What's the best way to categorize racing cars?

[James Rice]

I made this mod for Assetto Corsa in February of 2024 and I wanted to revisit the idea in a more organized fashion. So, here's the question I'm posing:
What's the best way of categorizing various types of race cars?

I've looked at several solutions for my problem. Categorizing cars by power output (bhp, hp, ps, whatever) was my original idea, but then that would get too convoluted because you could potentially have a Ferrari 330 P4 (which is hecking fast, by the way) and a bog standard BMW in the same category. Probably not the best idea.

So why not sort by kg/hp? That would probably work, but I feel that isn't the best idea for this problem. It's the first reasonable option I can think of, but surely there's something better?
I even tried looking into the FIA's Appendix J and it's definitions for car classes, but I think you would require a serious understanding of cars to understand what any of the waffle they're talking about means. Complicated.

Maybe I could sort by discipline (e.g. open-wheel, stock car, drag)? I want to know everyone's thoughts on what I could do.

 

[Durge Driven]

 

[jgf]

My system is bog simple - all that matters is performance on the track, so I created my own classes based solely on laptimes at a couple of test tracks.