Sorry to say it, but It's getting kind of boring without the hotlap competitions. It's a pitty there is no response whatsoever from the dev's. Maybe this question will get a dev's attention: Any suggestion for an alternative Sim with some more life in their hotlapcompetition...
I think the issue is the fellow who organised them has left and now they are focused on Esports. That´s of course their decision, but my personal opinion is that Esports are the NFTs of gaming - companies claim they have this mega reach to advertisers but in actual fact the number of spectators watching live on the official streams are really nothing special - more people enter to race than watch them.
Apparently the future eSports championships will use the multiplayer ranking to determine the grids, so maybe that's why they're moving away from hotlap competitions.
These hotlap competitions had nothing to do with esports or ranked. And they were fairly popular with 1000+ entries many times. They should bring it back.
43 people watching the Esports final on Youtube right now. You would think 27 racers would have more friends and family than that!