You do notice that doesnt prove your skill level since you can complete fm3 with full aids etc, the best gauge is to hit rivals mode and see where you end up. the ai in grand tour mode isnt at full strength before semi pro season, so if you struggle before than theres is a lot to be desired.
I've done a few races in rivals mode already and not finding them too hard, challenging yes. At least the ghost cars don't ram into you. And i know people who haven't got the skills to complete any Forza game let alone get all the achievements, so you can't say 'clearly you are not skilled' because it isn't correct.
But as much as i'd like to keep talking about my skills with the game (...), this isn't what the topic is about. It is about the AI's performance differences from race to race,
which clearly is happening to some people and not others.
This has me confused... You turned down the AI competition as it is "then only way i can race fairly/realisticly...". It isn't realistic to win every race!
I turned off the 'AI upgrades' and whatever the other options are for AI difficulty in Event List.
I like racing standard cars against other standard cars, in GT as well. I usually only upgrade cars if the other cars are getting away from me and i can't do anything about it. Which is logical.
In a way it seems the game uses a 'ballast' system. Depending on how your last race was, the AI difficulty changes and your own car seems to perform worse/better. But to be realistic, the AI difficulty should not change - only the weight of your own car (a proper ballast system in otherwords) should be affected. Boosting the AI's performance is arcadey sorry. Not to mention the super stopping power of sand traps, grass verges etc - i understand why there are there, but there are much better/realistic alternatives.
And then are claiming some type of vitual racing superiority by always winning. Think about it, anyone can win 100% of the time if you play games on the easier settings.
Whats wrong with winning? I didn't exactly say it was easy going to try win every race in the car games i play, quite often i restart/re-try the race to get the win.
And by 'winning every single race' i meant
eventually winning every one. I don't like seeing race events where i got second or third, so always try go back and win the race. I'm quite pedantic sometimes.
I don't go for the easiest settings first off in games either. I completed Battlefield Bad Company 1 and a few Call of Duty games on harder/the hardest setting (as, no doubt, a lot of others have) the very first time i played them (going by the theory that once i played it on the hardest difficulty it would make it a lot easier going through it a second time, which proved true obviously).
What many of us like about Forza 4 IS for it's gererally realistic experience. You are clearly looking for an arcade racer, or, a very easy realistic game. Believe it or not, many virtual "sim" racers (talking for myself) don't even know/care about trophies/achivements. We are racers first and foremost - it's all about the racing.
I'm not looking for an arcade racer thank you very much, i don't like them
because they are 'arcadey'. Last Need 4 Speed game i properly played was the first NFS Underground, and only got about quarter of the way through until i stopped playing and went back to Gran Turismo.
And i'm not a 'trophy hunter' in that sense, i don't actively go out of my way to rent every game possible just to get the trophies/achievements (although when i do play games i try get as many as possible, usually on the second playthrough or once the main part of the game is complete).
I play racing games to have races, i enjoy long battles for the lead/to keep the lead, but in these days of cheating AI (or where the game makes your car handle worse depending on how you perform) it's not as easy/fun and ruins the experience for me.
The Polyphony Digital Cup in Gran Turismo 3 remains one of my most favourite race events out of every car game i've ever played. None of the AI cars 'cheated' and were all stock standard versions. The races were half an hour long each and the fun part was seeing if you could win the race in a car that is not as great in performance as the front runners. In these events i had to time my pit stops exactly right to stay in the lead. This is the sort of racing i love.
I'm not going to discuss my skills with this, or any other game, in this topic again,
because it is about the AI in Forza 4 and not my skill level. Clear?
Not only were the leading AI running away from me, but the car decided to find the most inconvenient to understeer into the gravel. 
