I've been using Simulation steering on the pad and not really had much trouble. It's certainly tougher to control light weight shifting, but it's not that bad and I prefer to have more control than have things assisted to death.
I would like to fully disable the ABS too, but having to be sensitive with the left trigger and the left stick at the same time is wearing out my hand after prolonged play, so I'm keeping that at the first level of assistance for now.
Have everything else disabled, don't use the clutch on the pad. Very glad I can disable rewind mode, racing just doesn't feel right with that.
Enjoying Rivals mode the best so far, but wish there were more pre defined time trial modes with the same stock cars. The tuned time trial boards have never been that fun as they always end up dominated by dodgy suspension/aero glitches and specific cars.
Hopefully they'll add more of them as time goes by.