The best racing games like Gran Turismo are Gran Turismo 7, Forza Motorsport and Assetto Corsa Competizione. Below are 12, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to racing costs you.
Filtering to racing means you want the vehicle to be the subject. It is the right filter when what you liked was speed, or handling, or a road worth driving.
What you get: A short session that is complete in itself. A race is over in five minutes and you can always take the corner better.
What made Gran Turismo worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the racing part of that answer, and only the racing part.
The modern entry, and the cafe progression finally gives the collection a spine again.
The other simulation series, built around the race weekend rather than the collection.
If the driving model is what you care about and nothing else.
Simulation with the widest range of surfaces and weather.
The arcade side of the same obsession — the cars matter, the rules do not.
Same generation, opposite philosophy: atmosphere and drift over simulation.
Contact racing with a proper damage model, and the most fun in the list.
Driving as an aesthetic experience, and a fraction of the price.
Surface-change handling that GT never attempted, from the arcade.
For the obsession with one perfect lap, free and endless.
If the corner you keep replaying was the appeal, not the tuning screen.
The pure drive, with none of the paperwork.
Everything outside the vehicle. Racing games rarely have a story, and the ones that try usually should not have.
The full list is on games like Gran Turismo — 12 picks, no genre filter.
Gran Turismo 7. The modern entry, and the cafe progression finally gives the collection a spine again.
No. Gran Turismo released on the PlayStation, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.
Simulation models tyre temperature, fuel and weight transfer and punishes you for ignoring them. Arcade gives you grip, boost and a rewind, and is about flow. Buying the wrong one is where most disappointment comes from.
For the simulation picks it changes the game completely. For anything arcade it makes almost no difference.
By hand. Each pick was written for the full Gran Turismo list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is racing — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.
Or read the racing guide for where to start in the genre generally.