I finally fixed most of my issues with the visuals. The materials are still a bit weird, lacking depth compared to Gran Turismo, but that’s literally been a Forza thing since the first game. I’ll get over it XD
Biggest issue was that the visuals were super washed out and colors seemed to be crushing and distorting on the highlights and shadows. Toggling Dolby Vision off before update 2 mitigated it and toggling DV back on after, it seems to be gone almost entirely. Game’s still a little reddish, but it doesn’t look broken anymore. I think what was happening was that the game was crushing P3 color down to sRGB and then stretching that into HDR. Literally couldn’t see the track any time of day other than noon. Looks okay now. Naturally, being able to see the track has had a transformative impact on my ability to enjoy the game.
Example of what I’ve been seeing before the fix:
As for car voting, I’ve bought an Abarth 500 in almost every racing game I’ve played and was pretty disappointed it’s not here. I’d cry tears of joy if the Abarth 500e made it in but I’ll take literally any 500 (and yes, I’ve voted for them).