AI is ridiculously broken

This AI is atrocious. Even on relaxed, it's still a challenge to come in 1st 75% of the time, and sometimes (example coming later) it's absolutely impossible. 

I've been playing NFS since Underground came out and have never had issues out of the AI like this. Online? No problem, 1st or 2nd almost every time (unless you accidentally hit a traffic cone at 250 and die instantly with impact protection on but whatevs), but some of these racers in story are busted. 

Yes, I know the point isn't to win every single race, and most of the time if I don't feel like restarting, I'll take 2nd as typically you'll still get some money at least, but in the case of Shimuzu the Sound Barrier Breaker there is no fairness involved. 

I'm on the last week, 2 days from the Grand. That night there's a race for a BMW M5 or something on the God Hour track. Cool, no problem, love that track. Only except when I pull off the line with a perfect start and a full tank of Elite NoS, imagine my surprise when within 15 seconds this person driving a car over ten points under my own level (Me: 399, Them:386 I think) is suddenly 700+ yards ahead of me in 2nd. No obstacles hit, not dings from the po-po, nothing but aced turns and still no chance to even remotely close the gap.  Somehow, even with all 10 restarts on RELAXED difficulty this Shibumafoo finishes almost 1000 yards ahead of everyone else EVERY SINGLE TIME. 

If 2nd place didn't yield a loss of 64k and no car, I wouldn't even be writing this, but considering how slow grinding money can get if you don't want to deal with the hyperaggressive cop AI, this one hit me the wrong way for sure. 

Guess I'll just have to stay in Lakeshore Online until EA and Criterion deem it important enough to fix the AI in a mode that locks a quarter of the game's cars behind progress walls.