Strewth, entered a race in GTR, in the Mini GT Rules Competition just to keep it simple.
Perhaps because I am an idiot, but I set it to 'Pro' to make sure things like Automatic Clutch, ABS etc are turned off.
At my best lap - that is if I go any faster I start losing control - the AI were a clear 10 seconds faster than me!
And watching them revealed quite slow cornering. Only thing I can guess is they've mucked with the drive train to make them
accelerate to top speed quicker hit a higher top speed on the long straights. The map does have lots of straight sections. I suspect they have also changed brake settings to make them stop quicker. I'll back with my results...
Edit 1:
Okee dokee, in time attack mode, my findings: I increased 2nd through to 6 by two 'notches' (sorry I did not note down gear ratos), but kept 1st gear as is to allow quick take off acceleration. Took me down to being only 3 seconds slower. Still need to perform a run on default just to make sure I didn't get better at cornering.
Edit 2:
Confirmed: at the point of losing control, I was doing the Porto lap in 2:27 seconds, two seconds slower than when I had mucked with the gear ratios. So, car configuration makes a lot of difference!
It is probably these sorts of things, having to worry about brake bias, tyre pressure, gear ratios etc that turn regular racers off sim racing. But while it may be daunting to look at all the settings, fear not! For it would seem the good people at SimBin have included configuration files for each car, for each track. Load those and you are good to go.
Now I just have to figure out why I keep losing badly at DiRT 2...