In final version, there will be a lot of upgrades, including several types of weapons (pulse, beams, etc.), so player will have options to choose his favourite sort of weapon. But it will always be necessary to target opponent's ship first, beacuse of weapons' auto-aiming.
Ok, very good. But what I was trying to say is it possible to make it more visible to the player that a ship has been targetted. Because now, especially at the start, it is very unclear which ship is going to get hit.

You are getting punished because you cannot leave the raceway. If you do so, you have to return back to the point from where you left the raceway.
No offence but this sounds very unreasonable. By taking the turn too wide, a player is already in a disadvantage (be it his own fault), because in order to get the best lap time, or in order to gain time on his opponents, he should take the turn as short as possible. You are basically punishing him a second time.

Also, the means of punishment is IMO incorrect. I realize taking a shortcut is not allowed, but by making the player go back all the way to the point of his 'mistake' on his own, does not stand in relation with the 'crime'. The time it takes to correct his error simply takes far too long.

Normally in racing games you see an error corrected, by taking the offender instantly back to the point or place of error. This way the player does realize that his attempts to take shortcuts aren't tolerated, but he's still given a reasonable change to finish the race in time.