I have a bone to pick with this game.  I can tolerate the "party" atmosphere so long as I can skip all of it with the touch of a button.  Unfortunately you cannot skip quite all of it.  
 
Unskippable cutscenes:
-your rival's snippet of dialogue before every standard race in the game cannot be skipped.  This does not appear to be a cover of a background loading operation either.
-wristband retrieval, which is always the same clip of you holding the appropriate coloured doodad while the few people who bothered to show up express lukewarm applause.  Again, from what I can tell this is not a loading screen cover.  
 
Unskippable dialogue:
-Tutorial lady who talks and talks and talks and talks some more all through the game without ever stopping.  "Did you know your car isn't eligible for this race?  You need a different car for this race.  You're entering with that?  You should upgrade your car."  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. D:
-Tutorial lady cannot be muted without turning off all sound effects as well.
-Tutorial lady has no subtitles
-When you unlock a fresh set of races, tutorial lady's dialogue, which can go for 20+ seconds, is completely unskippable.  
 
Stop doing this, racing game developers.  Dirt 3 did the exact same thing.  Stop it.   
 
Also, the new minimap is shitty on small courses.  Your opponent's dots are so big they obscure the curves of the track.  
 
Aside from that I really like this game.  Just have to constantly mute and unmute tv to protect ears from gabby gabby irritation. 

I will name my next son Skip, in honor of your plight.

Don't mind developers doing this the first time through but especially with racing games, should be able to skip it if you're going through something again. Will have to try Forza Horizon to see how much this gets on my nerves as it looks like a lot of fun once getting past the unskippable stuff.

@oulzac: jajaja