Funny thing is that I am an software engineer.
Anyway, you might be right, but you also might be wrong, it entirely depends on how they have implemented it.
They are from a gameplay perspective the same game. That ubisoft possibly does the sadly very common “to win the marathon you have to sprint faster”, which makes it take a lot of work to spit out something very similar would not be surprising, but also does not change the fact that they are imo too similar.
As a taller person, if this gives me sufficient legroom and a seat that actually distributes the weight over my whole thighs such that I can sit somewhat comfortable, this seems like a major upgrade to me.