Solved

Research not working as advertised?

Research brought an extra 4 points of performance to our car. 'Cloudberry Pottle' appear to have the most developed car. Research gains: Cooling +1 Fuel economy +1 Handling +1 Reliability +1

By some lucky coincidence I'm left alone in my league, plenty of teams but noone is racing.
Since nobody is playing, nobody is also adding tech points to their cars.
It's the second race in a row that I match Cloudberry Pottle in a couple of techs and after the race i'm again behind by 1 point.

Cloudberry Pottle has the most developed car, shouldn't get any tech help.

I'm puzzled, or i misunderstood how this works

That does sound a bit fishy.
The best team should get nothing as nobody has anything better for them to get points from.
Can you add screen shot of the research page!

Other thing is just because people do not turn up to races doesn't always mean they are not playing, they maybe cant get the viewer to open or the time of the race they are busy and cant attend.

Can you also post a screenshot of the window that pops up when you click the Review button on the Cars page? That will show who has the best development in each area of design.

Look, 13 races done, the guy who is experienced (level 11) never did a single practice lap, i'm quite positive he is not logging in but of course can't be sure. Is there a way I can attach a picture here?

Thanks Jack, no i don't really care about design at this point, i'm the only one racing anyway, the only strange thing was that it didn't seem the guy was logging and at every race he was ahead of me in research even if I was matching it the race before.
That was odd. But if the guy is active then it's all ok, i suppose.