How did you guys beat these with all gold? I was fine in quick until the Hard level now I can't get past a silver. All of the cars wich are supposed to be about the same as yours seem to be going a lot faster then they should be. Plz help!

Those races pissed me off until I finally got the BALLS to race with a stick!

race with the Mini Cooper =P

so does manual really allow you to go faster?

Hell yeah you go faster with the stick. And once you get to the very hard level if you pick a slow car like the Mini the xbox will pick a car that you can't beat. I beat the quick races (very hard level) with a Skyline (with the stick). It's still 5 laps of total stress, since you are allowed very little error. Good luck.

I've got gold on all these races using automatic. On the one where you race against other cars (I can never remember whether that's arcade or Quick - Quick I think) pick a poorer car (I used the mini or the volkswagon). The computer will pick opponents relative to the car your driving. It's still hard, but because you (and you opponents) are slower, it gives you a greater margin of error. Doing this I got bronze or silver on all the races quite easily. Go back later when you've got a better car and go for the golds. The only ones that gave me serious trouble where the London (Very Hard) on Quick and the San. Fran (Hard) on arcade. I did this before tackling the Qudos challenge mode which meant I had the Vanquish (I think) for the early chapters making life a lot easier.

I haven't finished Arcade yet but I got all golds on Quick race with the Mini and VW. Then I went back and did the easy races with the Exige, deliberately coming 3rd but racking up much higher kudos scores.