For some age brackets and in some events, perhaps so. It has not been my experience that non-pass-buyers can finish in the top five or ten, and it's certainly not the case in the current 10-day D-Day event. Free players can earn extra leaderboard points by getting stars in war battles, which limits them to exactly 5000 extra leaderboard points they can earn over the course of the event beyond those earned for the various goals. Pass buyers, on the other hand, get 15,000 free points from bonus stage goals, and can earn 10 points per star in battles of any kind, which means they can run multiplayer battles for points as many times as they want. You can't tell me this is an even playing field. Free players aren't even given the ability to grind leaderboard points at a slow rate.