Beginner Strategy

In your case it would be good to start with slower cars/classes.

It make no sense to jump into high powered cars because you will spent more time in the bushes instead on the road 🙂

Main thing is here that you need to learn to listen to the copilot.

Do not watch the pacenotes....listen to copilot and dont drive "on sight".

The copilot gives you infos whats coming next without seeing it.

Thats your advantage.

In the slower cars you have more time to react and to learn the stages or the most diffucult parts of it.

Adjust your speed to the situation and even when you leave the road so dont give up....try to finish the stage.

The rest will come with the time and then you can jump into higher classes.

Rally is complete different than racetrack driving....you need to adapt.

As a Rough Guide I would say this:

Start with the slower cars.

Focus on keeping the car on the road.

Be in the same gear as the corner grade (left 2 would be 2nd gear).

Once you get comfortable finishing without heavy damage, I would look to start shortening the racing line through cutting corners more and holding more speed and maybe the next gear up from the corner grade.

Presuming you don't have a wheel, I would keep the assists on and once you're more comfortable, try disabling traction control and/or stability control.

ABS makes a huge difference so I would always keep that on until you are ready to modulate your brake pressure, as that's pretty hard to do, especially on a controller.

I’ll just add. That each car obviously had a default setup.  I’ve only just started getting into the game. But as with all racing games. Default setups are generally setup to Understeer to make it easier to pick up and play.  However the setups on the cars I’ve driven so far also seem to have soft setups which for bumpy winter conditions isn’t so bad.  But for gravel and asphalt they are pretty unstable.  

someone more knowledgable about the game may correct me.  But if every car comes with just one default setup.  When there’s 3 very different surfaces that all require a different setup.  The default setup is definitely not suitable for 2 off them.

I was having the same issue as you esp using a pad on asphalt.  Since I’ve stiffened suspension.  Changed diff settings and Brake bias.  I’ve been actually finishing most stages with little to no damage.