I definitely understand why career mode is popular, but, like you, I don't have a lot of free time so I would rather just drive instead of menu-surfing at the Team Headquarters. Here's a solution: you would have to keep track of the points on a spreadsheet, but you could replicate a season by doing 24 separate individual Grand Prix events (F1 World --> Grand Prix --> choose the F1 25 mode). There are no upgrades, so the car performance of your car and AI cars would stay constant. You can skip practice and can turn off dynamic weather if you want to.
