Bringing back qualifying I believe can have a great effect towards allowing PDI to program a good AI...
If you qualify pretty high up on the grid, then AI can be as aggressive as it can be, but if you're stone-dead last then AI treats you with kiddie gloves. Simple, and effective.
Also, with qualifying, I can tune my ride for the race ahead...there ain't no "master tune" that works 100% on all tracks, so I'd like to test different set-ups before I start a race. I mean IRL, racing teams do this, so why the heck not??
Bring Back Qualifying!!