I guess I understand why there’s no qualifying but it would sure add to the enjoyment. At least the career mode has practice and challenge the grid. I can’t figure out why they omitted these options on freeplay.
I don’t know what difficulty to set for the AI since I don’t have a practice session to compare my times. Additionally without a practice session, I have no idea where my braking points are based on any car, track and upgrade combo. So the first few laps are basically figuring out braking points while also trying to avoid crashing into opposing cars.
Without challenge the grid, I always start in the exact middle of the pack regardless as well which seems odd. This gets repetitive and does not sound like “free” play. It would be nice to vary starting position for additional variety and challenge.
These seem like very simple features to enable as they’re already in the game and just need to be added to the free play system.
Now that I have finished the campaign and avoid multiplayer crashing like the plague I am relegated to free play, until they add track meetup which is what so many of us would like to see back again. But it’s extremely boring to start in the middle of the pack every time with no idea where my car and driving performance is in relation to the rest of the field.