Well, if I may hijack the thread for a bit more, despite it being clear Paul had some other issue (shame we never found out what it was), I did some testing on my own as promised. Three attempts except when stated otherwise, run back to back without restarting the game. I should also add that following last week, I did some "spring cleaning" in the meantime, trying to get the game respond better and uninstall some unnecessary content, which seem to have helped a bit and the loading times are now indeed somewhat shorter that they were. But I don't really want to remove more content at this point.
Starting the game - from clicking the single player button to the main screen:
46 s average, worst case 52 s (first run)
Loading a Le Mans race with 20 GTE AI cars - from clicking the Race button to the monitor screen:
2:29 average, worst case 2:39 (first run)
Loading Le Mans race replay, 2 laps, 20 GTE AI cars - from clicking the Load replay button to replay start:
3:46 average, worst case 3:46 - each time with exactly 1 minute before the loading screen would even show
Loading Le Mans replay multiclass 30 GTE+LMP2 AI cars, 35 minutes:
4:14 (only did one attempt at this as I was getting bored
) - again exactly 1 minute before the loading screen would even show
And finally, to try something "lighter" than Le Mans - Loading Zandvoort multiclass race with 30 GT3+LMP2 cars:
2:35 average, worst case 2:38 (second run)