Thanks for all your replies, however this issue is getting worse for me. I qualified 7th in Canada however on lap 8 I was 22 seconds behind 6th, whilst my teammate who was last was just 7 second behind me. Between us was a long row of cars all within a second of each other.
I'm not interested in lowering difficulty as it's just right for qualifying. Is there anything I can do to stop this? Would changing the tyre temperature settings off surface& carcass make it easier to drive the car in race?