Yes, it was in simulator mode. It's the only way they run the contest. Hence the reason so many people tried and couldn't even finish a lap and disqualified themselves. There ended up being about 20 people or so that were in the running. The top five spots had a spread of six or seven seconds. By the time I had my final lap that put me in second I had done maybe five laps total on that track with that car and their "competition" setup. The competition setup had to be used to make sure it was driver skill and not car tweaking that put you in first.

I've been playing racing simulator games for quite some time, so I was used to it and picked it up fast. Anyone who has never tried a simulator before would probably not be able to finish a lap (and that's exactly what happen to many). I still play GPL every so often, but most of the time I'm in LFS.