Ness64 15 Mar 2023 20:08

Thanks to suspect15 for helping me with some advice for this one.

I did this on Amateur with the red car at Chichen Itza (3rd Latin America track), the AI is bad enough at this track that you can gain distance really fast if you don't screw up.
Use a nitro and shift to 5th gear right away to pass most of the cars, ideally you want to be close to 1st or better by the time you start to slow down. Then just play normally and keep an eye on the CPU's fuel until you see it'll have to go to the pit stop on its next lap. When it's close to crossing the finish line to start that lap, use the 2 nitros to speed up as much as you can, and do your best to not hit other cars (this is the hardest part, if you crash once or twice you'll probably fail). You'll be running low on fuel yourself, but done correctly you should catch up while it's still at the pit stop (or just leaving it) and pass them as you run out of fuel.
I'm not a speedrunner, so this still took me a few tries and I barely made it (having to replay Rio and Machu Picchu doesn't help either), but it was the most consistent way I could try.
You could also try to intentionally finish Machu Picchu in 4th or 5th place to start Chichen Itza at a higher position, but you'll need to drive a bit differently to pass the cars if you do this.

Alternatively, just wait for the CPU to miss the pit stop and run out of fuel on a longer track, then it becomes easy to do, but you'll need to get lucky. You probably could influence this by constantly blocking them from overtaking you, to slow them down enough that they won't reach the pit stop in time later. But that's relatively impractical to do, might as well try the above method.