How to Practice and Finish Well
This is just a bunch of notes for your dumb ass to read, they'll be all over the place so read it and apply it.
Practicing
Stop trying so hard. You're not going to beat those top lap times. Simple fact is a) you're not good enough (yet 🤠) and b) he reset 50,000,000 times to get that lap. It's pointless and pretty much just for dickwaving.
Consistency
You'll be surprised at how high up you can finish, in any multiplayer racing game, if you just get consistent and develop a sense for reading other players around you. A majority of people playing racing games are so pathetically shit (because their consistency is in the toilet) that if you simply have races without incident, you'll end up very high up on the race results, even against people who are considered statistically to be better than you.
Work on being consistent. Can't figure out the racing line? Watch someone fast to see what the racing line is. Copy the line they're doing, but don't do it fast. Copy what line they're doing. Not where they're braking. Not where they're hitting the gas. Just the line. Drive even slower than what you're comfortable with. Just work on hitting the racing line. If you're managing to go off the track, spin under braking, getting loose on the gas or just any sort of thing that upsets the car then you're still going too fast. Do this for awhile, which means 20-30mins+ all at once. Don't reset your car or whatever, just keep driving.
Once you're able to very consistently drive slower than what you're comfortable with
tl;dr eat shit for skipping to this and read the whole thing. Drive slower and work on hitting your marks VERY consistently. There's a huge chance you're overestimating how good you are, especially if you've been playing racing games since you were a toddler and your subconscious thinks you're hot shit because you can destroy the AI. Actual people are much better and way more (un)predictable.
Driving With Others
If it's an /ovg/ series, there's almost guaranteed to be a practice server up 24/7 on the track being raced. Ask in the thread, Discord or Mumble if someone wants to hop on the server with you. Or even check the Live Timing to see if someone is on at that moment.