This seems like a good approach.
I too was thinking it might work something like the 'no more than 50% damage' objectives from the Moments mode where during the run, if you fail the objective you get an on-screen message informing you. In this case, the 'objective' would be not to incur any track limit or cut corner penalties.
@speedlemur, I also agree that penalties should be increased and should ALSO scale with how far from the track you were when the penalty was applied (these times still shouldn't count in time trials in my opinion). On the topic of resets, I like to be able to drive back to the course when I make a mistake. I found the resets to be a little to aggressive in DR2.0 and I like that WRC gives you the opportunity to back out of whatever mess you've put yourself in and get back on with it.
