> Seems a lot better place to learn than in the middle of the race and earning $0 for the race.

That's... not how it works at all, though. There are no prizes for individual races and the championship money is also pennies to the teams.

Mercedes's Kimi Antonelli is going to win the WDC anyway for sure at this point, given the points difference.

> Isn't that the entire point of a simulator to learn things that are too expensive to learn in the real world?

You're right but this is not those expensive things. Track time is extremely limited, so the primary role of the sim is to develop the car and how it feels to the drivers, mainly so the setup feels perfect to them.

System-level bugs etc must have their own testing but sim is mainly for driver-engineer testing. Many drivers also don't like using the sim at all like Hamilton.