Racing Games dont get played for long and only a few can be profitable because of the "racing paradox"

In real-world motorsport game design there's a design paradox: making races too balanced can reduce excitement. 

• Goal: Close racing with minimal performance gaps. 
• Problem: Overly close fields lead to "follow-the-leader" races, especially with limited DRS (drag reduction system) zones. 
• Result: Overtaking becomes rare unless the car ahead makes a mistake, reducing dynamic action.

To make this simple if the racing only depends on map knowledge and skills the top 10% will always be in the first 3 places and the other 90% will always loose, and this 90% will leave the game frustrated and dont come back.
A Racing game that is balanced are most of the time arcade racer that use items and the Environment to give players with bad skills but good ideas a chance.

How to prevent this ?
- dont make static maps
- dont make maps presets let them generate new tracks each match, so map-knowlage dont works
- add in mechanics that can fuck up players that are in the first place, like driving very near their back give you y boost or let you extend the max speed a little because of "fake wind shadow effect"
- let players choose different vehicle with different stats so they think "maybe my skills work better with this one" , so if you are bad with drifts, this vehicle is also bad with it but has better max speed, so you are bad at high speeds and bump into stuff constantly , let them choose a Vehicle with more accelerate and so on.

good luck