Making a modern racing video game is incredibly difficult. Quite apart from the challenges presented by ceaselessly evolving hardware and the enormous task of coding a big-budget, multi-platform title, the audience you are working so hard to please is a disparate and ruthlessly discerning animal.
Make your product too simple and 'arcadey' and you switch off the purists; focus too much on accuracy and you dismiss all but a small section of talented players. Either way it's all too easy to dismiss the thousands of man hours that go into it, simply because the handling doesn't suit your taste.
A developer must weave a fine thread between accessibility for all levels and the true essence of the sport it is trying to depict - all the while maintaining enough of that 'just-another-go' gaming glue to ensure the product is a success. By these measurements games companies live or die.