I've always found it fascinating, the levels of minutae people will point to, to prove someone is "cheating" on a video game. In my opinion, you're only "cheating" on a video game if your "cheat" affects other players, that is, if it happens within a contest. So for example, if there was some kind of cheat code where I could drive through other cars as if they were ghosts, or could put tires with unlimited grip on my car, that's cheating. But anything I do on my own, from grinding out seasonals, to using rubber bands to drive my X1, to exploiting glitches that allow me to gain $$$ at the rate of perhaps 100/1 (compared to the normal rate of accumulation at that time) shouldn't concern anyone. It doesn't affect you at all.
So if you've got the time, and very few of us have, to complete the game or get all you want "legit" then good for you. I'd guess at least 99% of us don't have that kind of time nor the inclination to do so. So if we exploit a programming error to skip a few steps, then good for us. It doesn't affect anyone else, it doesn't alter our racing ability on the track and it certainly increases our enjoyment of the game. Nobody loses, everyone wins, sounds perfect to me.