I've been a hardcore Linux gamer for 15+ years, but there's some games that just don't work on Linux, unfortunately. Sim racing was something I wanted to get into so I could get familiarity with some tracks before I actually go drive them, so putting up with windows long enough to launch the games is something I can deal with.

If M$ starts sending me ads mid game, then I might start looking for other solutions.

That's absolutely untrue. The debloat tools have a GUI and presets where it's basically a single click to run them.

I seriously tried gaming on Linux with like 5 different distros, and it was a struggle to get things running not completely awfully. Windows doesn't have those issues.

You find all kinds of crap when you search for things like that, you need to do your research on what's trustworthy.

I see a lot of Windows users say "oh you can make windows not terrible, you just need to install this random modified Windows ISO that there's no way of knowing if it contains malware"

It's absolutely a hunt.