8 Gran Turismo 7 tips to get you started on your GT racing journey

Use these eight Gran Turismo 7 tips to help you master the tracks in all sorts of cars. Gran Turismo 7 will take you across the world to compete in lots of races, starting at low-end compact cars, and leading to the most expensive and fastest GT racing cars and supercars. With Gran Turismo 7 being the first in the series for PS5 consoles, there are bound to be plenty of newcomers and seasoned pros jumping in, so here are eight tips to get you started on your grand tour.

1. Customize your difficulty settings to your level

While Gran Turismo 7 offers three Assist Presets for players with varying levels of racing game experience – Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert – you might find that Expert is maybe a bit too difficult or that you quickly pick things up and need to increase the difficulty. These assists include things like driving line visibility, braking zones, and auto-drive to help you get around a bit easier. Obviously the more assists you have turned off, the more direct control over your car you have. You’ll be able to push the car harder with full control, but you’ll be left to deal with any mistakes.

You can also adjust the difficulty of the AI-controlled drivers that you’ll race against – which is oddly represented by several chillies. This choice needs to be made right at the start of the game, but you can adjust the difficulty at any time under the ‘Options’ tab of the GT Menu. It’s also worth noting that your Credit winnings from most races you complete in Gran Turismo 7 are unaffected by your chosen difficulty.

2. Beginners should head for the Gran Turismo 7 Licence Centre

If Gran Turismo 7 is your first foray into virtual motorsport, the in-game Licence Centre is a great way to learn to tell the difference between your throttle and brake. You’ll start off with some incredibly basic training drills – literally just starting and stopping – but will move onto racing lines, wet-weather driving, and cornering in more advanced licences.

What’s more is you’ll also make a few Credits while doing the exercises thanks to the medals you earn based on your final times. Getting certain medal types in all the training drills for a particular licence will also unlock bonus reward cars for you. Note that the Licence Centre isn’t available right away in Gran Turismo 7, but you’ll unlock it very quickly after you complete the first Menu Book.

3. Complete Gran Turismo 7 Menu Books to progress

In Gran Turismo 7, the main way to progress is by completing Menu Books from Luca in the Café. This coffee-pouring petrolhead will give you one Menu Book at a time, and each one consists of a few challenges to complete. These can range from simple tutorials, like heading to the Licence Centre, to completing small car collections by completing multiple races.

Once you’ve completed the Menu Book objective, you’ll need to head back to the Café to speak to Luca and collect your reward – usually a Roulette Ticket which has a chance of getting you specific Tuning Parts, Credits, or even new cars. Keep getting Menu Books to unlock a range of cars and tracks. You’ll also be able to speak to Luca and some friendly customers who can tell you a bit more about your car.

4. Circuit Experience is great for learning racetracks

If you’ve played a few races and tried out a few of the Licence Centre exercises, you should try Circuit Experiences next. These are short activities like the ones in the Licence Centre that break down each track into different sectors that you can use to hone your racing technique. This feature is great for new players who want to start learning tracks and is a great starting test for experienced players. Each Circuit Experience test has medals attached to it too, so gold medals are great time targets and will get you some extra Credits.

5. Credits are very easy to get in Gran Turismo 7

The main currency in Gran Turismo 7 is Credits, and you’ll need lots of them if you want to buy plenty of cars to fill out your garage. Luckily Gran Turismo 7 Credits are very easy to get as you can get them from doing almost any sort of driving activity in the game. While your reward payouts for the first few races won’t be spectacular, it’ll all start building up and you’ll eventually start earning bigger Credit sums from higher-level races.

6. Focus on tuning your cars rather than buying new ones at first

It’s tempting to drop all your Credits on a fancy new car you might have spotted at the used car dealership, but we recommend that you focus on buying Tuning Parts for your cars rather than buying new cars at first. Tuning Parts are much cheaper than entire cars, so it’s a good idea to tune one of your existing cars, if you notice it starts to fall behind the competition. A good way to tell if this is the case is to check if your car’s PP (Performance Points) meets a race’s recommended PP. If not, it might be worth a tune.

You should apply a few upgrades to your chosen car that will boost its PP and handling. Changing the tyres to an improved style and compound can give you more grip, and new brakes will obviously improve your ability to slow down, allowing you to maintain your speed for a split second longer as you approach a turn. Once you’ve used your tuned car for a few races, you should have either enough Credits to buy a much better car, or you will have unlocked a better one that can be tuned too. Remember, you’ve got to spend money to make money.

7.  Go in-depth with Car Settings in Gran Turismo 7

The Gran Turismo 7 Garage allows you to change the smallest of details of your cars to create optimal setups. If you really know your cars and motorsports, you can kit your Gran Turismo 7 cars out with “Fully Customisable” Tuning Parts, including suspension, differential, and transmission to make the slightest performance adjustments. When you’ve finished tinkering, you can get simulated data for your adjusted car setup. You can also create multiple setups for a single car and save them all into different Settings Sheets that you can switch between through the Garage.

8. Brand Central is a must-see museum for car enthusiasts

If you’re a fan of cars and motorsport in general, you’ll definitely want to spend some time in the Brand Central pavilion once you’ve unlocked it. This area is not only a showroom for lots of different car manufacturers from all over the world, but also has museum-grade information about all things racing. You can learn about the entire history of Aston Martin or Suzuki, the career of Lewis Hamilton, and watch videos made by Michelin about their tyres. Most players will come to Brand Central to buy the most expensive cars available, but petrolheads have plenty of history to read up on here too.