- Auto AI should preferably update every lap through practice and qualification. You're going to be bad at a new track but after every lap you get better. To provide a decent racing experience, the Auto AI level should keep up to your current abilities. As I understand it, you have to do a full race to get the Auto AI set and then do the real race (ie. DTM 2014 Championship) to use the Auto AI level. It just doesn't make sense. I'm running so many laps in practice and qualifying they should update then. - In a DTM 2014 championship I can't change the AI level once I start the championship. My problem right now is that I'm so far ahead of them and I want to increase the AI level but it won't let me. I basically have to throw away championship run.
The adaptive AI collects your best laptimes during a racing session and calculates a mean which will then be used as a base for the AI's strenght. A new mean is created with every new race you run and factored in with all older means so (as long as you're doing consistent laptimes) the AI will get closer to your performance with each race. You don't have to finish a race for the adaptation to work, if you end a race after a few laps the mean will still be created, provided you've set some valid laptimes (no cut warnings etc). I usually run one or two short races (10 minutes) on each track so they can adapt before starting a championship. Note that the adaptation system also collects your data if you don't actually use adaptive AI but a fixed AI strenght, some people prefer to run a couple fixed value races and then switch to adaptive AI. I agree that it would be nice if they also collected your data during practice and I put in a request for that some time ago, let's wait and see if the idea will be picked up.