Seen a few people who were surprised that you can change the difficulty settings so I thought I'd post these. As you can see, there's a LOT of things you can change.
I prefer to disable the complex engine management, engine overheat, torque & gyro and head shake (which makes me kinda sick). I find that it gives a good balance of playability & realism

ya good point to look out for thous setting when joining a multi player game i don't mind the head shake that much but dislike the engine overheat which can get a tad annoying when your on the tail of a ming