Solved

11 points for the new season :D

I have rejoined the elite division of a league I previously competed in and before I joined my cars had a combined total of 300 design points.
However now that I am back in the league I have only 11, which is 240ish points fewer than the next lowest.
There are just under 72 hours until the first race of the new season, please help lol

The 300 design points was because you were joining a league already in progress. That many design points was to "catch you up" with the rest of the league. If you are now joining a league that has not yet started the season, you get enough design points that your Design Building in your headquarters will allow for one day.

I left the league once a season had finished, so the car had already been prepared for the next season. However once I rejoined during a season break the points went down to 1s and 2s. Basically I only left and joined between seasons, not when they were already underway, if that makes sense?

u lucky u had 11 dp's i had joined leagues with js 8 dp's as well

Yeah changing leagues penalty is way way over the top in massively handicapping you, even if you leave a league once the season has finished an join a new league that the season has not started you still reset your car to 1's or about, you should be able to start your new season with the car that you would of started first race of season in previous league.

I understand why you handicap people to stop league hopping and joining a league after you have built a mega car after half a season and join a new league for there first race (with best car by a mile), but there should be no penalty if you leave after your season has finished..... its not right, makes it awful to change league's quite often with certain relegation on the horizon if joining top league...

I agree. If you're joining in those days the host has set as the pause between seasons you should get the car your team has managed to develop in the previous league so far (a small penalty like -10% perhaps). So if you left after the last race and before the first race the following season it'll be fully developed, if it's after 8-9 races you'll get about half the design points.

Sandeep; compared to the 250-300 points everybody else started on 11 is definitely not lucky. Gary and Daniel, I agree with what you are saying (though of course I would). A 10% penalty would still enable teams to be close to the rest of the field even in Australia and would hopefully counteract the potential league hopping that Gary mentioned. At the moment I am playing the percentages to maximise CD/TD gains while stashing up points from the design HQ, saving engines and in general just biding my time until the top teams run out of areas to improve on.