If I recall correctly, I turned off all the driving assist aside anti-lock brakes and still breezed through... simply because they don't let you buy the wrong car for a race. It felt like the game lost an entire aspect to it. The restaurant menu or whatever system it was only let you buy exactly the cars it took to win the next race, with everything else locked.

Back in one of the previous GTs (4?) I accidentally bought a Prius as a starting vehicle. It was, in theory, everything you'd need for a beginner car... but yikes was it bad. And I quickly learned about sunk cost fallacy trying to upgrade it. I made a similar grievous error in GT2 buying a Daihatsu Mira as my beginning car during a second run. I was targeting the K Cup and didn't think beyond those requirements. So I was stuck with something like 78hp going into the Clubman Cup, which didn't work at all.

Another mistake was buying a Chevy Nova (or maybe Camaro?) in GT6 for the legacy races, only to find out the heavy weight and rear-wheel drive made it impossibly difficult to turn without losing traction and having the tires kicking out from underneath. It was even too heavy to compete in a basic FR race. There was no fixing it. My driving style was too aggressive and I had to choose another vehicle.

All of those errors were learning moments that I brought forward in choosing my future cars. Learning what was in my budget, what upgrades I targeted first, and adapting when I got it wrong... all of that seemed gone in GT7. I don't even remember money being a consideration.

It's possible that I could have unlocked more of the "game" when I finished those tutorial-esque menus, but I had rather boot up the older games and just jump into a Sunday Cup with a fresh Silvia Q.