I think it's because our game has such physical close-contact with other players, so it's a lot more obvious. We literally have races so it's really obvious if a player is behind on your screen... but somehow finishes before you.
It's a very physics-heavy game, and physics is one of those things that's notoriously difficult to get right in an online situation.
Just to compare to another type of game - say you shoot at another player in an FPS - if there was the same lag/desync issues, you might have a situation where it looks like you shot them, but maybe for them you would have missed.
The devs can basically then give the advantage to the player who shot, because they are the ones that see you in their aim. So even if they technically missed for the other player, the other player can't see that it would have missed.
In our game, we have it favouring the person who 'does the grab' - which is why it's rare that you'll feel like you grabbed someone, but it doesn't actually grab them... but it's much more common that you are grabbed... but it doesn't look like you got grabbed.
Throughout the seasons, the devs have changed different things to lean it more towards the player who is grabbed, than the one who grabs... and back again... and trying different ways to deal with the ping issues around that.
I hope that makes sense. I'm not defending that it's a terrible issue to have. It's definitely really frustrating for players and we hope we can improve it further in future. I feel confident there must be a solution that feels fairer to both players.
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