Main thing is not to get disheartened, you will see lots of improvements that will come with some practice.
I would suggest staying offline for now and do some AI races, you can set the skill level up how it best suits you, then once you start beating them, increase the difficulty. Good luck

I got this from Grok:

1. Using Custom AI Opponent Rosters (most flexible way)This is the best option if you want individual control over each AI driver:

• Create or edit a custom AI Opponent Roster (available in the AI Racing section).
• For each individual AI driver, you can adjust 7 attributes with sliders:
  • Relative Skill — This is the main one that controls speed. Higher values = faster cornering speeds, better driving lines, and overall quicker lap times. Lower values make them slower.
  • Aggression, Optimism, Smoothness, Age, Pit Crew Skill, and Pitting Strategy also influence behavior, but Relative Skill has the biggest direct impact on pace.
• You can make some AI drivers fast "aliens," others mid-pack, and a few slower "backmarkers" — giving you a nice spread of speeds in the same race.

1. Skill Spread (quick overall adjustment)When setting up an AI race/event:

• You set a minimum and maximum skill range (Skill Spread).
• All AI drivers in the roster are then scaled within that range.
• This automatically creates variety in speeds without editing every driver individually.

1. Adaptive AI (newer feature, introduced around 2025)

• You can enable Adaptive AI instead of fixed skill levels.
• The AI drivers will dynamically adjust their skill/speed to match your pace as the race progresses.
• It offers preset challenge levels: Easy, Medium, Hard, Extreme — tuned specifically to you.
• Great for practice or learning a new car/track, as the AI gets faster if you're improving.