This is how starting a race should work:
You come in from a loading screen. They can have the driving up animation.
You have your pit screen. Very top is “Start Race”
Next down you have your “car shakedown” options, Where you can change tunes, tire and fuel, ect… But also have the grid placement if you’re “challenging the grid”
Next you have “Qualifying/Practice”
Next you have “Difficulty/rules”, Set the assists, AI difficulty. But also, the expert rule should have “rewind off” replaced with “Qualifying for grid”, Where you have to run qualifying to be placed in order in the grid, Sacrificing your cr bonus for a bigger overall difficulty bonus. And this is run like practice is now before the race start. (Rewind is an accessibility feature.) Come back to pit after you’ve run your 3 laps or posted your time.
Now you just have “Start race”, and “Car” options, to adjust your car and pit strategy. Hit “Start race” and it plays the animation and you are placed on the start grid according to your quali just like the rest of the grid is, and just like it always should be.
“Practice” and “challenge the grid” are for sport and club rules only.
This means you go from 5 different screens in the current game to start a race if you skip the current systems pointless practice, To a maximum of 2 if you have a qualifying run.
This is the way this should have been implemented.