I would argue you just haven't seen a good implementation of online play then. Take, for example, NR03, an 8 year old game, it has a great online implementation. Drivers are ranked according to skill, from 0 to 10, to being the highest. In order to move up in the ranking, one just needs to not only drive good with good times, but also maintain a lower LPI (laps per incident). This encouraged all players to drive well, and with time, you would move up eventually to drivers of your skill. Since causing a wreck could hurt your LPI and therefore your ranking, racers, especially of higher rank, would try to avoid them. Papyrus would set up racing rooms, the qualifier being your ranking (ie must be 4 or above, 6 or above, etc).
This is what saddens me about today's racing sims on consoles, that we still haven't adopted such a system.