I probably wouldn’t play it considering other racing game offerings.

I am an avid racing game player. I enjoy both sim and arcade racers. Test Drive Unlimited 2, Forza Horizon, Need for Speed Underground 2, Midnight Club LA, etc all offer a free roam driving portion of the game. But they keep my interest because of the racing part. Driving just to drive is fun in real life (when I can afford the gas) but in a video game I would rather be doing something I cannot or would not do in real life. Street racing, for example. The mechanical skill of mastering how each car drives, and the expression of that skill in a race, is part if the enjoyment of the game. Without it, the game would need other mechanics to hold my interest, such as The Long Drive, which has driving in it but has other mechanics as well.