I've been thinking about the AWD PI complaints.
I've come to the conclusion the the PI system isn't broken. It's simply AWD cars are more stable, and subsequently easier to drive consistently fast / cheat for less skilled players (like myself
For shorter, twistier tracks, AWD cars make up the majority (but not all) of the top 10 / top 100s. For longer tracks, it's almost entirely RWD. That's pretty much what you'd expect in real life too, I'd imagine.
The Audi S5 is clearly the tuners darling. It has had way more attention than any other car. But I still see outrageously fast Alpha 8C's, Porsche RS's, Ford GTs, etc.
...
I was looking at cars in the game, and found the Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera.
Interestingly, it's a S603 car. So on whim, I bought it.
Putting heavy rims on, areo and some other tweaks, you can drop it down to
exactly A600 (Literally 1KG extra and it bumps to S601)
It's easily the fastest car I have.
However, I discovered another interesting thing about it.
It has a RWD drivetrain swap, and it has no effect on the PI at all. None. It looses some weight, becomes slightly less balanced and also drops it's Launch rating. But stays exactly A600.
So I did some testing. On Camino Viejo, the absolute best RWD lap I could do was a 1:03.527, which is a full second quicker than any other car I have. Try as I might, I could not beat it in AWD. I got very, very close, 1:03.55ish, but I couldn't beat it. The driving line was slightly different, but only when I cheated could I beat the RWD lap.
Interestingly, I found it much easier to hit the apex in the AWD car, but
much harder to extract the last few 1/10ths from the lap.
With that said, a good driver could easily break 1:03 or 1:02 I'd bet
