Let's take Jack Noname for example, average as average can be, when his car slides it is pure luck if he can gain control again.
Now let's put him front of sim and give bit of driving for some perioid of time.
What do you think that will happen, will it be more likely that he can react and do proper actions or do you think it did not help at all?
Sure they are different from RL, that tiny plastic wheel with possible super fast steering (under one turn from lock to lock with momo or microsoft wheel, 2.5 turns with dfp or g25) and 23 degrees of FOV covering screen, odd forces from steering wheel and none to your arse are limiting somewhat what one experiences.
There is motion simulators, which are supported by rFactor and LFS, but those costs bit more than many can afford.
Car itself however can be made to react pretty damn well to all situations in sim, so one can learn what to except if doing some things, for example basics of counter steering can be learned and many other things, you will not become master with sim, but you damn sure will get tips and general idea.
I would not call GPL very realistic sim today actually, it is not really so realistic, it is sure nice and at it's time was unbelievable achievement, but when compared to today's modern sims age starts to show. Damn good fun it is sure and gives some proper feeling too, but physics engine has certain issues, it is bit simple compared to today's sims.
Can't even remember how many times I have told at sim racing forums that talking about realism is rather pointless unless we have some proper FOV, wheels and motion simulators to give some proper feedback to our senses. Only thing we can say if it is realistic or not is car behavior that can be measured, way or another. How sims feel is really irrelevant.
Tarmac is tarmac and gravel is gravel, those are very different, track and road, well, if there is no other cars on road and you know road as well as you know track, then tarmac is going to be tarmac, paintings on there are not making things different
On road of course you need to check bumps and such more careful, but can't see much difference really, if thinking about safety areas and such, then I believe is too afraid to really be fast, also on track there can be guard rails so no space to run
But when there is other cars, like on normal public road, then there is no excuse for using racing speeds or style of driving, that is just not things you can do and claim that it is safe.
Rallying is actually quite odd sport, imo.
You go to drive fast to road that you don't know, trust to instructions and drive by them, instead of driving how you see. I think I never would do such thing as it is quite risky
