[rubenv]

Not often you see simracing mentioned here!

For sure there are gains to be made by having proper material as opposed to entry level, but those quickly become marginal.

The biggest gains by far are usually found in working on your driving style. Have a look at telemetry of someone who's slightly faster and work out the differences methodologically.

Shameless self-promotion: if you're racing in iRacing, have a look at https://garage61.net, we have over 125 million laps of telemetry to learn from.