Hi McFlufferten,
I think it more a state of mind type thing
I understand what you mean regarding driveability & competitiveness, like you, I spend most of my time in rivals and more often than not i’ll build a car / tune that “feels” perfect - comfortable to drive, holds the track like its on rails and looks like a car i’d like to drive. However, times are nowhere near where i’d like them to be in the competitive sence, probably because the tunes are to comfortable and not on the edge.
So I now adopt the attitude “when in rome” (when in rivals at least) and try to tune accordingly, sometimes (albeit rarely) I’ll find a happy medium.
In regards to rivals, have you tried:
Rivals Challenge - FH5 Edition
They are normally a week long rivals challenge chasing each others times and can be very competitive.
It given me personally more interest in the game, so much so that I rarely do any playlist events just to win another car that I have ten of.