At around 20K DR SR 99, yep you are stuck as grid filler for A+/S A/S rooms. Which is why I don't bother qualifying and find nice battles that way as DR from 20K up doesn't matter one bit at SR 99. Perhaps if you don't qualify you might drop down a bit into full B/S rooms. I had a couple when I was doing Interlagos without qualifying and got down to 19K at SR.99.
Pretty sad though in a game that is supposed to be about doing your best to improve you are punished for being at certain levels by being placed in races as grid fillers and to get matched closer to your skill level and possibly be gridded for a good starting position you need to drop to a level below what your best efforts places you at.
Actually your reply is the nonsense.
I would say that as far as experiencing how the matchmaking works or reacts to differing criteria of all types which includes different ranking levels, different amounts of manner points within a ranking level, changes in SR rankings or just about any variable a racer could confront concerning as to how the system actually works or responds to a change in a racers stats that Sven Jurgens with the last time I saw was over something like 1600 sport mode races I believe would have to be considered somewhat of an expert in this phase of the game.
He also has done a very good and thorough job of documenting his results within sport mode in different situations within other threads in this forum.
His post that I quoted above is from near the beginning of this very thread as a reply to one of my post talking about my personal experiences with matching and after I had posted my personal Kudos stats.
If you see from his reply at my current skills level stats which would be a true accurate representation of my actual level skill wise that from those numbers his opinion states rather solidly is that level is a grid filler under the matchmaking system as we know it.
If you also read his response on the matter further he suggest that to not be placed in lobbies to as a grid filler to not qualify and that in his experience that if you dropped your manner points to a level below 20,000 you may then be put into full B/S rooms.
Also to even go further I had posted in regard to an unscientific experiment I had done which was qualify at a pace 2 seconds a lap slower than I was capable of and entering 4 or 5 races noting the starting grid positions.
Then going back and qualifying again again at a 2 seconds a lap faster pace and starting the same number of races and noting the starting grid positions at the faster Q time.
My results were with both starting times that I was still placed in a 10-16th or so starting position only with the faster Q times I was now placed in faster lobbies with faster A level racers. The lobby breakdown as to mixture of rankings remained about the same.
So that debunks at certain levels being faster moves you up higher on the starting grid, no ir just moves certain level racers to faster lobbies.
So as far as being nonsense, I think that I will listen to someone that has a lot more expertise in how matchmaking actually reacts to different situations and my own personal experiences which in my opinion strongly validates EXACTLY what Sven posted and says as being how the system works.
You may not like the reality of the system is screwed up for many lower level drivers but that does not change that different racers experiences seem to back up that theory not debunk it as you try to do!
At least instead of just saying nonsense or tell someone to "get gud" or be faster I try to offer information that backs up or supports my claims or show why I think something is the way it is.
All you ever offer is your opinion and that by itself with no supporting documentation we all know what that is the equivalent to being we all have one!
You're not being punished for being DS. Even in that lobby when the pace gap between pole and mid-field is huge, there are still 10 Ds for the D player to race - he is being matched with other players at his ability.
Tell that with a straight face to that D racer that has raced 60 races and has beaten all of the drivers within his racing classification 8 times and still has not registered one single win as a result!!!!
But yet when that almighty A racer post on a forum like this one bragging about his 38 wins,18 poles and 22 fast laps in 87 races I damn well guarantee that he will not be saying or acknowledging but 70% of the racers I beat to get those impressive stats were racers 4 levels lower than me!
Again from the lower ranked players please explain how they are on an even playing field as to how the games awards or stats if you prefer are handed out?
Do not say it is the same in real racing because a ranking level is a class and in real racing EVERY CLASS HAS THEIR OWN AWARDS if they are in the same races consisting of higher classes of racers.
Do that in Sport mode 99% of the problem goes away!
The best thing you can do is shift the balance of your Sport Mode activities a little more in favour of the FIA races and see if you don't see an improvement in the matchmaking.
The FIA race shift to a point is good in a sense but flawed as well as an overall solution.
Unfortunately in many respects it is a very limited and a very temporary band aid as the FIA season is approaching its last season and what the future holds concerning future FIA events is presently uncertain or even unknown as far as I know.
Also the FIA season only provides a maximum of a total of 4 races to compete in over the course of a week at a very distinctive time slot restriction.
That still does nothing to alleviate what many consider as a problem within the normal Sport Mode daily races which most of the lower guys compete in.
I thought I had responded to why that was not a viable solution much earlier.
With four races a week and ending soon it fixes what actually?
Also something else you seem to fail to understand or comprehend is that the casual weekend warrior does not play the game the same way the "its a serious racing sim crowd so I got to find that extra 2/10ths of a second to be in the top 100" players.
That serious guy may spend 20 hours testing different cars, fuel consumption rates and lines to get that last 2/10ths to do his absolute best in the 4 races he can race in that week for a total actual race time of less than 4 hours.
That casual racer many times does not want to spend 10 minutes on qualifying before hopping into a race so first off less than 4 hours racing which is only available on two different days at two races per day in very specific time slots is not even a remotely reasonable alternative to most casual racers within the sport mode ranks.
And again think of it in another way from a different perspective, that serious guy that spent hours upon hours getting his performance to the peak of his abilities to do well in these FIA races does he really want the casual guy popping into his lobby who really has nothing to lose or gain ramming him off the track with a dive bomb in turn one of the first lap effectively ruining his chance for the top finish he spent so many hours preparing for?
I would tend to say that most racers serious about the FIA events would much rather see just the really serious guys in the race as they are less likely to race in a manner causes carnage within the pack.
Again this may not affect the racers in the very upper split lobbies but it surely could effect those not in the very top slit lobbies.