Suggested

New Research Epic Fail Punishes the little guy

Spanner in the works! How about you can only have one of the big 3?
The big 3 being Acceleration, Handling & Downforce.

If one of them is the CD's strength then that will be the 100 stat of your car at some point.
You can only have 60 in another and 50 in the other. The rest of the car can go to 100 if your able to get there.

The Little guy with the most developed car, lets say a level 10 player just promoted to Elite. Is it ever the case that that team will have the most developed car? Probably not. Lets say that the level 10 car was at the top in acceleration. Even if he got two times what the level 20 player did in research it would be 2 times zero because he represents the limit for that attribute. So it does not appear that the low level team with the high level design would be able to maintain an advantage over a higher level team. And the higher level teams would be able to make gains because of extra design points.

Jack, I don't see any impediments to implementing your plan. It appears that it may very well help and the proof is in the testing.

Regarding hitting 100's in design. That is actually going to help my Los Alamos team. Soon the higher teams will peg out in the big four and I will be able to catch up in those areas

hmmm what has had the biggest change since the start??
I won Pro & right away won Elite even though I was only getting 9design points every race.

How did your level 19 team only get 9 design points?

I was in Pro at the switch-over so my benefits where level 8 because capped to level 12 & my car design was that high I never bothered with design facility

You joined late I was running away without breaking a sweat I didnt need design

Might that be part of the problem, the rewards for finishing in the top 3 are too high of a car design to catch up?