Grid Autosport's career mode is spread over five racing disciplines; Touring, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner and Street. Choosing one starts a season which consists of several events which can consist of one or more races. Once the season ends, you can choose again, giving you the option to stick with a particular style of race, or mix it up as you see fit.
Once you choose your discipline, you have a choice of two team offers which dictates which cars you drive in, and are given a personal and team objective. Completing these objectives gives you experience bonuses. As you gain experience, better teams will come in for you, which gives you better cars and stricter targets to meet. Since the teams have a specified precedence, it means that winning is often out of reach for the worst teams. I felt this system made a refreshing change since most most racing games insist you finish in the top 3, some of them even making out you have failed if you didn't finish 1st (which is overly harsh). Autosport's system is therefore more realistic and more achievable.
Each race is a competition between (usually)16 drivers, one of which is your team-mate who usually lingers towards the bottom of the pack. You are also given a rival team who are usually competitive.
I haven't played the other Grid games, but I've read the others provide an Arcade experience. Autosport is a simulation, but I think it still has a slight Arcade aesthetic and feel, which made it quite confusing when I started playing it.
If damage is enabled, crashing can affect your car's performance. With enough damage, you can suffer blowouts of your tyres. Like a lot of modern racing games, you can rewind time if you make a mistake, or if the AI acts aggressively and causes you to crash. The amount can be changed as desired in the Difficulty Menu.
The AI often feels like it performs defensive moves to block you from overtaking, or nudges you aggressively. A frequent occurrence is a pile-up on the first corner as each driver competes for that early advantage. Caution is needed, and rewinds are often needed until the cars begin to separate.
The graphics are nice, and I was impressed with some of the minor detail within the races. Sometimes you will see a bunch of balloons slowly drift upwards, aeroplanes will fly in the distance, birds will panic as you approach. Details like this are unnecessary (in terms of game-play) but help put a smile on your face.
I read that a major complaint with Grid 2 was the lack of cockpit view. It does make a return in this game, but the textures looked blurry so it wasn't pleasant to use.
As usual with these games, it's easy to rack up an insane amount of hours due to the amount of events within the game. I had a lot of fun with Grid Autosport but I couldn't help feel it wasn't a remarkable game.