Why am I not winning?

So I just finished the first C2 club and I have my car at around 190 with a rating of 210, every elite race I’ve done so far says the recommended thing is C2 175 with a rating of 210, but every time I do a race they fly past me, I never had this problem when I was doing the club, but now once I’m finished it’s like they are way higher, and if I make my car any faster it’ll go into C3, am I doing something wrong?