Rubber Banding in Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec

Expand the description for all the info I have of rubber banding in this game:

First of all, for reference, it is confirmed that there is absolutely different "AI" difficulties that exist in the game for the purpose of Arcade Mode:
https://tcrf.net/Gran_Turismo_3:_A-Sp...

My assumption is that these difficulties are actually tied to the amount of laps in a race. This would make it so that the AI difficulty you experience in Gran Turismo Mode/Simulation Mode is based on the amount of laps the races have. I don't know this for sure, but it makes sense to me - races with 5 or more laps are WAY WAY WAY harder than races with 2 or 3 laps.

For example, if you drive a race car in the Amateur American Challenge, you can easily pull away over 20 second gaps within 3 lap races. However if you take the same racing car to the FR challenge or MR challenge, suddenly, road cars manage to stay a few seconds behind you no matter what you do.

I'm not the best driver in the world but I am very experienced with the game and have achieved S license test golds multiple times. I also have observed players who are definitely better at me than the game, lose to an RX-7 with a fully tuned JDM on a track like Laguna Seca.

My assumption is, that when the AI operates at 100% (which seems to be races with 5 or more laps) - they also gain a rubber banding mechanic that accelerates the car if it a certain distance (or rather, time difference) away from the car that in front of it position wise.

You can clearly see, even in your own gameplay, that you will generally go straight past the AI at the start of a race by the first corner in a race car, yet at the end of a race, they will always be a few seconds behind you. It does not matter how good you drive, if you ever pull away from the cars far enough, they seem to just gain an immense amount of acceleration/power and somehow manage to catch up to a tuned NSX even though the cars are worse than a stock NSX and take two entire pit stops in place of the main straight of full acceleration. Even if you were an average driver, this makes absolutely no sense.

And again with the pit stop analogy - remember that the software drives for you until it releases you and "you" gain control over the car. After your cars tyres are changed, it basically just does 100% acceleration for you. But the moment the actual pit stop ends and the AI gains control of the car, its acceleration suddenly gets a massive boost.

The effect is also dramatic because the AI drive aggressively and the walls actually correct them - normally touching a wall will reduce your exit speed a bit (as it should) but for the rubber banding AI this simply doesnt matter as their rubber banding speed completely overrides this and they exit every corner faster than you could ever possibly do, and they gain massive speeds on straights whenever they're a big gap behind the car thats infront of it.

If this isn't rubber banding in Gran Turismo 3, I don't know what is.

0:00 Context
2:57 Replay
6:30 Rapid increase of acceleration once the AI gains back control over the car