Hotshot Racing – How to Beat the Last Grand Prix (Hard)

Yeah the last Grand Prix can be rough, so I’ll try to be somewhat in-depth.

Guide to Beat the Last Grand Prix

Сrеdit gоеs to Caspian!

Cars

Believe it or not, any are viable except all of Viktor’s, more on that later, but speed cars are generally the best for the last Grand Prix. Ideally prioritize speed first and and acceleration second, as the myriad turns will slow you down quite a bit.

The best cars for speeding through Grand Prix are also the most obvious, I reckon: Keiko’s F-90 and Marcus’ Carbon. Highest speed, pretty good acceleration, and really reliable handling, moreso with the Carbon, as I’ve occasionally had Keiko’s F-90 try to achieve flight on its own, where I can be turning but not drifting when the nose lifts and loses control, but that’s more noticeable on tracks where you aren’t drifting all the time.

Now, I mentioned handling, and that’s something that the game doesn’t tell you about, but it’s intuitively figured out, I guess it’s a sort of “weight”, where some characters feel heavier than others, like having an easier time shoving cars about as Viktor or Marcus, but having a hard time as Xing or Keiko.

Unsure whether that’s an actual feature or not, but nevertheless different characters do play slightly different, and that is most emphasized in Viktor. I hate playing as him, in all honesty. Not because he’s inherently bad, but it’s because his drifts lock at a shallower angle than every other character. When doing a super tight drift on Downtown or Seaview with any character, it’s fine, and maybe they understeer or oversteer a little, but regardless, with enough skill, they go through without hitting anything and while staying on the road.

With Viktor however, he understeers every time on Expert difficulty, unless you brake before entering the drift like a responsible driver, but that’s not what we’re here for.

Viktor paragraph aside, here’s some tips for the individual…

Tracks

Figure Eight

This one is definitely the simplest, and so it’s easy to get a feel for. No notable turns that I forbid anyone from drifting on, just keep drifting away and use boosts a bunch!

Surf City

Try your hardest to enter the big square drift from the farthest left as possible and drift the whole way through to form an elliptic path with its apex extremely close to touching the sidewalk. This is where a lot of problems can arise with the AI so I am a bit of a daredevil and boost a little ways before the drift so I can carry the boost maybe halfway through the drift.

Cargo Chaos

A lot of errors here happen at the wiggly bobby pin section, and my advice here is don’t drift until the last wiggle in the bobby pin and then straighten out when the road straightens out. If you drift in the wiggle you’ll wiggle, yourself, and spin out at the slightest breeze, let alone from a 230mph Mike zooming through like he doesn’t have a family to take care of.

Aside from that, right before the first large semicircular drift there’s that small wiggle; don’t drift through that. It doesn’t feel right to turn normally, but it shaves some time and eliminates some, erm, t-bone collisions that can arise if you drift before the large semicircle. As for the second semicircle, the one you enter right after the swoopy loopy bobby pin section, break that curve into two drifts with a straight-ish bit between them. It’s too broad of a curve to bite off in one drift, so break it in two.

And now…

Frozen Freeway

I still struggle with this one. I can do most, if not all, of the turns except that one. The one that’s more of a square than anything, and is two or so turns before the finish line. My current hypothesis is to break it in two like the aforementioned turn on Cargo Chaos, but with a much shorter time between the two drifts, like drifting sharply, straightening out, and immediately going back into a sharp drift. Player Viktor would not be a victor here, unless they are really fluent in that specific turn.

Other Tips and Information

As you know, it’s fine if you don’t get first all the time. Just so long as the AI performs PIT manoeuvres on eachother and/or you get first most of the time.

Following the above, one of the best things for your success is the AI ramming eachother into the walls, because no matter how bad the rubberbanding is, the driver can’t rubberband when their face is stuck in a wall for a good long while.

Another, more frowned upon tip, is to learn how to perform PIT maneuvers yourself – if, for example, Xing got 2nd in the first two races and you’re on the third, and you are sort of behind him to either side and your front end is basically in line with his rear tires/rear end, turn sharply into him, and, if done right, that’ll spin him out and get him last place, earning him five points instead of eleven, crippling his chances of getting that silver or bronze medal at the end, and probably crippling him in all honesty. don’t try this in real life.