The difference between Single Race and Tournament is small. In Single Race each race is played independently. In Tournament the players are given a number of points depending on what place they end up on in each race. The player who has the most points when the tournament has ended is the winner.
After choosing Single Race or Tournament in the main menu you get the chance to change a number race settings.
The next step is to select a car for each human player. The cars that remain are then distributed randomly among the computer players.
All cars has the same acceleration, same top speed, and so on. The only difference is in the way they look.
At the beginning of the race the cars are lined up behind the starting line. A text goes from "ready" to "set" and when it changes to "go" the race starts and the time in the bottom right corner starts to run.
By default player 1 uses the arrow keys to accelerate, brake and turn but this can be changed in the player settings. You can start pressing the acceleration button as soon as you like. The car won't move before "go" anyway.
For each car there is an area of similar colour that shows the current position and the current lap. When a car has finished the race the finish time will be shown instead of the lap. The race is over when all cars has finished the race.
Pressing the Esc key pauses the race and brings up the race menu from where you can end the race at any time. Note that ending the race from the menu does not throw away the race results. The race will continue to run in high speed, but without showing, so that all computer players that has not yet finished get a result.
When the race has ended the results are displayed in a list that shows the car, name and time of each player. Players that didn't finish the race ends up at the bottom of the list and is marked with the text "DNF".
If you are playing a tournament you will also be shown the current tournament standings in form of a list sorted by the number of points rewarded to each player so far. The points given to a player after a race is calculated by the following formula: position in race - number of players