I couldn’t recall off the top of my head how I did Auch so I went back and re-did each race just so I could get some specific tips for you guys. (Not so much for Obama, as he says he got it but only because he said it was a pain)
My general strat is to start the race by surging forward once until I hit the first vigour point in the centre. From here on, I try to mainly use Ascend wherever possible. Am I going up? Ascend. Am I going straight? Ascend. Am I going down? Ascend then wrangle the camera down again without losing speed. The key is to ALWAYS PULL YOUR NOSE UP BEFORE ASCENDING FOR MAXIMUM ACCELERATION and then dropping the nose and aiming at the next gate immediately after. If you don’t do this, you’ll be hamstringing yourself.
The only time I don’t use Ascend is where the gates are really close together and I won’t have time to whip it up, Ascend and whip it down again (I have blown straight past gates when I don’t have enough space). I maybe used Surge Forward like 3 or 4 times in these races? Just to maintain high speed where I couldn’t time an Ascend
It will take some practice to learn where you can chain your Ascends along the course as you try to stay in the 1150-1450% speed range. Remember you don’t have to fly in straight lines from gate to gate, so if a tight Left is coming up, go wide on the Right before you get to the gate so the turn isn’t as brutal. Also if there’s a super tight space to zip through maybe try Ascending over the obstacle instead.
If you practice your speed techniques you should be able to make up the very minor time lost by avoiding objects that can brick your race.
Here are my times for proof: