significant time delays.

　　The most important thing to remember is to try and brake while you're still travelling in a straight line; braking while turning your car reduces the effectiveness of both actions. The "best" approach to a turn will usually have you braking while you're still approaching, reducing your speed to a manageable amount, and only then starting to turn while accelerating to try and stick to the line. On many courses, you won't be able to get from one corner to the next without braking at least a little while turning, but just remember that doing so decreases stability and will be likely to get you off the ideal racing line.

　　It's best to approach a turn while slowly easing onto the brake. Slamming on the brakes will cause a lot of instability in your tires and will often cause you to miss the sweet spot of speed for a turn, especially on the shorter turns. It's better to be going slower than faster in most instances, but if you do jam on the brakes, you can reduce the amount of friction that's available to you for turning. Ease on them when possible, but not to the point where you're getting passed.

Know The A.I.

　　If you happen to be out in front of a car that is you're equal or superior in terms of speed, then, you're going to need to learn how to block off your foe properly. If you're using an exterior view, then you'll have to hit to check your rear view; in-car viewpoints have a handy rearview mirror already set up. (You can also use the right analog stick to look all around your car.) When you're in front of such a car, all you really have to do is do your best to keep yourself in front of them. They'll almost always try to pass you on the inside of a turn and proceed to block you off when they get past you, using their car as a shield to prevent you from accelerating and passing them, or they'll just push away if they're capable of it and dust you.

　　In order to prevent this strategy from working, you will, of course, have to try and stay in front of their car when they head inside on a turn. This is going to result in a pretty awkward turn for yourself, as well, but so long as you prevent them from getting past you it won't matter much, as you'll both be forced to slow way down; so long as you're still directly in front of them, they won't have much recourse but to follow your lead and wait for another opportunity to pass.

　　If a car does manage to bypass you, you should immediately try and get around it, if possible, as it will have taken the turn awkwardly in most cases and will require a bit more time than you to get up to full speed. The key here is to avoid actually ramming into them, unless damage is turned off; a good collision after a turn can wipe out your progress in a race and force you to restart it.

Getting Started

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Starting Car

　　From the on set of the game you will only have a few selections of cars. It's ideal to get a car that is both fast and light weight, but also need to keep in mind that you have very few credits just starting out. Various tracks in the game require certain drivetrains and country of origin. Among the best starter cars for your budget include the Mazda Roadster series, the Honda Civic Type-R, and the Nissan Silvia. However, there are a number of selections to pick depending on your driving style. The list below are the level 0 cars that can be netted from the new car dealership. Alternately, you can attempt to browse the used car lot, however the selection from there is fairly random.

License Tests

　　License Tests will teach both basic and advanced driving skills. They can be great for honing your abilities, but more importantly will grant free credits and experience points. You can simply use the Tests to grind levels and allow you to purchase new cars at higher levels.

　　National B (Level 0). Rewards: Mazda Demio Sport, Daihatsu OFC-1, Tommykaira ZZ-S 200m Stopping Challenge Steering "Out-In-Out" The Most Basic Cornering Line Braking into a Corner Basic Cornering Theory - Slow In, Fast Out Exiting From a Looping Corner High Speed Driving Lines and Throttle Control Finding a Line Through an S Bend Overtaking Using Slipstreams Indianapolis Motor Speedway 1-Lap Battle

　　National A (Level 3). Rewards: Nissan MM-R Cup, Mazda Atenza Concept, Isuzu 4200R 400m Stopping Challenge Approaching A Blind Corner Cone Slalom Tackling the Monza Circuit Chicane Tackling Continuous Urban Right-Angled Corners Mastering a Set of Undulating Corners Driving a Mountainous Dirt Track Tackling the High Speed "Schumacher S" Using Braking to Overtake on the Inside of a Corner High Speed Ring 1-Lap Battle

　　International C (Level 6). Rewards: Acura DNX, Autobacs Garaiya, Nissan GT-R 1000m Stopping Challenge Hard Braking and Exiting a Corner after a Downhill Straight Taking a Tight Double Hairpin Early Braking When Driving Downhill on Dirt High Speed Cornering on the Rome City Course Blind Corner in the Woodlands Consecutive Corners With Different Bank Angles on Dirt Traversing Monza Circuit's Notorious Lesmo Corner Using Late Braking to Overtake Rome City Course 2-Lap Challenge

　　International B (Level 9). Rewards: Mazda Eunos Roadster, Mitsubishi HSR-II, Honda S800 RSC Wet Road Stopping Challenge Tackling the First Corner of Circuito de Madrid FR Cone Slalom Challenge Snow-Driving Challenge High Speed Blind Corners on Tokyo Route 246 Tackling the Final Corner at Tsukuba Undulating Consecutive High Speed Corners on Dirt The Carousel at the Nurburgring Strategic Driving on the Final Section of Tokyo Route 246 Deep Forest Raceway 2-Lap Battle

　　International A (Level 12). Rewards: Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie, Land Rover Range Stormer, Ford GT Mastering the Circuit de la Sarthe's "Indianapolis" Section Braking from Hunaudieres into Mulsanne The Corkscrew at Laguna Seca Raceway Braking into Consecutive Corners on Snow Driving Around Madrid's Puerta de Alcala Visualizing a Drive Line Through Blind Corners Toscana's Tricky High-Speed Consecutive Corners Cape Ring - Spiral Bridge Strategic Driving on the First Corner of the Grand Valley Speedway Grand Valley Speedway 2-Lap Battle

　　Super (Level 15). Rewards: Honda S2000, Mazda MX-Crossport, Nissan GT-R SpecV Applied Overtaking - Monza Applied Overtaking - Trial Mountain Circuit Applied Overtaking - Nurburging GP Applied Overtaking - Tokyo Route 246 Applied Overtaking - Laguna Seca Raceway Applied Overtaking - Madrid City Course Applied Overtaking - Top Gear Test Track Applied Overtaking - Suzuka Circuit Applied Overtaking - Circuit de la Sarthe Applied Overtaking - Special Stage Route 5

Special Events

　　Special Events are means of trying out your driving under some fairly strange circumstances. They will not only test you greatly, but will net you more money and free cars.

Gran Turismo Karting Experience

　　You'll need to purchase a PDI Racing Kart with your own credits. It's really cheap at 5,000 credits ,so it really isn't much. Despite it being your own car, you can't tune it or alter it so you'll really to make use of your skills. They can spin out pretty often, so be sure to slow down by decelerating rather than jamming on the brakes. You can do some pretty nifty moves as well, such as making sharper turns that would be hard for a full size cars. Use your light weight advantages the fullest to make it to first place.

Jeff Gordon NASCAR School

　　The NASCAR School Events are all about making uses of various high speed tactics from a rolling start: Drafting, Inside Driving, and Outside Driving. These can all be used as means for overtaking other drivers. Drafting challenges are about lowering your wind resistance by driving behind another cars, thus giving you the speed to pass them. With Inside driving, you'll need to drive along the outer edge along the yellow strip. With the Outside driving events, it will be a bit more tricky as not only do you need to drive without hitting the cones in the center, knocking against the wall on the right will slow your car down too much. The best options are to turn off the car's ABS in the options menu and change to a third person or bonnet view. This will allow you to better see the cones and walls that would otherwise be hard to evade in a standard camera. You can win new tracks and even random muscle cars and NASCARs for completing these events.

Top Gear Test Track

　　The Top Gear events are about using the exact same car as your opponents and use it to the best of your abilities. You may even have a good rolling start, but will be place somewhere in the middle to behind the pack. With the SambaBus, it can be hard to reach high speeds, so you'll need to speed up along turns where the AI would typically opt to slow down. Your best time to pass a enemy racer is typically right near the end of the lap. With the Elise, you have a bigger problem with traction and control, resulting in a quick wipeout. Increasing your ABS to 10 before this event can help with control.

AMG Driving Academy

　　AMG events are about taking various Mercedes-Benz cars along sections of some pretty tough tracks, mainly the Nurburgring. Some help includes turning down the traction before the race and flooring the tracks at max speed. Completing these events will award you with free Mercedes-Benz such as the A 160 Avangarde and SLR McLaren.

Gran Turismo Rally

　　The Gran Turismo Rally is all about driving on various terrains that you might not have had a chance to try out yet. You can use a wide variety of cars, unlike most other Special Events. However, you will need to buy and install the tires yourself, including snow tires, dirt tires, and soft sports tires. Among the cars that are great for completing these courses without being too bulky include the Ford Focus and Lotus Elise. Further improve your car with upgrades from tuning, and even check GT Auto for a Racing Modification. You'll gain free rally cars for completing these events.

Grand Tour

　　The Grand Tour is a series of races around Switzerland and Italy. You'll be given a number of different cars depending on the track, so you can't rely on a simple strategy to beat them all. Drifting is very important to make these time trials, as you won't have near the speed to make it across in some of the times. Adjust your TC and ABS accordingly, as there aren't any other means of improving your cars. There seem to be no unlockable cars for completing these vents, but you can snag some photos.

Sebastien Loeb Rally Challenge

　　The Rally Challenges are about beating the ghost times already set in by the AI. You'll see the ghost car moving, but will only have to beat the actual finish time, not the ghost itself. Removing traction control from your car is among the best means of increasing your speed. In fact, nearly every assist will almost harm your performance during these events, so consider turning each one off. One of the few you can still make use of is Skid Recovery, so it may be worth it to leave that assist on. You can gain a number of Citroen cars from these events.

B-Spec

　　In B-Spec, instead of driving you'll be taking the role of a coach, leading other racers to glory. You can manage a whole team of drivers, each with strengths and weaknesses. They will make use of your owned cars, but will pass along the credits to your pool of money. While you can only higher one racer at first, you'll gain more slots as you level.

Hiring a Driver

　　Racers are randomly generated, including having random names and outfits. They also have various stats that help them on during a long race. Some of these abilities are their basic driving skills, such as Braking, Accuracy, and Accuracy. These three scores all factor into the driver's overall Speed. The Strength determines how well they can physically withstand during a grueling high impact race. Mental Strength how well they can keep it together when a race goes badly. Finally, Personality determines what type of driver they are. Those that are closer to Cool driver slower, but are less likely to make mistakes. Hot drivers are the inverse, opting for speed at the risk of making bad choices. Ideally, drivers near the center will get a good mix of the two elements.

On the Track

　　While racing, there are a few different commands you can give your driver. Lowering Pace will make them go slow, but will keep them from making mistakes. Increasing Pace will make them go faster, but it could push their emotions to make mistakes. Maintain Pace allows their bar to freeze and keep their speed for a short time. Finally, overtake will help them to bass nearby cars, but will do very little if the enemy is too far ahead. You also want to keep track of their Strength and Mental Strength, which will go down as they undergo strenuous tasks and fall behind in places. As your drover reaches higher emotions in the Hot range, tell them to slow down, while when they enter a Cool state tell them to move faster. When their emotions reach the center, concentrate on maintaining speed. Keep in mind that B-Spec Races are often twice the length of their A-Spec counterparts, so Strengths are more likely to drop with so many laps. Additionally, if you give your B-Spec racer a car that is way over match for the enemy, they will be able to breeze by regardless of their emotions or current endurance.

Tuning and Repair

　　Even if you manage to grab a great car, there are means of making it even better for taking on the course. With Tuning and GT Auto you'll be able to increase any car's performance. These can cost quite a bit of money, so save up from B-Spec, License Tests, and Special Events.

Decreasing Weight

　　Lowering the car's weight is a huge means of making your car faster and improve cornering. There are three levels of Weight Reduction for the Body/Chassis. While you should always start with the first one, the next too are fairly expensive. To save on money, consider both the Window Weight Reduction and Carbon Hood. Not all cars can use these, but for the ones that can they will be great cheap means of making your car accelerate quicker. The Chassis Reinforcement is also good for adding control while cornering. The Aerodynamic Wings sold at GT Auto can also help with downforce. Adjusting this downforce between both front and rear can give you great top speeds. However, experiment with making one of them high and the other low to find the style that appeals to you.

Increasing Speed and Control

　　There are a huge amount of upgrades to improve Horse Power. The stages of upgrading the engine are good, but can get pricy quickly. Before going on to stage 2, take an ECU Tuning part to further improve the engine. After increasing the engine, upgrade the Intake to the Sports Intake Manifold; all other options aren't worth the money. For Exhaust Parts, buy the more expensive Titanium Racing Exhaust, along with the Sports Exhaust Manifold add-on. The Turbo Kits really depend on the car, where you will need to consider the stand alone RPM that goes along with the kit model. Most cars can't use the Supercharger, but for the ones that can, feel free to install it.

Secondary Upgrades

　　There are other means of greatly improving your cars that don't directly reduce your KG or increase HP. The 6 Speed Close Ratio Transmission is a great means of giving your car better performance. However, older model gears that only have four or five gears will require the Fully Customizable Transmission to reach top speeds. To improve the drivetrain get both a Twin Plate Clutch and Semi Racing Flywheel. The Carbon Drive Shaft is also worth it. The Torque Sensing Center Differential is good for 4 Wheel Drive, but isn't installable on other cars. The Adjustable LSD is good, but requires some playing around with. The main thing to get from the LSD is the increase in Throttle Control, which can increase the power surging from the engines down to the tires. The Height-Adjustable Sports kit is one of the last parts you'll need to make your car great on any track. However, you'll also need to purchase every type of tire, as each course has either restrictions or has better suited terrain.

Repairs and Extra Modification

　　Your car will need extra cars as it undergoes racing in both A-Spec and B-Spec. Overtime you'll need to fix the ware and tear that comes with any car. Enter GT Auto to start fixing your favorite racer up. The Car Wash doesn't actually help with performance, but will remove possible blemishes your car may have. You may need to change the oil every so often, so pay a few credits when it runs low. Both the engine and chassis will become damaged after so many races, so be sure to repair them when you can. These prices can stack up if you aren't paying attention, so be sure to make repairs before going and buying a new car. Finally, you can really boost the car via Racing Modifications. Not all cars can use this, but for the ones that can it can be a big performance booster.

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