No, I don't agree. Some things in real life can't easily be 'ported' to a computer setup. Take starting the car. In real life you get in, do up your belts (or have someone help), flick three, four, five or more toggle switches. Maybe turn a key, whilst pumping the throttle, with your foot on the clutch. That doesn't come across easily on a computer. You either get mouse controls (and end up with the nasty netKar Pro way of doing things that is just laughable and not AT ALL realistic), or you assign keyboard buttons to each 'command', but that's not very real either.
Some concessions HAVE to be made. Starting the car HAS to be simplified or made unrealistic in some way. Do people want 'telepit'? Hardly realistic, but who wants to play a game when you have to get back to the pits in a realistic manner. Sure, it might be fun walking 5 miles back from a spin/stall the first time, or waiting for a recovery vehicle, but we're playing a game and that would just end up silly.
Then you get to the car maintainance - nobody wants to go through hour upon hour of setup work and repairs for half an hour of track time. So 'magically' we get a brand new car. Even 'real time' repairs and setups don't work well, because they aren't actually real time, and being on a computer they don't cause the same impact somehow...
Ultra-ultra realism is too far given current PCs if you want the game to be vaguely entertaining. Having some 'hardcore' features are good if they are optional, but there's a fine line between good hardcore and ludicrous hardcore.