After GRID 2 was pretty much everything I expected it to be, I was thrilled to hear about GRID Autosport. Until today, though, I didn’t really know what to expect. Codemasters has released a trailer showing off it’s Endurance racing discipline — one of the five racing disciplines you will find in GRID Autosport. An Endurance race is more than just making sure you’re the fastest on the track. Players will need to manage their vehicles tire (or if you’re outside of North America, tyre) wear and race to a strategy other than “go fast, don’t be last”. Players tires will wear down over the course of the race (and if you couldn’t guess, the races are long) as they break traction or go off track, and will need to take care of their vehicles if they want to finish on top.
“Endurance events feature stunning prototypes on the cutting edge of automotive engineering and some of the most exciting and desirable production cars tuned for sports racing, each requiring incredible aerodynamics, blistering pace and extraordinary reliability. Players will get behind the wheels of contemporary and classic cars including the Aston Martin N24 V12 Zagato, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3, McLaren 12C GT3, Audi R8 LMS Ultra, Lola B12/80, Shelby Cobra “Daytona” Coupe, Ford GT40 MK1 and more as they race on the games circuits, including Yas Marina, Sepang and the world-famous Hockenheimring. Endurance events test both the capacity of the cars competing to withstand the extreme stresses placed on the vehicles in this long form of motorsport and each driver’s ability to maintain concentration at high speeds over distance.” – Codemasters
Besides Endurance races, GRID Autosport will feature races with Touring cars, Open-Wheel cars, Tuner car races, and Street races in its career mode. It will also feature 100 routes over 22 different locations. Look for GRID Autosport on June 24 in the US and June 27th, but not on next-gen consoles. As of now I only see release dates for XBox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
