Suggested

Level Groupings in Elite Tier

I realise it would probably be difficult to code and much testing would be required to minimise introducing all manner of bugs, but I think a level grouping in Elite would be great for indicating how competitive the lower-level teams are. The advantage of such an approach is that it could be implemented globally instead of leagues running different rules to others. There would be three championships running concurrently, the main one would be as it is now, but the second and third would give points to level groups (for the sake of this example call them F2 and F3).
F1: L16 - L20
F2: L11 - L15
F3: L1 - L10

For the main championship points would be awarded exactly as now.
For the Formula championship points would be awarded by group (the following is example only, I haven't properly thought this through)
P1 = 10
P2 = 6
P3 = 3
P4 = 2
P5 = 1

Then there would be three tables
1. The main championship (the same as now)
2. F2 Championship
3. F3 Championship

It probably needs a bit more thinking through but it would mean that lower-level teams would be competing for something.

Ultimately something such as this could actually replace the current 3 tier system which would lighten the load on servers as only one race per league would run.

It would completely remove the need for a myriad of Bot accounts, created by the league hosts to pad out the lower tiers in an attempt to make the league attractive and to keep promotion active.

It would overcome the problem experienced by private leagues where they all want to race together and are therefore stuck in Rookie.

There would be no more requests to support to manually promote or relegate teams who find themselves in the wrong tier.

Here's how I envisage it might look:
These are the race results:


These are the tables:

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

I don't see Formula groupings based on team Level being a problem. For example, the league which I host all Elite teams would be F1 so there would be no entries in the F2 or F3 championships. Everyone is high level, we are all fighting for the main title, and we all have the same opportunities and tools at our disposal. 

I disagree with aligning formulas on something as random as Reputation because I think most people accept that Rep does not always accurately represent manager ability.

The fact that some high-level managers struggle is because of the way they manage the team and resources, not because they are at a level disadvantage. The more successful managers in most leagues are usually willing to help the strugglers with advice. If managers continue to underperform, they have a choice, they can stick around and learn from the hardcore players or they may join a different league where people take the game less seriously. It's natural selection.

The league I host is currently in season 31, we have a number of players who have been in the league since season 1 and have never won the championship but still they attend most races and enjoy the game. They tend to run an informal formula system where players X, Y & Z realise early in the season that they are unlikely to be champion but strive to beat one another.

IMHO a 16 team 2 car league feels about right, maybe it could be stretched to 20 but I wouldn't like to see any more than 40 cars on the track.

Currently a league consists of 3 tiers with 16 teams, so if full 48 teams and if it'd work, which it doesn't hence the need of ideas like this thread, nearly that many. With 30 levels in mind that's room for 1.5 teams per level on average. With a one tier fits all league and sub-championships for lower race categories it'd be only 16 teams, if the number of cars in a race isn't increased to allow more managers, to hold everyone from freshly joined Rookie to fully leveled Elite.

That's the full version of what Kevin suggest, which would replace the tier system and offers a solution to its problems. There's also the light version keeping the tiers and applying a band aid for the too early Elite promotion problem by giving Elite sub-tiers enabling lower level teams to compete in their own championship.