Staying interested throughout the early levels is the tough part. There's a turbo function where you have to build up power in your engines before you can give yourself that extra boost. This is definitely a skill that requires some concentration, but the fact of the matter is, you won't need turbo to win any race early on. Wipeout 64 is a good point of reference, not only because of the floaty vehicle physics, but because both games have a whole lot of speed to offer. The difference is, Wipeout demanded mastery of several skills before a player could win a race.
Racer is definitely easy to get into but the tutorial seems to last a little too long.
You will certainly need to be better by the time you reach the later levels in the game but the A.I. of the drones you're racing against seems to stay the same. After the first relatively tame Tatooine race, players move onto different worlds with more jumps, shortcuts, obstacles and sharp turns that are definitely a challenge. However, even if you do crash several times on a track and several drones do pass you, it doesn't take much to regain the lead, especially if you're on the last few laps when you'll know the track. Even thought the game does get tougher as you go along, the later levels aren't as challenging as they could be because you as a player have gotten better by that time as well. No weapons or power-ups kept the game in line with what was seen in the movie and there's something to be said for the accurate translation.