@JayOTT Players are already purposefully tanking their DR in EMEA in order to race in 2nd split, because a podium there scores more than being 7th in a lobby full of world finalists. Some race slots have seen points differences below 100 between top and 2nd split, because top splits are nearly maxed out. Even worse, one disconnect while lobby is loading means top split gives less points than second split, while still being significantly harder. Although so far it didn't pay, some people could definitely take advantage of that in Manufacturers. Nations seems difficult to reach with 2nd split races now, but it's technically still possible. Supra Cup, if the amount of qualified people is the same, could see someone from even 3rd split getting a spot for the final.
Up until now, the highest 2nd split we had seems to be 2996 or 2998 points, and more often than not they give 2950+. I am not aware of a 3000+ 2nd split but this could happen. Meanwhile, the highest score for top splits (excluding the Top 16) is 3105 points, while your average top split win seems to be around 3050 so far. According to our calculations, theorical max points in a regular lobby would be 3125 points, and 3250 in a Top 16 with the 30% bonus (this is an estimation though, in reality that might be a bit higher as the formula doesn't seem linear, we suspect there's some kind of coefficient, but I'd be extremely surprised if those values exceeded 3150 and 3280).
Another issue is that scores are going to be stupidly close at the end of the whole season. Current standings at the top are already extremely tight - we're talking about less than 10 points gaps in the top 10 (top 2 FR are separated by only 3 points), and this will only get tighter. There might even be some ties, and the line between qualifying and not qualifying will probably be single digit points. In other words, someone might not go to a world tour or world finals because an usual "backmarker" didn't enter a time slot and was replaced by someone with lower DR. When the drivers limit for countries like UK, France or Italy is 2 and might get to 1 for the finals, this is a problem.
When you see people racing in top splits on a regular basis being out of top 100 in the standings, that means something is not working out. Actually, if the Nurburgring World Tour qualifications are what I've been told for Manufacturers, then the overall winner of Asia (Akagi, aka Kokubun) won't be qualified because someone in another region got lower points than 4th splitters while racing in top splits (yeah that's me, having less points from top splits than a friend who just broke the A+ barrier and finishes 20+ seconds behind me in practice).
Forgot all about the race tonight. Missed the first slot. Gotta wait an hour. Should have reminders.
