It's cool that doing the exact opposite is an option.I do the opposite. I make sure I can win the race by overpowering the car. For the open seasonals up until now, I wanted to make sure that I got the credits and XP before the races went away. I don't have a lot of time to do the seasonals over and over gradually moving up a place or 2 each time I race. If I have time, then I go back and try the race again using the seetings that they provide in the immaculate challenges.
I think everyone that complains about GT5 is missing the obvious. GT5 is very flexible and allows players to play the way they want to play. Sure, by doing it this way they may have produced a game that is not superior in any one area, but they have defintely made a game that is good in a lot of areas and appeals to may different types of players.
You're dead on about the flexibility. One of the complaints we've heard is that there aren't different difficulty levels for the AI, but it's actually an infinite spectrum of difficulty based on how strong a car you bring to the track.