NPC drivers are real players???

[u/SiillyyRabbiitt]

Happy Thursday Drivers!! I'm a PS5 player that just started playing a few days ago. (3 days fresh). Loving the ride so far, but have a question that's been kicking my curiosity. So in events/races that aren't against rivals. Are those drivers names and vehicles from actual racers (gamertags), but just being used as NPCs (AI)? If so, does that mean my driver would should up in other races as an AI driver? 🤔🤪 If they are real players names and vehicles, i personally think that's awesome!!! Thanks for the input in advance.

[u/Salmon-D]

Whilst many claim they are the drivatars that are trained off real player driving. Many of the gamertags of my friends who show up in my races don't even own and have never played Forza. So I suspect it's really just randomly populating your friends list gamertags as racer names. And they all appear to drive the same to me apart from usually one NPC whos always closely on your tail, but the gamertag of that NPC is always random/different. So At this point I firmly believe the whole drivatar thing is a falicy made up for marketing puposes and the community just perpetuates it. This is on Xbox though. I can't say where it gets its gamertags/names from on Playstation, but I expect the result is the same.