@Selnor
The problem is that the enviroments may look the same, but they have improved effects. If you look close, on the replay video, you can actually see trees moving to the wind. That effect can't be done on 2D trees as you once implied, so it clearly shows that, at least, the tress have been improved to 3D.
But the big plus is still the new damage model, which is a huge improvement of what they did in TGS and it's a huge improvement of what it's currently done in general racing simulators, if they can get the localized scratching and bending correctly.
Current PC Build
CPU - i7 8700K 3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz turbo) 6 cores OC'd to 5.2 GHz with Watercooling (Hydro Series H110i) | MB - Gigabyte Z370 HD3P ATX | Gigabyte GTX 1080ti Gaming OC BLACK 11G (1657 MHz Boost Core / 11010 MHz Memory) | RAM - Corsair DIMM 32GB DDR4, 2400 MHz | PSU - Corsair CX650M (80+ Bronze) 650W | Audio - Asus Essence STX II 7.1 | Monitor - Samsung U28E590D 4K UHD, Freesync, 1 ms, 60 Hz, 28"
