The heating and current drive characteristics for accessing advanced scenarios in ITER, close to those obtained in present-day experiments, are analysed together with the plasma performance using the prescribed-boundary CRONOS suites of codes. For the hybrid scenario, a sensitivity analysis shows the sensitivity to the parameter range which leads to an appropriate control of the safety factor and pressure profiles. A steady-state regime with no internal transport barrier is obtained as a natural extension of the hybrid regime. These prescribed-boundary scenario developments are used as an initial step for a complete free-boundary simulation carried out with the DINA-CH code coupled to CRONOS, which once again underlines how sensitive the ITER advanced scenarios are to small plasma geometry changes. Both scenarios were achieved within the technical limits of ITER, specifically the poloidal field coil currents, voltages, forces and fields.