I'm not a big fan of physical or cosmetic damage, especially on some of the rarer, top end car. Like I said in another post, why would I want to have to worry about turning something like a GTOne or a 787B into a steaming pile of metal?
Mechanical damage, however, is something else - and something I hadn't really thought of. That would be very good. I understand the technical veiwpoint on monitoring different statistics to calculate damage, BUT, have things like brake wear and brake fade, engine damage and power loss and rev loss for abuse, overheating engines, gearbox damage etc. etc. would mean that in enduro races the drivers would really have to nurse their cars like the real ones do. That is pretty realistic.
However, for the sake of making the game suitable for everybody, you would need to make damage selectable for the whole game, not just parts. Maybe there could be a prize-money penalty or limit on prize car if you select it off for a pro or endurance race. Who knows?
Maybe have a two part selection: neither, only mechanical, mechanical and surface, and both.
The other thing is if you have a write-off crash, maybe instead of DNFing, the game could pause for a moment and give you several options: DNF and return to pits, return car to pits and repair (with the appropriate time penalties for that), or maybe the option to pay the penalty cost of repairs, plus a time penalty, and reset either at the position you're in or in the pits. The last two options would allow you to continue the race, hence solving the "suckfullness of crashing out of a long enduro after 1 1/2 hours of racing". If you want to crash out, you can. If not, you can keep going, but it costs you!
The total damage could be calculated and the number of laps that it takes to repair the car could be added to your opponents. This would eliminate any waiting time on the player's part, and enforce the realism of being grounded by a crash. This gives people the ability to keep going if they want to, but not give them a free ride to victory, even if they do still win. (After all, the race leader in a real enduro could crash, fix the car and be back on the track still in the lead, if his initial lead was big enough...)
Since we're talking about being DNF'd for major stacks, what about black flags for collision violations or short-cutting off tracks? That would teach people to race a bit nicer.
Just some thoughts.
Mechanical damage, however, is something else - and something I hadn't really thought of. That would be very good. I understand the technical veiwpoint on monitoring different statistics to calculate damage, BUT, have things like brake wear and brake fade, engine damage and power loss and rev loss for abuse, overheating engines, gearbox damage etc. etc. would mean that in enduro races the drivers would really have to nurse their cars like the real ones do. That is pretty realistic.
However, for the sake of making the game suitable for everybody, you would need to make damage selectable for the whole game, not just parts. Maybe there could be a prize-money penalty or limit on prize car if you select it off for a pro or endurance race. Who knows?
Maybe have a two part selection: neither, only mechanical, mechanical and surface, and both.
The other thing is if you have a write-off crash, maybe instead of DNFing, the game could pause for a moment and give you several options: DNF and return to pits, return car to pits and repair (with the appropriate time penalties for that), or maybe the option to pay the penalty cost of repairs, plus a time penalty, and reset either at the position you're in or in the pits. The last two options would allow you to continue the race, hence solving the "suckfullness of crashing out of a long enduro after 1 1/2 hours of racing". If you want to crash out, you can. If not, you can keep going, but it costs you!
The total damage could be calculated and the number of laps that it takes to repair the car could be added to your opponents. This would eliminate any waiting time on the player's part, and enforce the realism of being grounded by a crash. This gives people the ability to keep going if they want to, but not give them a free ride to victory, even if they do still win. (After all, the race leader in a real enduro could crash, fix the car and be back on the track still in the lead, if his initial lead was big enough...)
Since we're talking about being DNF'd for major stacks, what about black flags for collision violations or short-cutting off tracks? That would teach people to race a bit nicer.
Just some thoughts.
rologue. No damage at all (GT1,2,3) is not realistic but it only means that the development team didn't pay attention to that aspect of the game. Slow-down penalty is worse : they considered the contact with walls or AI and only found a dummy solution to it. 
