I've been finding the game too easy myself, but I found just the right challenge last GP when I qualified in 11th and finished in 12th. For the next GP I turned on Fuel Sim and I didn't stand a chance. I was left in the dust in the start and fell from P12 to 18. After a couple of laps the cars ahead of me where so far ahead I couldn't even see them on the track or on the map. The ones behind me formed a train right behind me. I just gave up and quit. I tried again but without FS. This time I managed to stay in 14th after the start, but the guys in front of me disappeared and the guys behind me where just waiting in line to attack me. It's no fun being the slowest guy out there, so I quit again. Next time I'll set down the difficulty a notch.
This was on Catalunya where I'm quite competitive. I'm number 15 on the Leaderboards for this track, which isn't super, but it's decent. It's strange that someone can claim to have wone 14 of 19 races with the same settings. Winning under these conditions feel as realistic as it happening with a Lotus in real life.
I also noticed a huge difference in the time trial car and the career car. With Lotus in TT I quickly got down to 1:20.9, but the best I could do in qualifying was 1:24.7. I guess a lot of the difference in performance lies in the upgrades I haven't got yet.
This exact same thing happened to me!
It seems that a lot of people are reporting issues in Catalunya. I don't know if Codemasters heard that teams usually test in Catalunya so drivers are very familiar with it and tried to emulate that, or what happened, because in the previous 4 races I was having a decent challenge, qualifying around 15-18 with the HRT and finishing best at 11 (on a weird race where Lotuses and Virgins scored points, and I ended up ahead of Ferraris, Williams and Mercedes; I think it was the pit stop bug).
So I reached Catalunya and it was just horrible. The practices, I was struggling to post a time better than 20th and I was running 1:25.6s! If you go check, thats FASTER than the actual HRTs qualified with this year.
Finally, I qualified 17th (this is I advanced to Q2, but then I couldn't do anything at all to escape last place). Started the race and my elephant car was overtaken by 1 car only because I was weaving left and right not letting anyone past me, very unsportsmanlike but all I could do. By the end of the first lap most of the cars ahead were too far to be seen on the minimap as I struggled for grip everywhere on cold tyres and full tanks, while everyone behind me was waiting to get past, with the occasional sound of someone losing their front wing under my diffuser.
It was clear to see that whoever I could hold behind me would get past in the first pits. So I ragequit and start again.
This time I turned Fuel simulation off. It was a completely different tale at the start, I could keep up with the other cars and even try an overtake at turns 4 and 5, but then it started happening again. Everyone was easily faster than me by 2 seconds. Huge train behind me, the people ahead pulling away.
After many frustrating attempts, I decided to give it a rest and try again some other day.
It was no good, I was still being taken like a newbie, so I had no choice but to turn the difficulty down to newbie levels. Only then I could finish the race, which I set to 10% race distance (or whatever's the minimum) cos I couldn't see that damn track in front of me a minute longer than I had to. Finished 9th, didn't care it was unrealistic for an HRT, because I was done trying to be realistic in a game that refuses to be.
The AI in this game is nothing brilliant. They're pretty dumb, even. Many times they don't stick to the racing line at all but the game compensates by giving them unrealistic amounts of grip and acceleration. They rarely make big mistakes, compared to real races where in average 5 cars don't finish, so far I think in 5 races there have been like 3 DNFs and I caused two of them (and by caused it means a stupid AI drove into the back of my car and put himself out of the race).
This game needs a big big patch. I still don't know how beta testing gave it a green light. It feels like such a work in progress...