To me, PD has left the impression that they are having difficultly financially obtaining licenses to certain cars & tracks and a way to get around that they are more and more falling back on the VGT to fill the gap.
It's possible. But there is a point to consider.
Based on the premise that you said this because PD reduced the update content of the GT7 in relation to the GT Sport.
By the way, not one real circuit this year was added.
Anyway, I think that this "supposed content problem" is much more related to PD's work management than for financial reasons.
Speaking of real information. Some time ago, Renato Simioni, the CEO of Brazilian developer Reiza Studios, said, astonished, that the administrator of a famous European circuit even charged €30,000 for licensing.
Observe the list of circuits and current cars of Automobilista 2. The game feature a greater number of real circuits or current race cars compared to the GT7 roster. I assume that PD-SONY's budget is more robust than that of the brazilian studio.
I think that the PD prefers to opt for a “different” vision, such as dedicating its budget to hiring Lewis Hamilton and other advertising adornments, paying for music licensing and hiring the services of musical artists, and moving part of its staff of employees to work on photography tools and creating VGT cars.
Other point! The perfectionism assumed by PD to reproduce real circuits and create fictitious ones.
Considering that the value of 30 thousand euros would not be a problem for Sony-PD, the "problem" for PD would be the digitization of new circuits, which would take months, due to the perfectionism they already demonstrate.
On the other hand, in the end, this could also prove to be a financial problem, because PD could recruit a bigger team or another team to produce more circuits for GT7.