I've seen this in an older version of NFS on PC. I can't remember which one it was (I think Underground?). The way they always caught up with me when they were behind was insane.
I actually tried a bit to look back and see it happen beacuse, I was wondering, do they just teleport or actually drive at like 800km/h.
this feature is literary called "Catch Up" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics#Catch-up and has been a thing in racing games since before 2000. Diddy Kong Racing (1997) had it, so did motorhead in 1998, then EA got familiar with it and we got Hot Pursuit 2/Most wanted and burnout 3.
I actually tried a bit to look back and see it happen beacuse, I was wondering, do they just teleport or actually drive at like 800km/h.