Championship points system - what is it based on?

[Slife]

Would having points for the entire field be good? The back teams are fighting very hard and when they have 0 after 10 races, there's no way of seeing who's actually outperforming, even though some are. It would also give all drivers incentive to finish a race instead of retiring to get a new gearbox or exploit other loopholes, when they are out of the points at the end of a race. When a championship is very close, every driver will fight for every point.

Maybe also some points could be awarded for qualifying, that would stop drivers not throwing everything at that too. Currently, some drivers are content to be mid field for the sake of saving tyres - if they knew that decision would also cost them a possible 10 points, maybe they would re-think their strategy.

Well for the back teams they still have position counting, so you can tell who is winning among them. Having points for all positions could be interesting, it could be like NASCAR's system except the points would be 24,23,22,21 ... 1.

The issue I have with qualifying points, is that qualifying is just a means to an end. F1 isn't about qualifying on pole, it is about winning GPs, qualifying just helps that. Blame the Pirelli's for teams not pushing it in qualifying.

F1 is about achieving and pushing the limit

Maybe in theory, but I don't think that is what is happening today.

[Hail22]

F1 is about achieving and pushing the limit

Maybe in theory, but I don't think that is what is happening today.

I agree with this wholeheartedly!

[Jackuar]

I remember reading here that even if we apply the the new points system to the previous years, it would have been Hamilton and Raikkonen (In 2008 and 2007) who would have won the WCC with the same margin of 1 point. (Someone can correct me if I remember wrong)

It sounds mathematically illogical to me... You beef up the system by a factor of 1 to 2.5 over the entire range but the final margin of win remains the same one point? Sounds like saying "A 1mm dot on a deflated balloon remains the same 1mm even after inflating it".

Someone can explain pls?

[raymondu999]

Because it's not a flat scaling of 2.5. If it was then the gaps would just scale by 2.5, but they don't. P2 for example is 2.25 of a difference, and 2.4 for P4. There is also P9 and P10, which now get points that weren't originally there.

Here:

Old/New = multiplier
25/10 = 2.5
18/8 = 2.25
15/6 = 2.5
12/5 = 2.4
10/4 = 2.5
8/3 = 2.667*
6/2 = 3
4/1 = 4
2
1

The lower positions (6th-10th) have benefitted a lot from the points system change. While it's not a linear scaling to 2.5, 2.5 works as a damn good approximation

[Jackuar]

Yeah, of course its not 2.5 linear.

In 2007, only Hamilton scored a 9th place (Where Kimi retired in the same race - Eur GP). All other race positions between them are 8 or higher or retired.

My point is - every position is atleast doubled in its points and 9th and 10th places get points now. So, logically the margin should also double up right? I'm saying I'm expecting atleast a 2 point win for Kimi and not 1 point under the new system.

[raymondu999]

I get what you're saying, but they also "lose" points in p2 and p4, before gaining a bit in p6, and gaining big time in p7/8(compared to the old system)

[Jackuar]

I get what you're saying, but they also "lose" points in p2 and p4, before gaining a bit in p6, and gaining big time in p7/8(compared to the old system)

Gotcha.. Thanks!

I guess I should do some math and comparisons with the results to see where is it getting skewed before asking further questions

[f1316]

I think the new system works, and as other have pointed out overall results don't really differ from previous systems. I do feel the current system allows a championship to very quickly become a runaway if a driver has a string of success, like Vettel last year; or a string of bad luck in the case of someone chasing the leader, like Button this year.

But the current system also makes it easier to catch up, should you have early season unreliability but essentially the faster package.

Look at 2006 where Schumacher had to struggle (and ultimately fail) for so many races to catch up, because Alonso is the master of consistency. On the other hand - despite lots of failures and crashes early on - in 2010 Vettel was eventually able to win because he and car were ultimately the fastest.

It's really no different from the even older 10-6-4-3-2-1 system in concept though, only that more people get at least a point.