every pro player and admins are complaining about rammers, rams at the start of the races, blocks... they always warn or punish ramming players.
as far as i've observed, more than half of the races are being in single private map (players don't race together). no one has ramming issue on those races at all; but on the one world-group races, it's very likely.
so what would you say about the question on title?
i personally think that driving skills and experience are key factors on single map races, but ramming and blocking MUST be the actual skills and purpose on the one world-group races. let's think bit logically: every player has different spawn points at the starting checkpoint. some of them on the front, some of them at the back, some of them are bit far from the corner. it means that, every player has different distances to the ending checkpoint of the race. so, if every player had enough and nearly equal driving skills, results of the race would be exactly determined by the players' distances to the ending checkpoint. but where is the fun about this? if i already know my result at the start, why do i even race? a player's purpose is nothing but being at the top of the result, i guess. so how is he gonna do that? by waiting front players to hit a wall or lamppost? it's nonsense. i believe that especially the rams at the start of the races is important to get a good position in the race. it can turn the disadvantage of being at the back at the start, to advantage. otherwise it's bit harder to catch front player unless he hits something. and that's the unfair point of those races. you can't give formula 1 example for this, because we don't make qualifying before each race, nor playing at the racing circuit except few races. most of our races are in the concept of "illegal street racing" (even if traffic doesn't exist). so it's very funny that ramming and blocking are not allowed on this type of race.