Sounds like you hit escape, not the pause button.
When I hit Pause, everything stops, it does not go to the menu screen.
>Last night I started a training session for a short race. When the phone
>rang, I activated the PAUSE option. As usual, in the upper right corner of
>the screen was a "live" picture of the racetrack, but hey: although time
was
>standing still (I mean the counter on the bottom), the AI cars were still
>qualifying. I might not be a competitive driver (yet), but it ain't fair
>that these guys "ignore" my pause.