I'm about to go try it, I'll post back with how I held up, and what I think of how you may be able to do it.
OK, so I was about 20 seconds off, and I had no clue you couldn't tune your car, so really, you just need to get the track down, and be able to do this race very, very well just by knowing the track and knowing how fast you can take each turn.
I had every driving assist on, I think that slows your car down, so I may try it without any driving assists and see how that goes for me also.