To be fair, in driving games, you dont really want to be changing a whole lot about the driving model once everyone agrees its perfect. Good driving mechanics are always good, and bad driving mechanics are always bad. The only thing worse than bad driving mechanics is when the previous game had perfectly fun driving physics and the next game changed it, making it objectively worse.

Which happened to Need for Speed. A fun arcade racer with predictable physics, Underground 2 had perfected the driving model Black Box had made. Slidey enough to make entering a drift feel easy and controllable, but still predictable enough to master over time. Then in Most Wanted they changed the driving model and added insane amounts of grip for some reason, making the driving model feel more like Mario Kart. Then every game after that one got progressively worse, until we land at the absolute bottom of the barrel games made by Criterion, who make all their driving models feel like they came from a mobile game with tilt controls. Like Unbound.

I dont believe a driving game with good and fun driving mechanics needs to really change anything other than the map, music, and adding cars for subsequent games.