Starting Out

When you have your region and initial car selected, it's time to start hitting some races and earning some cash. At the outset of career mode, you should have at least three events unlocked in the Proving Grounds race type, but you'll only be able to compete in one, since they're keyed to the region you came from.

If you took our advice and obtained the fastest car available to you in the initial selection, then you shouldn't have a problem winning these races, assuming you're decent at cornering and keep the AI set to medium in the difficulty options. At worst, you're going to be facing off against a bunch of cars that don't really stand a chance against you and one car that's of the same make as the one you bought, making most of these early races a straightforward duel, and one you should handily win, since the AI doesn't quite max out the speed of its cars on medium difficulty. (If you intentionally crippled yourself by buying something like the Mini Cooper, then you'll probably have to dial the difficulty down to Easy to even have a chance of winning these races.)

Be sure to scout the opposition before heading into a race--it can show you precisely how much of a challenge you'll be in for if you accept it.

So, you should be able to win some of the early races without building up much of a sweat. Each time you win a race, you'll earn cash, which will quickly increase your level, and each time you complete a self-contained series of races, you'll also earn a new car. (Assuming you managed to get a #1 ranking in all of the races, that is.) These new cars will likely be inferior to the one you bought when you chose your region, but the important thing about them is that they'll let you enter races that your initial car isn't qualified for.

Speaking of which, this mechanic should be familiar to anyone who's played a Gran Turismo game, but just so we're clear, you won't be able to upgrade and overpower a single car and use it to blast through all of the races in Career mode. Most of the race events will have restrictions on them, so that you'll be forced to use a 4WD vehicle to get through one set of races, then switch to a RWD vehicle for the next group, and so on. Each event will detail what's required for it, and also let you know if you have any cars in your garage that are suitable for the event; if you wish, you can immediately switch to an eligible car and use that to try your luck at the races. If you don't have any eligible cars in your garage, you can either check the restrictions and try to buy a car that matches, or just wait until you get a race reward that fits the restrictions.

In addition, you'll find that most of the events in the game are locked and unavailable to you when you first start out. Gran Turismo vets will be pleased to learn, however, that there aren't any license exams or hoops to jump through in order to gain access to these events; instead, they're automatically unlocked as you gain levels. In most cases, these races will be unlocked around the same time that you'll have earned enough cash or will have earned cars that can actually compete in them; if a race is locked to you, in other words, you probably wouldn't be able to win it even if you were able to enter, as you wouldn't have the appropriate cars to really compete.

The Plan

So, in order to progress through career mode, you're going to have to earn or buy more cars and use them, in turn, to earn cash in the highest-level races available to you. The earliest races will usually offer you around 1,000 credits per race, which will be enough to unlock new races as you increase your level; you'll also increase your stable of cars as you win events, allowing you to try the different races as you unlock them.

Now, depending on your skill level, you may either want to find races that provide an even match for your cars, or, if you're just looking to progress a bit, you'll want to find races that you can easily win with a certain car. In general, the quickest way to cheaply earn cash will be to hop into your most powerful car and head to the races. You can repeat races for more cash as many times as you like, so if you find a high-paying event that you can win easily, feel free to start racing it over and over again, if you like, to build up more cash for upgrades and new car purchases, and to earn more levels to unlock new races and earn new free cars.

Keep in mind that the gap between levels is going to increase as you go ever-higher, which means that the early, low-paying races will eventually stop being an efficient way of increasing your level, so you may want to find a high-paying event and see if one of your cars is competitive in it, and if not, then either buy a new car or upgrade one of your earlier ones to give you access to more cash rewards. You increase your level by earning more cash, not from your total cash reserves, so there's no reason not to invest in some upgrades if you think it'll help you win races that wind up paying more.

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