Won both races tonight with a fully upgraded Cobra, all aids off except ABS=1, DFGT. It was hard, but fun. Trial Mountain I started with the 2J in 5th, the Toyota in 9th. Got ahead at or just after the first corner, the Toyota caught me on the 4th lap and I had to hold it off for 1.5 laps. I just made sure I took tight lines through the 'infield' corners, the second half I found I could match pace with it ok. I found it harder with the Toyota high in the field, it's much faster than the 2J on this track.
Monaco was a little harder, I reset until I got the 2J in 5th and made sure I was first out of the first corner (some slight wall squeezing there
). I had a Ferarri and a Jag between me and the 2J and could match/out pace those with clean laps.
The hardest part of both is controlling the beast that is the Cobra. I've golded the Top Gear Intermediate and it's on par with that Elise (on _those_ tires!). BTW I used the tune by Paulie's at Lion's Den (although I note he meant that as a 'fun' tune not a racing tune, maybe the Team Lotus one would've been more practical).
Oh also, I noticed that if you reset the PS3 and go straight to the race you seem to always start Trial Mountain with the same grid setup, which is the one I ended up winning with so you don't have to constantly re-load the race hoping for a good draw.
I can put up replays of my 2 races if anyone is interested, but most people have probably passed this by now