This is my gig. I appreciate all the work going into those sims, and am curious what Race Room, rF2, P CARS and Assetto Corsa are bringing to the table. But at the same time, PC sims feel like silt in my mouth. Just dry, dusty, uninvolving, the bots are all polite cruise missiles, every car seems like a loaner... PC sims seem to be built specifically so online racers can compare the size of their virtual trophies. Supposedly, rFactor 2 and Project CARS are supposed to be different, but that remains to be seen.
I did a shootout a couple of years ago with my GTRs and Live For Speed against Forza 4 and GT5. And amazingly, F4 and GT5 held their own amazingly well. Yes, the sims were a bit more accurate, and yes, Forza and GT did better things in different ways, plus Forza's bots are tards, but the simulation of a car on a track was surprisingly similar. Both of these series have gone a LONG way towards being true to life in their own way.
The reason some of us want Gran Turismo to go into solid simulation, even to an extent in the sense of sim racing, is because the game has most of the cars we own in it. And it's just darn cool to take our virtual car around race courses that hardly any of us will ever be able to visit, and push them to their virtual limits. And it would be pure chewing satisfaction if the simulation was top notch.
In the sense of the PC sim thing, GT also has a wealth of race cars, more than many sim racers, and if Race Mod returns which I expect it will, no end to race cars. It would be sweet indeed if we could have racing series based on both real world leagues as well as fantasy ones, in which we could test our mettle with racing rules in place. Even to racing a semblance of a season. Now Gran Turismo definitely needs to remain a fun sandbox game both for longtime fans and casuals, so I propose this sim stuff be in its own section, a GT Pro Mode, so that you don't have to mess with it if you don't want to. But it's always there if you want to get brave and take your game to the next level.