Medium and all assists off besides ABS and shifting. The first few races were a breeze.
Some things I do to help before a race (I use a controller only, for what its worth):
* Pick the car you want to use (if its not a showcase event where you're given the car), and just drive it around for kicks for a while. Take a nice long cruise through some varied terrain. Just to get to know the sounds, get a basic handle on the acceleration, braking etc.
* Try to tackle a long stretch of road as if it was a race - braking late, trying to hit apexes, and basically trying to see how much speed you can take through a variety of different corners while maintaining stability. You can get a solid handle on how much you can push a car into the corners at speed, and how much counter-steer or braking you'll need to pull it off.
* Last bit, fuck around and try some drifting to see how well the car handles it. I usually do this in Beaumont or Carson or areas with a lot of sharp 90 degree turns. Even though I tend to avoid drifting in the actual racing events, as it tends to scrub too much speed I do find that it mentally limbers me up. If you can handle drifting for a bit you've got a good feel for the tolerances in the car, and you'll find it easier to be calm at speed in the events, and easier to just get in the zone and go by feel.
* For the faster cars I go one step beyond this and try a nice long cruise where I try to maintain a good speed while staying within the legal lanes and carefully avoiding all traffic. This gives me a better handle on the sensitivity of the braking - Horizon is very touchy and even the slightest pressure can activate the ABS. But within a few minutes of driving this way you'll find the sweet spots and how you can feather the brakes to get more fine-grained control.
Yeah, I'm taking my sweet time with this game, but this works for me. It allows me to get to know each car through a nice mix of cruising/race techniques and drifting, and that's what I look for in this kind of game (and what I haven't been able to do until Horizon).
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What I still suck at is launching off the line at the beginning of a race. I get lucky every once in a while, but for the most part I watch as every other car speeds past me, and I have to catch up from the back.
