Two things making me a better driver

I'm currently Driver rating D, Sportsmanship rating B (EDIT: rank A now baby!), haven't been playing long, but can feel myself slowly rising up the ranks, placing higher on the results screen, and am not crashing on tight corners anymore. I attribute my improvement not just to practice but two things specifically:

1] In sound settings there's an option called 'enhanced sound', which essentially just turns off all music in a race. This helps you focus on driving, and gets you into 'the zone', that meditative state essential for sports. (for some music helps them into the zone, but I find it counter-intuitive given the game's dedication to 'realism')

2] I stopped thinking about winning. Instead I just focus on driving clean and not crashing. This isn't just because it raises your sportsmanship, but highlights the main reason I got GTS. Many people criticised the game for being focused on online play, but for me, a guy who rarely plays racing games (unless there's a gimmick, like Wipeout or Split/Second), it was the main selling point.

Racing AI has been awful for years and years, more artificial than intelligent. The term rubber-banding exists for this reason. I've never felt a sense of accomplishment playing against AI drivers. But humans are chaotic, competitive, random and to get back to my point: they will slip up. No matter how good the front driver is, or how far behind you are in the pack, the racer in front of you will slip up eventually, something will go wrong, maybe their concentration will lapse, it's hard to maintain it for several laps on a course. That's your moment to strike. Maintaining your composure in a race can help you win it, and even if you don't your sportsmanship rating will rise.

This mentality is helping me become a better driver and just enjoy the game in general.

EDIT: just to add, boy they weren't kidding when they call the game a 'simulator'. After years of playing other games, going to GTS was like learning how to drive all over again. "Oh yeah, if you're driving 80mph you can't really go round a corner without braking a shit ton first!" My go-to car in every game is the Audi TT, because I love the way it looks and handles, but I can barely drive the thing in this game. That's realism I guess! The TT Cup variant is much better to drive though.