GT Racing 2 - mastering rear wheel drive cars

Introduction

GT Racing 2, the game (Apple App Store - & Google Play) can get really difficult once you buy a RWD or rear wheel drive car. The funny thing is that you need to pay Cash to buy and not Coins. Since, Cash is difficult to get, this get fairly annoying as you lay down your hard earned Cash points only to get a car which is more difficult to drive and seemingly slower than the all the other cars that you have bought and driven before.

What happening?

All the starter cars are FWD or Front Wheel Drive. This means the power from the engine is given to the front wheels. IRL, all "family" cars are usually FWD because they are safer. They are easier to drive, and generally understeer. So, you don't end you losing control if you hit the accelerator too early in a turn. GT Racing 2 simulates this pretty much. So, with your starter cars on GT Racing 2, you often struggle to make stiff corners without hitting the barriers unless your speed is low.

With RWD cars, the behavior is different. Power is feed to the back wheels of the car and not the front. The real advantage of RWD cars is that they have better traction. That means they accelerated faster and are able to hit top speed pretty quickly. They essentially 'push' a car because the power is given to the back. This comes with a price though. If you accelerate while turning, then its very easy to oversteer. In GT Racing 2, this effect is pretty much in place and as a result the car that you put up Green cash for, is now very twitching. Plus, if you have both steering and brake assistance on, then mysterious the car does NOT accelerate even when you are on a straight or slight curve.

That's because you could be off the best line (as indicated by the green arrows) and the steering assistance is trying to get you back on it. Since its trying to steer the car, and its accelerating, there is a tendency for the car to oversteer and hence the braking assistance kicks in, slowing you down. Before you know it all your starter cars are faster than then brand new car.

Solution

You need to master RWD. Period. Its not going to be easy though. I still haven't mastered it but here are some steps that I think will help.

1. Try to drive as smoothly as possible and stay on the green arrows as much as possible. Being on the best line automatically means that you will be ready for turns in a smooth manner.
2. Catch the car often. Its going to take practice but you will need to catch the car. Try to anticipate any oversteer and apply steering in the opposite direction just a bit. This will allow the car to settle into a line quickly and you will not crash into the barriers unnecessarily. Now, this is quite difficult and may seem like you are slower, but slowly you will build up your driving skills and hopefully be smooth enough such that you don't need to catch the car out of corners
3. Rerun races with steering assistance off. This is a must. I found that the annoying braking assistance on straights does not come in if you turn off the steering assistance. The car doesn't try to get on to the best line by itself as a result and you will accelerate. That means even if you don't get on to the best line, you won't penalize yourself by slowing down.
4. Get as much practice as possible. You will slowly improve over time and get better at driving the RWD cars.
5. And finally, tune the car. The more handling upgrades, brake updates you install, the easier the car gets to control. The funny this is that once you get used to RWD, FWD cars just seem to be slow, unsteer all the time into an outer wall and in general, not as much fun!

That's it. Hopefully you will have fun with GT Racing 2. If you have any more tips, drop a comment. I would love to hear from you.