"This race will not be won by firepower, but by speed" Did Claire lie?

I've avoided "The Beast In Me" sidequest in previous Cyberpunk playthroughs as I am not good at driving cars in the game, but have just done the first race, in the city centre. Initially, I tried to win just by driving fast but the cars were pretty bunched up. I noticed I was taking a ton of damage from them shooting at me and ramming me. I wasn't sure I was going to survive by being passive, so I ended up shooting back and destroyed 4 of the rival vehicles. I came second basically by default: as said, I am not good at driving and ended up getting stuck behind a street bench for about a minute!

Is this normal? That vehicle combat is so important in the races? I have another three races to go.

I was using the car you get from el Capitan for stealing the truck with medicines from the Arasaka docks, which seemed to have pretty powerful weaponry and had a speed edge over nearly all the other racers. I understand in the next race I have to use Claire's car and that her shooting has no effect.