Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-170.52.87.61-20180524022124/@comment-2405:204:B009:93FB:2C71:B074:F0EB:AE13-20180524041457

Driving off track & crashing will & does definitely affect your car performance if it moves the service bar to red.

So if you have not FU'd your car & you go off track and crash quite a few times (making the service bar go red in the backgroud during the race) the most noticeable change will be in your top speed & acceleration. If you drive without assists, you'll find the original brake points moving forward on the track & speeding through the esses would be more difficult as the handling is affected. Whereas if you have a FU'd car, you'll need to crash & go off track quite a few times to see the actual difference (as you have more bars on the service to consume).

The damage is also persistent through all the races for the specific car until you service. There is an official RR3 help topic on this subject from EA/FM on this which I have read a few years back, just couldn't find it to link it here.