I think the anime didn't do so well due to a few factors:
- It felt like the show skipped an entire season establishing the characters, the fact they were underdogs, and how the racing system worked.
- It subbed out the combat element of the original micro-series for plain old racing, which made the 3v3 format weird and hard to understand, especially since they were always racing on that track. It probably would've made more sense if it was actually set in a natural environment, where anything but speed was the dominating factor.
- I've seen literally cooler crashes and stuff in Sail GP than most of the action in this anime.
- Takashi wasn't necessarily the best main character ever, which really made it a drag when episodes focused on him too much.
Like, I give it props for trying to do something different with the mecha genre and the top notch voice cast, but it didn't really do it for anybody, as far as I can tell.