Who can race in F1 in 2016? Revised superlicence points totals

31 comments on “Who can race in F1 in 2016? Revised superlicence points totals”

1. 

   BasCB (@bascb)
   15th July 2015, 12:18

   Interesting to see the overview. So its possible more drivers will be added for the next year based on this years results then?
2. 

   terry
   15th July 2015, 12:20

   Another list showing which current drivers wouldn’t be eligible for a super license at their debut if this system had been in effect would be interesting to see.
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      15th July 2015, 12:25

      That hasn’t changed a great deal from when we looked at it before:

      http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/01/06/new-superlicence-rules-barred-ten-drivers-last-five-years/

      The most significant change, Sainz, is mentioned in this companion piece which has just gone up:

      http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2015/07/15/the-winners-from-f1s-superlicence-points-change/

      Of course once you try to extend this kind of analysis back more than a few years you hit the problem of there being many championships which don’t exist any more.
3. 

   Ciaran (@ciaran)
   15th July 2015, 12:35

   Overall I still think this is a good idea. It would eliminate the lowest levels of pay drivers (not that it’d stop the complaining about supposed pay drivers but you could write a book on that) and ensure that everyone entering F1 is already at a high standard, as it should be for motorsport’s peak.
4. 

   Tango (@tango)
   15th July 2015, 12:35

   I have to say, there are no names in this list who currently are elligible or probably will be considering recent form and projected result, who would be a disgrace in F1. I still don’t like the system (there are non elligible people who could be F1 ready) but at least if you look at the list, it most probably won’t yield any bad drivers in F1 at least for next year
5. 

   N
   15th July 2015, 12:54

   If Maldonado can have one, they might as well just hand them out with boxes of Kelloggs.
   1. 

      hey (@hey)
      15th July 2015, 18:21

      teehee/10
6. 

   Gridlock (@gridlock)
   15th July 2015, 13:18

   I’d like to see a guaranteed F1 seat (or several..) available to the winner of a feeder series, be that GP2 or the new one. If we can’t change the financial reasons for ‘pay drivers’ getting races then at least it would bypass these and bring in fresh, qualified blood each year.
   1. 

      Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
      15th July 2015, 14:20

      @gridlock Interesting: I like the sentiment but I strongly disagree with the principle. And the latter is why I don’t like the superlicence points system.

      Who the teams put in their cars is a sporting decision and it should be theirs and theirs alone. I accept that, for safety reasons, the FIA may need to play a role in determining that the driver they choose is competent enough to race in F1. But it’s not the FIA’s job to decide who is competitive enough to race in F1.

      If teams are choosing drivers because of their funding instead of their abilities, the FIA should address the root causes of that problem. But, as we’ve seen time and time again, they prefer to try to force teams to do otherwise with vast and complex new rules, of which this is a particularly clear example. I doubt it will bring much benefit for F1 or motor racing in general, besides making FIA-administered series more attractive to junior drivers, which appears to be the real purpose of this exercise.
   2. 

      CountryGent (@countrygent)
      15th July 2015, 15:00

      @gridlock I agree with @keithcollantine: an aspiration to aid young drivers is always beneficial but in this case the logistics would be challenging, and it may for instance overlook an absence of true competition in a series in a particular year (i.e. Valsecchi’s GP2 championship in 2012 came with a thoroughly underwhelming grid of competitors).

      I do however think the links between the junior categories and F1 should be stronger; I particularly like the way FIA F3 and FR3.5 give the champion/championship-leader an F1 test. Perhaps this will be the case to a greater extent when the FIA launches its F2 series.

      Guaranteeing a super-license for championship winners may be an alternative to guaranteeing an F1 seat, but that would effectively through a match on the entire points system anyway (not that that’s a bad thing). The only conclusion that is possible to reach is that F1 team want to go as fast as possible, and will therefore make it their business to ensure the very best driving talent is in their car, Q.E.D. no need for FIA intervention.
   3. 

      Dan Brown (@danbrown180)
      15th July 2015, 15:14

      Perhaps what we need is a way for teams to be able to step up more easily as well as drivers. To use a football analogy, players can be promoted from Championship teams to the Premiership through a transfer, or they can move into the Premiership with their team.

      I’m not saying they *have* to do it, but maybe there should be some form of structure in place to help those teams that are ready to make the step up?
7. 

   Corey
   15th July 2015, 13:38

   I’ld liked to see the drivers age on here as well. While there are many drivers that have achieved the 40 point thresh hold, alot of them are veteran drivers in their series and are unlikely to even race next year. Is it possible to have a list of say, 25 and under drivers, showing us who can potentially be an F1 driver?
   1. 

      ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
      15th July 2015, 16:16

      Would like to see that too…
      Looks like the eligible driver under 23 by Australia 2016 are just two driver: Felix Rosenqvist &
      Alex Lynn.
      Maybe F1 community should embrace veteran rookie like Tom Kristensen (age 48) ?
   2. 

      Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
      15th July 2015, 20:05

      No surprise that it’s Vandoorne, Marciello, Lynn, Evans, Ocon (all recent junior champions). McLaren junior, Ferrari junior, Williams tester, Webber’s protege, Mercedes development driver. Vandoorne is Button’s protege and might replace him next year at McLaren, after winning GP2.
8. 

   CountryGent (@countrygent)
   15th July 2015, 14:40

   So for Pascal Wehrlein, Dean Stoneman and possibly even Marvin Kirchhöfer, the F1 dream does appear to be over (unless the former is parachuted into the Manor to do the requisite five grands prix to qualify for a super-license before the iron curtain comes down in 2016). That is abhorrent. The fact that system does not appear to deny a driver with a realistic chance of seat in 2016 is beside the point: when have teams in the modern era ever overestimated the abilities of a young driver? It amuses me that Verstappen, the unquestionable catalyst for this system, continues to prove that it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

   Very soon an ineligible driver will be deemed as being worthy of a seat – either because they bring a budget that could rejuvenate a crippled team, or because their career has not followed the incredible biases of the points system – what will happen then? Team liquidation and/or court cases appear the likely outcomes. As for Maldonado and Ericsson, I would imagine they feel pretty safe in their seats.

   In every other major series in the world, common sense and competitive motivations regulate driver allocations. Why has that safety net suddenly become insufficient for F1?

   It hasn’t, the FIA has simply decided it would like to control international single seater racing by driving series like GP3 and FR3.5 in the ground.
   1. 

      Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
      15th July 2015, 15:04

      I wouldn’t rule Stoneman out. He had a very strong GP3 last year and a good FR3.5 this year and next could see him secure the 40 points needed.
      1. 

         Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
         15th July 2015, 22:08

         @craig-o Indeed: If he finishes where he is already he’ll be on 30, he’s only a few points off third which would leave him on 35, and after that he’d only have to come back again in 2016 after finish in the top six to hit 40.
      2. 

         CountryGent (@countrygent)
         16th July 2015, 8:24

         @craig-o @keithcollantine He is just about to turn 25; I think it is highly unlikely that he will be in a seat in 2016 that will enable him to reach the 40 point mark.
         1. 

            Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
            16th July 2015, 11:22

            @countrygent Dillmann’s 26 and he’s in FR3.5 this year. Given the particular setbacks Stoneman suffered earlier in his career if anyone’s going to be cut some slack on this point it should be him.
   2. 

      anon
      15th July 2015, 18:29

      @countrygent, would you say that, for example, McLaren made a mistake in hiring Perez when, in retrospect, even Perez admits that he probably lacked the experience to compete at McLaren that year? I’d argue that teams do often make mistakes on driver selection more routinely than you think.

      As for Maldonado, well, his career stats means that he would comfortably surpass the required minimum points threshold anyway – for all the abuse he gets, he is a GP2 champion and finished in the top 3 in Formula Renault 3.5, which is not exactly a bad finishing record.
      1. 

         Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
         15th July 2015, 19:59

         What’s the mistake? McLaren got $5m in the deal and wouldn’t have gained anything in the WCC if there was a better driver in the car, as the car sucked. Perez thought he was moving for something like the 2012 car..
      2. 

         CountryGent (@countrygent)
         15th July 2015, 20:30

         I actually agree, I think it was a mistake. I think McLaren read too much into his podium finishes and made the mistake of not noticing Hulkenberg’s more consistent but often equally impressive efforts in a comparably weaker car. Yes, they got a handy $5m from Telmex, but they didn’t need cash (they’d just made $30m when Mercedes bought back their stake in McLaren), with Button’s shelf-life pushing on, McLaren needed a new team leader. Sorry, @fastiesty.

         Ferrari made the same mistake a year later when they opted for Kimi rather than the Hulk. We are actually seeing F1 teams struggling to perceive the abilities of drivers that are already in F1 more than those racing in the junior categories.

         I think Maldonado’s promotion was instigated by his budget but justified by his GP2 championship. I think his junior results require a substantial addition of salt. For instance, his 2010 GP2 title was his fourth season racing in GP2. In 2006 he would have won the FR3.5 title had he not lost a fifth place at Misano following a disqualification for a technical irregularity. But, it was one of the weakest grids of competitors in FR3.5 history. Not remotely shabby, but not especially remarkable either.
         1. 

            anon
            15th July 2015, 21:47

            @countrygent, although I do think that Hulkenberg is a very good driver, I would actually argue that there was a certain amount of logic for teams to look beyond Hulkenberg in 2012 and 2013.

            In both of those years, Hulkenberg actually made relatively poor starts to the year which then hampered his efforts to then secure a better drive. Rather than being consistent, I would argue that Hulkenberg’s performance actually tended to peak towards the end of the season, usually after most of the major teams had already decided on their line ups for the following year.

            If we take 2012 as an example, We know from McLaren and Perez that the agreement to sign Perez was made shortly after the Singapore GP, although negotiations between the two sides had been going on for some time.

            At the time the deal between McLaren and Perez was signed, Hulkenberg was sitting in 14th place in the WDC with 33 points, whilst di Resta was in 11th and had clocked up 44 points in the same period.
            Furthermore, di Resta had actually finished in the points slightly more frequently than Hulkenerg (eight times to six for Hulkenerg) and had a higher average finishing position than Hulkenberg too – when it came to comparing the two at that time, Hulkenberg wasn’t comparing particularly favourably against di Resta.

            It was only in the final quarter of the season that Hulkenberg had a persistent run of points finishes, with nearly half of his points (30) coming in five races towards the end of the year. The problem is, by the time that Hulkenberg put in his best results that year, all of the major teams had already finalised their line up for the following year, effectively limiting him to the sideways move to Sauber.

            In 2013, Hulkenberg was afflicted by the fact that the Sauber C32 was, to begin with, a difficult car to set up, and Hulkenberg was caught at times losing his temper with the mechanics – there was an incident after the Australian GP where he was heard attacking the car and the team after the race, and occasionally appearing to be a little difficult to work with (whether he was or not was somewhat irrelevant, because the perception alone caused problems).

            That, to a certain extent, seems to have made Ferrari a little wary when dealing with him, even though they were known to be interested in him. Again, there was also the problem that, although Hulkenberg may have had a strong finish to the 2012 season, by the Hungarian GP – where Ferrari broke off talks with him – Hulkenberg’s profile had begun to drop again given he’d only scored five points by that point and appeared to be struggling a little.
   3. 

      Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
      15th July 2015, 20:12

      @countrygent I can see Stoneman and Kirchhofer getting 40 points this year and a 3 year grace period at least, but Wehrlein will be the test of the FIA’s ‘exemption’ system. He would have finished top 2 in F3 with Marciello, but Mercedes pulled him out early to start DTM instead. Maybe the money they saved (half a million quid?) the FIA will now want to finally collect to ‘help them decide’??

      Wehrlein is a talent, I wonder if Mercedes are planning for him and Ocon to eventually replace Hamilton and Rosberg, in which case, there’s no rush to get them into F1 and gaining experience.
9. 

   PeterG
   15th July 2015, 15:09

   So under this new system 7 current F1 drivers woudl be ineligible for a super license.

   I also notice that Mark Webber who raced in F1 for 12 years & scored 13 poles & won 9 races is also currently not eligible which just shows how utterly absurd this system is.

   This system is simply not needed, Its a stupid system that in the long term is going to hurt far more than it helps. There are a couple exceptionally talented drivers in the list who currently won’t qualify for a license, Dean Stoneman for example, He’s one of the best drivers in any of the lower categories right now & is down on points because he missed a year or 2 of racing due to suffering from cancer but has been stunning in GP2 since coming back to racing… He deserve’s a shot at F1 more than a dozen of the drivers who are eligible for a super license (Jolyon Palmer who he beat to the F2 title just prior to his diagnosis).

   When you have real talent’s in the junior categories as well as very good current & race winning former F1 drivers not qualifying for a super license under this system then its clearly a bad system!
   1. 

      Craig Woollard (@craig-o)
      15th July 2015, 15:39

      Mark Webber would be eligible, as he has competed in at least 15 Grand Prix within the last three years.
10. 

    David (@wushumr2)
    15th July 2015, 17:45

    I had a long post because I’m procrastinating on a big paper, but I’m cutting it down to size. The TL;DR (too long, DON’T read :P) version will come first.

    As a solution to what is clearly an absolute outrage (Jolyon Palmer and Davide Valsecchi not having drives in F1), I therefore suggest a rule that no driver can stay in F1 for more than 12 seasons. Immediately Massa, Button, Alonso and Raikkonen are gone immediately and there’s room for four new drivers. The next driver to have to leave would be Rosberg after the 2017 season, but at least you’ve now go some room to try new drivers. The next two to leave would be Hamilton and Vettel (if you count partial seasons), and after that it’s pretty much anyone’s game as no one else has been in F1 even close to long enough to hit that ceiling.

    Coupled with that, no driver can bring more than…hmmm…$7.5 million in personal sponsorship money? $5 seems lower than what even reasonable drivers have brought in the recent past, but feel free to adjust it based on your own conceptualization.

    Longer Version:

    I’d say that everyone should go take a look at the list of GP2 drivers who have made it to F1. From the 2011 GP2 season onward, only six drivers–Bianchi, Chilton, Gutierrez, Ericsson, Nasr, and Pic–graduated to F1 in four years of that series (leaving Grosjean aside). The previous six seasons saw 20 drivers graduate to F1, or 3:1 ratio, which is slightly more than double the rate seen since 2011. Of those six, only three–Bianchi, Gutierrez, and Nasr–were in the top 3 for the season (and interestingly enough, all three were placed 3rd). Nasr is doing very well and was DoW for Australia, but it’s clearly not your ultimate results which count. Considering careers can last quite a while, one could argue that GP2 at least is doing its job: seven GP2 alums are still racing as of 2015, and it would have been eight had Bianchi not had his crash in Japan. That’s nearly a third of all GP2 graduates still racing ten years later.

    I honestly think making a big deal out of the situation in F1 is ridiculous: how many stand-out rookies have people been talking about in NASCAR or Indycar lately? (I honestly don’t know). People like Jeff Gordon have been racing there for twenty years, and hell drivers used to compete for points in the Nationwide series as well! Talk about a crowded field! Indy doesn’t seem any different to that, with some of those guys having been there for as long as I can remember.

    Why this appears to be a serious problem with F1 is that there are only 20 cars on the grid, a field of which a third has been on the grid for eight years or longer, and 2 or 3 feeder series (GP2, FR3.5, maybe F3) whereas series like NASCAR and Indycar only have one.
    1. 

       Sonics (@sonicslv)
       15th July 2015, 19:29

       @wushumr2 Funny that your tl;dr version is only like 5 lines shorter than the long version :P

       Anyway, I disagree with you because F1 is a sport and one that people still agree as the best motor racing series in the world. It’s obvious that the competition is high and not everyone will make it, but every competition is like that. We not gonna start limiting, say tennis players, to only have like 12 appearance in Wimbledon just to make room for new bloods.

       Yes, F1 has more situation called pay drivers that makes it looks like there are a lot more worthy people that deserves a seat except they don’t have big sponsors, but I think actually it’s too exaggerated. On every season we probably only have 2 bad pay drivers and they are usually in bottom teams, so in the big picture, their impact on the F1 “true” competition is minimal. Also not all pay driver is bad, for every Chilton there’s also Alonso. You even say Nasr is doing well and its obvious Sauber pick him mainly for the money he bring first. Lastly, if you’re that good, the teams will find a way to get you into F1. Raikkonen, Hamilton, and Verstappen is the proof of that.

       You talked about F1 grid is stale (I’m paraphrasing your last paragraph here), but I don’t think it’s bad. Should Hamilton quit F1 because he reached age 30 instead of beaten by younger drivers? I think it’s the job of Perez, Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Ricciardo, Verstappen and the rest of “young” drivers to prove they are faster than Hamilton, Rosberg, Alonso, Button, Massa and the rest of “old” drivers. And frankly, I think the “old” drivers is still better than the “new” ones.
11. 

    JMLabareda (@jmlabareda)
    15th July 2015, 21:47

    Given that Alexander Rossi has consistently been linked with Haas – he still needs to finish well placed in this years GP2 champs to get his license?
12. 

    Tiago Sá
    16th July 2015, 2:33

    Anthony Davidson back to F1 please!
13. 

    JC
    16th July 2015, 11:28

    If they do have a Saturday sprint race, it would be nice for it to be at least 1 car per team, and a bunch of GP2/3 etc winners in the seats. Lottery, paid for, fan-chosen … whatever. It’s the only way a sprint race would fit into the F1 weekend. Leave the main drivers to qualifying and the GP on Sundays.

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