The Trial is the one Festival Playlist event in Forza Horizon 6 that can't be brute-forced solo — it's six human players against six Unbeatable Drivatars, and your whole team wins or loses together. That's exactly why it has a reputation for being rage-inducing: you can drive a flawless race and still lose because a random teammate spun into a wall on lap one. This guide breaks down how The Trial actually works, how to unlock it, the best cars to bring for Series 2's current rally Trial, and the concrete fixes for the real reason most people keep losing.
Quick answer: how to win The Trial in FH6
TL;DR — The Trial is a best-of-three co-op championship: up to 6 human players vs 6 Unbeatable Drivatars, scored by combined finishing position (lowest team total wins each race). You only need to win 2 of the 3 races. To even enter it you must reach Horizon Legend by earning the Gold Wristband (32,500 Horizon Festival Points). The single biggest win-rate boost isn't your car — it's rolling in with a Convoy of capable drivers instead of a random lobby. For Series 2 Week 1 ("Push it to the Limit"), bring a B-Class 600 PI 1980s rally car (the Lancia Delta S4 tuned to exactly 600 PI is the pick) and you win the 1986 Audi Sport quattro S1.
What is The Trial in Forza Horizon 6?
The Trial is a co-op championship event inside the weekly Festival Playlist. Instead of racing other humans, your team of up to six players is matched against a team of AI Drivatars set to Unbeatable difficulty — the hardest AI tier in the game.
Three key facts define it:
- It's a 3-race championship, scored best-of-three. You need to win two races to complete the event.
- Scoring is by combined position. After each race, every human's finishing position is added up and compared to the AI team's total. The lower total wins that race — so a teammate finishing 8th drags the whole team down even if you finished 1st.
- It pays one of the biggest single rewards in the Playlist — worth 10 Festival Playlist points plus that week's exclusive reward car. That's why it's worth the hassle.
Because it's a returning fan-favourite mode, the Series 2 update specifically brought it back — Forza confirmed The Trial returns to the Festival Playlist in Series 2 "Horizon Decades."
How do you unlock The Trial?
This is the #1 "why can't I see The Trial?" question, and the answer is progression-gated, not bugged. The Trial sits behind the Gold Wristband, the top tier of FH6's Wristband progression — reaching it grants Horizon Legend status and unlocks the full upper Festival Playlist, The Trial included.
The Gold Wristband requires 32,500 Horizon Festival Points. As Forza's official progression page describes it, the Gold Wristband is "the most coveted of them all" — it's the endgame of the campaign pathway, and FH6 deliberately puts its hardest co-op event behind it.
If you're not there yet, the fastest legitimate way to bank Festival Points is the stack the game already rewards:
- Race wins — roughly 100 points in early tiers, climbing toward ~250 at Gold-tier events.
- Horizon Promo Photos — 10 points per car, snapped in photo mode before a race (600+ cars in the game = thousands of points just for posing).
- XP / skill boards — 10 / 30 / 50 points each, grabbed while driving between events.
That grind to 32,500 is real, though — it's the wall most players hit before they ever see The Trial. If you'd rather skip straight to the endgame content, Forza Horizon 6 account leveling gets you to Horizon Legend hands-free.
How does The Trial's scoring work?
Understanding the math is half of winning. Each of the three races scores like this:
| Mechanic | How it works |
|---|---|
| Team size | Up to 6 humans vs 6 Drivatars (Unbeatable) |
| Per-race scoring | Every human's finish position is summed; lowest team total wins the race |
| Series format | Best of three — first team to 2 race wins takes The Trial |
| What it rewards | 10 Playlist points + that week's exclusive reward car |
The crucial implication: a single bad teammate can sink a race that four good drivers should have won. If five of you finish 1st–5th but the sixth finishes dead last (11th–12th in a 12-car field), that one number can tip the combined total over the AI's. This is the design that makes The Trial feel "unfair" — it's not the AI, it's the variance of random teammates.
Why do you keep losing The Trial?
Here's the honest answer that the spec sheets won't tell you: it's almost never your driving, and it's almost never the car. It's the lobby.
Scroll any Forza Horizon subreddit during a Trial week and the pattern is identical every time. Players routinely describe re-queuing The Trial many times — one recounted running it roughly eight separate times before finally landing teammates capable of winning. Others report losses that had nothing to do with the AI at all: a teammate rams them mid-pack, they drop several positions, and the combined score is blown. The Unbeatable Drivatars are beatable; the human chaos is the actual boss.
So the real problem isn't "how do I drive faster" — it's "how do I stop random teammates from costing me the race." Which leads to the only fixes that reliably work.
How to win The Trial: 7 tips that actually move the needle
- Run a Convoy, not a random lobby. This is the single biggest win-rate lever. Entering with a Convoy of even two or three capable drivers stabilises the whole team — you're guaranteed a floor of good finishing positions instead of gambling on six strangers. If you can fill all six slots with friends, The Trial becomes trivial.
- Build to exactly the PI cap — never over it. Every Trial enforces a hard PI ceiling (Series 2 Week 1 is 600 PI / B-Class). Tuning a car even 1 PI over makes it ineligible and the event won't count. Tune down to the cap, not past it.
- Pick a stable, grippy car over the fastest one. Unbeatable AI rarely make mistakes, so consistency beats top speed. A car that's easy to keep on the road through every corner will out-score a twitchy rocket that you (or a teammate) occasionally bin.
- Play the AI aggressively. The Drivatars are scored too — if you can clean-bump or block an AI car without losing your own momentum, you're improving the gap, not just your position. Aim your aggression at the AI, never your teammates.
- Never quit after losing Race 1. It's best-of-three. Plenty of teams drop the first race, regroup, and take the next two. Leaving forfeits a winnable championship and dumps a worse player into your old slot.
- Don't crash your own team. Their success is your success — a teammate you ram from 4th to 9th just added five points to your team's total. Give them room.
- Start the race grid in a known-good car for the restriction. For rally Trials, that means a proven AWD rally machine (below). Don't experiment with an untested build in a live Trial — bring the meta pick.
Best cars for The Trial (Series 2 Week 1)
The current Series 2 Week 1 Trial, "Push it to the Limit," is restricted to B-Class 600 PI 1980s Total Rally cars — period-correct rally machines tuned down to 600 PI. AWD and stability matter far more than raw power on the mixed surfaces.
| Car | Why it works | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 Lancia Delta S4 | The community pick — AWD, planted, forgiving | Tune to exactly 600 PI |
| 1986 Audi Sport quattro S1 | Iconic Group B AWD; the event's own reward car | Great once you've unlocked it |
| 1983 Audi Sport quattro | AWD grip, easy to keep on-line | Solid backup |
| Peugeot 205 T16 | Light, nimble, strong on tight stages | Trickier at speed |
The throughline: all-wheel drive + composure, not top speed. On dirt and mixed rally stages, the car that never steps out wins more races than the one with the highest trap speed. If you don't own the rally cars the restriction wants — or you want every meta pick on hand for whatever next week's Trial demands — the Forza Horizon 6 All-Cars Bundle puts the whole roster in your garage instantly, so you're never locked out of a Trial by a car you don't have.
Series 2 "Horizon Decades" Trial reward
Completing Week 1's Trial pays out the 1986 Audi #2 Audi Sport quattro S1 — one of the most iconic Group B rally cars ever built, and a fitting prize for an '80s-themed rally Trial. It's exclusive to the Playlist, so the only way to add it to your garage is to clear The Trial (or buy it later on the Auction House if someone resells it).
Series 2 runs June 18 – July 16, 2026, with the theme rotating by decade each week — so the Trial's car restriction and reward will change every week. Week 1 (through June 25) is the 1980s rally Trial; later weeks shift to '90s, '00s, and '10s cars, almost certainly with different restrictions.
⚡ Skip the grind, keep the cars:
- Forza Horizon 6 Account Leveling — reach Horizon Legend (Gold Wristband) and unlock The Trial without the 32,500-point climb.
- Forza Horizon 6 All-Cars Bundle — every car in the game, so you always have the right rally pick for the current Trial.
- Forza Horizon 6 Credits — buy and tune any meta car for the weekly restriction, instantly.
FAQ
Why is The Trial not showing up for me in Forza Horizon 6? The Trial is locked behind the Gold Wristband / Horizon Legend tier, which requires 32,500 Horizon Festival Points. If you can't see or enter it, you haven't reached that progression milestone yet — it isn't a bug. Keep banking Festival Points from race wins, Promo Photos (10 per car), and skill boards until you hit Horizon Legend.
How many races do you have to win in The Trial? The Trial is a best-of-three championship, so you need to win 2 of the 3 races. It's scored by combined finishing position — your whole team's positions are added together and the lower total wins each race. You don't have to sweep all three.
What's the best car for The Trial in Series 2 Week 1? Week 1's Trial restricts you to B-Class 600 PI 1980s rally cars. The 1986 Lancia Delta S4 tuned to exactly 600 PI is the strongest pick thanks to AWD grip and composure; the Audi Sport quattro variants are excellent backups. Prioritise stability over top speed against the Unbeatable AI.
Can you do The Trial solo in FH6? Not really — The Trial is a co-op event that fills your team with other players (or AI fill-ins if the lobby is empty). You can't complete it as a true solo, but you can run it with a Convoy of friends, which is by far the most reliable way to win. A coordinated convoy beats a random matchmade lobby almost every time.
Why do I keep losing The Trial even when I drive well? Because scoring is team-combined, one teammate finishing near the back can sink a race your strongest drivers should have won. The most common cause of losses isn't the AI — it's random teammates crashing or finishing low. The fix is to enter with a Convoy of capable drivers so you control more of the team's finishing positions.
How much is The Trial worth in the Festival Playlist? Completing The Trial awards 10 Festival Playlist points — one of the single biggest point payouts in the weekly Playlist — plus that week's exclusive reward car (the 1986 Audi Sport quattro S1 in Series 2 Week 1). Those points feed both your Season Rewards and the cumulative Series Rewards total.
