Yesterday I noticed a boost for the car behind the player in Formula Ultimate Gen 2. With sim dashboard app I looked into the times of the car behind the player that was faster than player and much faster than AI cars around. I couldn't detach the car behind me. If AI cas was behind me of 2 seconds in few turns it was attached me. I made a comparison with AMS 1 and this not happened.
This is definitely a thing. I've noticed it happen on some longer races I've done in the past. If I set my ai difficulty right, I can end up in no man's land with just one ai behind me. The battling prevent both of us from moving to the group in front, whilst the group behind can't seem to catch up. I've seen this on different types of car classes (p2-p4, gt3-4, formula trainers and also classic GTs). If it were only the draft and DRS, I'd expect to see this across the field and not just behind the player.
Check out some of the early videos of AMS2 from about two years ago. The AI was in a pretty dreadful state and one of the features was the "active" AI car (usually the one right behind or right in front of you) would often behave erratically and get very noticeable speed boosts, such as suddenly surging past countless other AI cars on a straight in a completely implausible way. I'm not sure if it was a very rudimentary and unrefined implementation of "aggression", or just an out-and-out AI rubber-band catch-up that comes with the Madness engine. Thankfully, it's been tamed significantly since then but knowing its roots, I still see traces of speed boosts for the AI car(s) directly behind on some occasions. I just block them.
