Sergio Perez, Force India, Silverstone, 2018

New F1 points system could award top 20 finishers

2018 British Grand Prix

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Formula 1 could offer points to the top 20 finishers under new plans being considered by the Strategy Group.

Force India co-owner Vijay Mallya said the group’s meeting on Wednesday included a discussion on extending points to 15th or 20th position.

“They’re considering whether the points system should go all the way down to 20th place, [meaning] every car scores a point if they finished the race,” Mallya told media including RaceFans at Silverstone. “The bottom starts with one point and goes up.”

“Or whether 10th should be extended down to 15th.”

Formula One’s points system has been overhauled many times since the championship began in 1950. Originally, only the top five drivers scored points, a win was worth eight points, and a point was awarded for setting the fastest lap during a race.

Since the most recent change, introduced in 2010, points have been scored by the top 10 drivers in every race. A win is now worth 25 points, and the point for fastest lap was dropped decades ago.

Mallya pointed out that the teams have to pay a fee to the FIA based on how many points they score. “My comment was the fact that considering we have to pay for every point to the FIA that will have to be looked at in parallel.”

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106 comments on “New F1 points system could award top 20 finishers”

  1. It’s not nice to give participation medals, especially after the age of 12.

    1. Why can’t they let every drive lead one lap; their mothers will be proud when they pick them up after their trip.

    2. I’m surprised the proposal doesn’t include an orange slice for each driver too. Bah, Get Off My Lawn!!!

    3. Participation medals work in amateur running competitions because the participants are amateur; most of us know we’re never going to the Olympics for our sport, many of us realise we’ll only ever be middling (or less than middling), and for many people even turning up is a major achievement (let alone completing the distance). In that context, participation medals are a useful incentive and mean something in the lives of those receiving them – as much as winner’s trophies to successful racing drivers do to the drivers.

      F1 teams and drivers are in the equivalent of the Olympics for their sport, they are supposed to be the best and turning up is almost literally table stakes. If there were multiple teams never scoring points (as was the case for much of the 1990s), I’d feel differently. As it stands, extending the points further would be silly, and merely cheapen the reward.

      It doesn’t help that the survey where this was proposed was done spectacularly badly, with coding errors leading to multiple places where questions were asked as if people had agreed to proposals they’d solidly rejected. No satisfactory response was given when the conduct was challenged. As a result, it’s not even as if Liberty can plausibly cite demand from the public, because the public’s responses were systematically misrepresented.

      During the 1993 Concorde Agreement, there was a complicated schedule of payments, that took into account position at half- and full-distance, all the way down to last place. The payments were tiny (a few thousand dollars for last place in a race, if I recall) compared to actual points-scoring, but it was better than nothing and didn’t confuse anyone watching F1 for the sport. It was abandoned when the 2002 version of the Concorde Agreement got agreed, if I recall, but the principle is a worthwhile one to return to – especially in combination with a reasonably high fixed participation reward.

      1. There was no 2002 Concorde Agreement, the document covering that period ran from 1 Jan 1998 to 31 Dec 2007. Payments were linked purely to constructors championship sequence at (previous) year end.

        However you’re right that payment schedules before that were complex, but there were various reasons for that:

        It was before FOM and Bernie Ecclestone’s ownership (came into effect 1998) which is when the Concorde became tripartite – FOM, FIA, teams. Thus FOM owned the ‘pot’ and Ecclestone retained as much as possible…

        Two car teams were mandated throughout the championship, whereas before that single entrants were permitted. That influenced championship standing.

        Reliability was woeful, hence paying money only on the basis of points meant some teams earned nothing in a particular race despite their travel costs etc. Paying ‘start money’ offset that.

        There were up to 43 car entries, so the grid make-up varied massively subject to pre-qualifying. A blanket constructors championship payment structure could not apply.

        Since 1998 there have never been more than 24 cars / 12 teams so a championship-based structure simplified things. The top ten teams get paid – and right now there are ten.

        Don’t confuse points with money – pre-1998 finishing 25th meant no points but some money.

        1. @dietterrencken Thank you for correcting me!

        2. (Take 2)

          @dieterrencken Thank you for your patient and detailed correction.

    4. F1 is also going to require all the teams go out for Pizza and Ice Cream after the races as well. Idiocy. Absolute idiocy.

  2. I would say points for the top 10, especially with current teams is the perfect amount and doesn’t need changing. Even if we had more teams I think the points gaps are just right to reward fast or consistent teams as they are.

    1. ^
      What he said

  3. To what end? What do they hope to achieve by this? Is this just to make teams and drivers feel better by having a non-zero points tally? If yes, maybe the Strategy Group needs reminding these are adults and corporations, they need to take the rough with the smooth.

    P.S. – I’m pretty sure this isn’t an attempt to drum up income by boosting the number of points handed out each weekend, that just seems too tawdry. That said, was that per-point fee revised back in 2010 alongside the increase in points being handed out, or was it kept the same?

    1. Came here to say this. Is there a specific reason to make a change? If there is one thing I absolutely cannot stand, it’s change for change’s sake. I’d like to go through championships for the past several years and see how the outcomes would change with this proposed system.

      1. Perhaps they are just thinking of using the points to quantify the performance of all teams/drivers as opposed to just the top ten, but with a certain top-ten point threshold as the only ones that gain monetary rewards at the end of the year.

        As the current system is now, if 10 drivers fail to score points through the season there is no way to quantify who is better than the other, even if one was 11th consistently in a car that deserves 20th. If 11th had a point value greater than 20th, then Keith would be able to run numbers to let us know if Ericsson really is worth that seat lol.

        I’m warming up to the idea…

        1. But there is. The same way if two drivers are tied on points for the title they do a countback on most wins, if still equal, most runner-ups, if still equal, most thirds, etc. Applied top to bottom.

      2. Liberty did a survey. The construction of it was a total mess. Despite protests from the survey-takers of coding errors, the survey results appear to have been taken seriously.

    2. The idea is to make everyone keep racing hard, because there is always more points to be made by gaining positions. It seems quite sound to me.

      1. You can also get consolidation in a low spot, rather than a fight for 10th.

      2. But aren’t payouts for non-scorers still based on results (among non-scorers?).

      3. A mathematician will agree with you @losd, but a psychologist will immediately prove you wrong.
        When there is an abundance of points then drivers will fight less hard to get the next one.

      4. @losd However, they’re doing that anyway, no? Racing to get into the points and to a maximum effort at that. Wouldn’t there be just as much incentive to not race, and settle, being in the points anyway, especially if they were all getting them?

        1. @robbie yes, if they’re in a position where that is possible, but it isn’t in many cases. Getting a single or even a positions is often viable when 10th is not.

          1. *even a few positions

    3. @phylyp Well currently it’s not so much an issue, but I remember a few years ago when 2 (or even 3 teams) were barely making it into the top 10th. Then one lucky high finish would usually determine the outcome for the whole season. Usually Monaco or some other race with a lot of DNF’s.

      I guess it’s doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but I guess it would be nicer for the backmarker teams to actually have some “fair” fight for points too.

    4. @phylyp what do you mean to what end? To encourage competition and provide a reward for backmarker teams as well. Right now it doesn’t matter if a team finishes every single race in 11th place or dead last, the net result is still zero points.

      How is that fair?

      It’s a great idea and I fully encourage it.

      1. @andrewf1 But consider what else was said –

        Mallya pointed out that the teams have to pay a fee to the FIA based on how many points they score.

        So is this a method of extracting a little more more money from each team right down to the foot of the points table according to their relative success?

        1. @nickwyatt Sounds very plausible. Oh look, another way to reduce the likelihood of newcomers entering the sport.

      2. @andrewf1 – your point (pun intended!) has merit, but bear in mind that this is a season of 20 races, which provides a great leveller.

        I went back and looked at the points scored by drivers in each of the seasons since 2014 (when Mercedes PUs dominated), then also back at the 4 years of Red Bull’s successes, and threw in 2009 for good measure as well, and guess what – each of these seasons except one, there were 18-19 drivers who scored points. The one exception? 2014, when “only” 17 drivers scored points.

        In those same years, the top 9-10 teams scored every year, with 2010-2012 being the one period where 3 teams out of 12 didn’t score points (green Team Lotus/HRT/Virgin/Caterham/Marussia). I’d go out on a limb and say if those teams had earned points, it wouldn’t have altered the outcome of their survival in F1.

        @alianora-la-canta put across his point eloquently.

  4. Robert McKay
    6th July 2018, 18:16

    It’s only race 10 of the season and all the teams have scored points (and other than Williams most have a sensible number), so probably suggests it’s not the most pressing concern right now.

    On the other hand points down to 19th just to humiliate the last guy in the field would be funny.

    1. Agreed. Read my mind.

      And…lol.

  5. Stop DNF-shaming NOW. Equal points for all finishers and non-finishers!

    1. Please, trigger warning for “DNF”

    2. finishism is a plague

    3. How about only getting half points if you finish a lap down?

  6. I actually think it is a good idea as it would make battles further down the grid more exciting. I would probably go for the top 15 though as at least in most races, the last one to finish should not get any points.

    1. I agree. This would promote racing for positions 11-15 and lessen the “maybe we should DNF?”

  7. It would be good to go along with points for all if they could have a celebration and photos like the Haas one for getting 5th place last week all the way down the grid. Or maybe just have like 6 or 8 drivers on the podium.

  8. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Everyone Is A Winner era!VERYONE IS A WINNER

  9. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Everyone Is A Winner era!

  10. Steven Simpson
    6th July 2018, 18:42

    Makes more sense than one person with 0 points being ahead than someone else with 0 points. Could also benefit the consistent midfield drivers show they are better.

  11. I’d still like to see a point for pole and fastest lap.

    The former would increase audiences for qualifying, and the latter could see middle order team s gambling on whether to take a point on track, or make late pit stops for fresh rubber to get one on pace.

    Imagine the lower third of the grid flying around on qualy-style runs toward the end of each race whilst the leaders are nursing their rubber and engines !!!

    1. 5 points for pole
      3 for 2nd on the grid
      1 for 3rd

      1 point for fastest car knocked out in Q1…. just to add a bit of random Bernie spice!

    2. Exactly that, they need to increase the incentives for lower order teams to compete harder especially near the end.

  12. What a ridiculous suggestion. What point would there be to give all the participating drivers points for just finishing a race regardless of the final position? There’s nothing wrong with the current points-system, so absolutely no need to alter it. ”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
    On the other hand, I’d be open to giving points for pole position and the fastest lap of a race like in F2, something like 2 bonus points for pole and 1 for the fastest lap.

    1. Don’t think you need points for pole, with overtakes being so hard, drivers will already try their best to get pole even without points.

      It’s the fastest lap that often goes to some team other than the fastest on track, which could use an incentive.

  13. Double points at the season finale in Bahrain with the top 20 drivers scoring points. Four DRS zones with up to a 2-second gap to trigger each one. Points for fastest lap on each tyre type, and points for most interesting lap (spins, overtakes, dicing). Constructor-only points for the fastest pit stop.

    /s, just in case it wasn’t obvious.

    1. @tribaltalker
      Seriously though, Points for fastest lap and fastest pit stop would be good, maybe a separate title for both?

      1. @9chris9 – there is a precedent, we already have a prize for the driver with most pole positions in a season. But the “fastest lap” point is dangerous when a dominant car comes along. Maybe (in the spirit of ridiculous ideas) we should award a point to the driver with the fastest lap only if they do not also win the race? This makes it even harder for the casual viewer to understand F1 and enhances its “arcane rules” reputation. Winner!

    2. And we have a winner! Anything from the top shelf TribalTalker!

    3. You missed out Points for the Prettiest Pit Crew . . .

      1. Robert McKay
        6th July 2018, 23:17

        I am half surprised that rather than more and more DRS zones, there hasn’t been a move to just extend the activation window of existing ones.

        1. I think the intent of this is to ensure that rather than handing an advantage to the chaser for a very long period of time (making an overtake more possible), having multiple zones allows the chased a better chance at recouping and possibly driving ahead of DRS. That would help tip some of the balance back in the chased car’s favour.

  14. Cue Oprah– You get a point! And you get a point! Everyooooonnnnne gets a pooooooooint!

  15. Jonathan Parkin
    6th July 2018, 19:12

    What if a driver doesn’t actually start. Is he going to get a point for essentially free

    1. You have to be classified to be eligible for points – that much isn’t going to change.

      1. Ahh, give him a point, you might hurt his feelings.

        1. Fraction of points depending on the duration of the race he took part in, so for example hamilton in austria would get 0,88 points or so!

  16. I’m all for it. We used to see back in the days of Manor/Caterham/HRT that one fluke result due to a lot of retirements could give a team a lucky point which all but guaranteed their 10th place finish despite not being the best team over the season. This way drivers/teams are rewarded for consistently finishing ahead of their rivals whether they are fighting for 3rd place or 13th place.

  17. I have been thinking about this for years and to me it’s a good thing. As long as you adjust the point scale accordingly of course. The problem is not in the upper end of the grid (which is what most people care about I suspect) but at the tail-end and mid-field.

    With the current system, a single 10th place finish is worth more over a season than if a driver finishes 11th in every single race. That is just stupid to me, because after you manage to finish 10th once there is no meaning for you to overtake anyone or even get to the finish unless you finish 10th or higher again. There should be something to gain by taking one more position in every race, even if it’s a fight over 17th or whatever. Points all the way down would also motivate teams to take their cars to the finish rather than pulling over with a few laps to go just because they are “outside the points”.

    I would make the points scale something like this: 40, 34, 30, 26, 23, 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That’s one point increase for every position between 20th-11th, then double that for taking positions in the top-10, 3 points for every position in the top-5, 4 in the top-3 and finally 6 for winning rather than being 2nd. Just like the current system the scale ramps up towards the top end, it just starts further down to give a more interesting and fair fight among the slower teams. It dosn’t have to be exactly like this, it’s just my example.

    Also remember that the teams are fighting over millions in manufacturers prize money, that should not be decided by one bottom team finishing 10th or 9th by luck because of a race where many of the top cars fail to finish, but by their actual relative pace to their closest rivals over the season. At least that’s my view of it.

    1. I really like your idea!

    2. Robert – that’s a very nicely made and illustrated point, and it has changed my mind about this proposal (provided it is done right, similar to how you’ve laid it out). You might want to just expand it to the 26 cars allowed by the FIA on a grid.

      Very nice point about this encouraging teams to run to the finish instead of “saving the car”.

  18. In defense of the proposal from a sporting standpoint, awarding points through 20th place allows the points standings from the midfield on back to be a more representative picture of the actual performance of a team over the course of the season. As it is, with a cutoff at 10th place, a fluke result from a midfield team can propel a team up the standings far more disproportionately than amongst the frontrunners.

    Plus, as @mike-dee points out, making every position points-paying means that every fight for position counts for points, which can’t hurt the action. I also like seeing the top drivers and teams grind out finishes on their bad days, knowing that the points gained from each overtake to pull themselves up to 14th or 12th may make all the difference in the championship at the end of the year.

  19. So there would exist a scenario where a driver requires only 1 point to seal the championship and trundles around slowly just trying to finish last and not retiring.

    1. They can do that now by finishing tenth

  20. I do think see this as rewarding participation, more it’s rewarding consistency.

    The way the current structure works (outside of the points) is the first driver/team to hit the highest (non points) position first sits above any other non point scoring driver. If this driver in his first race of the season manages 11th, then finishes last for the remainder of the season, makes this unfair for those who have consistently finished in 12th for the remainder of the season.

    Looking back at the 2016 season, this could have made a huge difference in the Manor/Sauber battle throughout the season and may have seen manor remain on the grid for 2017.

  21. The one consequence no one really seems to think or care about:
    If you award points for up to 20 finishers, you’re introducing a step between the last finisher and the non-finishers that grows with every car that fails to finish the race. That may look like an academic problem at first sight, but it can result in situations that reward finishing the race much more than fighting for wins.
    Let’s assume F1 chooses to implement an IndyCar-like points system that starts at 50 for first place and works its way down to 20th place in slowly decreasing steps (e.g. 50-40-35-30-26-22-19-16-14-12-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). The first consequence is that it inevitably diminishes the reward of finishing directly ahead of another competitor (this might not hold true for 1st vs. 2nd place, as this gap is, for questionable reasons, considered much more meaningful than all the others, but the further you go down the order, the more noticeable it gets).
    Now, this system works just fine if 20 cars see the chequered flag in every race. The thing is: They usually don’t. And every once in a while, things get a little crazy. Take Melbourne ’08, for example, or Spa ’98, with 8 classified drivers each.
    In Spa ’98, David Coulthard limped home in 7th place, 5 laps adrift, after (in)famously getting in Michael Schumacher’s way while getting lapped, while Mika Häkkinen, the third championship contender, was eliminated in a first-corner incident.
    By finishing 7th, Coulthard would’ve gained 19 points (under my interpretation of the new system) on both Schumacher and Häkkinen, who scored no points at all. Which would (approximately) be the equivalent of the difference between:
    – 1st and 4th
    – 2nd and 6th
    – 3rd and 8th
    – 4th and 10th
    – 5th and 14th
    – 6th and 18th
    – 7th and anyone outside the top 20 (obviously)

    Or, if you don’t like the Coulthard example, take Nakano (8th, also 5 laps down, also involved in a spectacular accident that caused another retirement). 16 points for him, a points haul that would be tremendously difficult to compensate for all other drivers in similar cars. The season was just 16 races long, so his team mate could’ve theoretically finished ahead of him in all other races of that season without being able to outscore him.

    My point is that such a system diminishes the importance of actively scoring points, placing a much higher emphasis on not falling prey of a DNF for whatever reason. With every car that fails to finish the race, the last car on the track gains an advantage over his unlucky colleagues that quickly outgrows the advantage of actually beating another car in a race, even by several positions.
    We’ve had two races with 14 classified finishers so far this season, so the last classified driver would’ve outscored 6 other drivers by 7 points in those races. Which wouldn’t be too far off the difference between 1st and 2nd place.

    In other words, it’s a system that works fairly well when reliability is not something that usually matters, and as long as you focus on the drivers that regularly fight for the top spots. As soon as attrition starts to play a role and if you look at the cars further down the order, the points simply cease to correlate with performance and begin to pattern with reliability. The reliability of other cars, that is.

    Long story short: It’s a nonsensical proposal that aims to fix something that isn’t really broken.

    1. Good point and very well explained

    2. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
      6th July 2018, 21:38

      Great insight there Nase fair play

    3. Good point. Ideally, the points rewards should decline exponentially with result, which leads to very high rewards for the winner (remember when the top 8 scored points a win was awarded with only 10 points instead of 25). Still, if the system is designed to more accurately represent the order of the back-markers, it will not work because, as you say, the system is very sensitive to the number of finishers. This proposed system won’t fix anything and may instead make the standings even less representative.

    4. It is an interesting question that should be looked into, but I don’t think it would be any worse than the current or past systems. This should be quite easy to test, just plug in any new suggested points system to the results of a few seasons that have already past and see how things would have changed.

      My guess is that because there would be more points on the table, in total over a season, it would hurt you less if you fail to score since the points “lost” would be a smaller percentage of the total available.

    5. My my, I’d just read Robert’s comment above and was swayed by his nice argument, and here you come up with a compelling counterpoint.

      I do hope that the Strategy Group models their proposal against the results of the past 2 decades or so, to see if changes in position better reflect the expert opinion of said team’s performance, before going ahead with it. If it is Liberty pushing this through, however, I’d be a bit nervous as they seem to prefer doing things bass ackwards.

  22. I don’t like this at all. Every driver finishing should not automatically get points.

  23. 16 points for him, a points haul that would be tremendously difficult to compensate for all other drivers in similar cars. The season was just 16 races long, so his team mate could’ve theoretically finished ahead of him in all other races of that season without being able to outscore him.

    How is this any different from the current system with a cutoff at 10th place? At least under the proposed system, his teammate would have the opportunity to continue to outscore him over the course of the season even while running in the midfield or worse.

    1. Meant to thread this reply to @nase.

    2. @markzastrow It’s different because in the current system, there are usually multiple finishers who also don’t score points. It means it’s no longer enough to merely finish the race to get a huge jump on a mid-field team-mate; it is necessary to also fight to be better than average (this being defined as the average of the entire field including the non-finishers).

      1. But @nase’s argument was citing the case of a lucky driver getting a big points haul by finishing when lots of people above him fall out—which can happen under either system. With a cutoff of 10th place, you can luck into a single point one race, then finish 20th the rest of the season while your teammate finishes 11th and still beat them at the end of the year.

        But if points were awarded down to 20th, you would be rightly trounced in the standings. That 16 point gap is not big at all when even a 13th place nets you 8 points (as in @nase’s own example).

        1. @markzastrow The current system, on the other hand, does not produce that effect merely because of a DNF compared to a non-DNF, because anything worse than an average performance will score exactly the same number of points as a DNF. I consider that an improvement over a scenario where finishing a race where 6 people broke down creates an insuperable barrier to a team-mate matching one’s performance.

  24. #SlowestTeamsLifeMatter
    #ParticipationMedals
    top teams must are triggered and midfield teams are likely triggered

  25. Has this been confirmed by any other team principles or independent parties – after all . . . Vijay Mallya is such an honest and believable character.

    Aside for that – if this is being considered, as long as the points difference for gaining a place merit the driver fighting to take that place then that’s fine by me.

    1. @ahxshades Autosport confirmed it at the time of implementation, probably after consulting with the F1 Sporting Regulations, (what is now) Appendix 7. The base fee is $516,128, and there is a US$6194 surcharge for each point earned in the previous season for the champion and US$5161 surcharge for each point forevery other team. Last year, charges ranged from US$541,933 for Sauber (5 points, not champion) to US$4,653,720 for Mercedes (668 points, champion).

      For a team like Force India, with an unusually high points performance (187 last year) in relation to its income (floating around US$120 m) it’s quite a concern to have the prospect of an increased entry fee arising from participation points. After all, it already paid US$1,507,040, last year.

      It could be worse than it sounds for some teams, because the fee is due on November 30 and the F1 season ends on the last weekend of November. If you unexpectedly score lots of points in Abu Dhabi and your cashflow is tight, it could spell doom for the team. Imagine if you were Sauber, on its $105m or so, all the money had been spent on 2019 car development, and your drivers suddenly decided Abu Dhabi was a great place to get a 1-2 – which under this system is also known as a success bill of US$221,923 – five days before payment of the entry fee was due. The additional money from improving constructor’s position is useless at that point because it doesn’t vest until completing the following season. And no, you can’t pay the entry fee in advance if you expect to participate in every race, because the entire entry fee must accompany the entry for the entry to be valid…

  26. Like PC sports day. Everyones a winner, its the taking part that counts, rewarding poor performance. How about top 5 only can score points, let the losers suffer.

  27. I think that, if anything, 10 point scoring positions is already too high for so few participants. Originally it was put in place when the new teams arrived in 2010. Now with 20 cars, 50% of them are rewarded and it’s borderline for me… More would be even worse.

    1. Final point for sixth place. end of story.

  28. I liked the system where only the top 6 got points.

    The incentive to win was way bigger imho

  29. For one, many other competitions give points to every contestants – ie sailing.
    It may make sense in Nascar, as overtaking is possible ans less costly than in F1.
    I fear that there will be no further incentive fo a challenge in lower positions.

  30. At first I was please no, no way this is good move. But as I was writing this post I noticed I was just trying to justify the current system in my head while all the things that came to my mind were actually positive. That being said the top 10 getting points is already very generous considering it is half of the grid in size.

    Maybe this change would inspire the backmarkers to race harder? Typically the gaps are very big outside of top 10 because you have people with technical and other car issues who are just trying to finish the race. I mean I’d guess it is possible you’d have more on track battles on the back of the grid when they have something to fight for? It would definitely not hurt the show if all the cars had incentive to keep fighting until the checkered flag. Even if it was for 17th position. Plus if you had have fast cars out of positions somewhere in p16 and getting to p14 might be just possible. So of course it would be fun to see if they can make it. And get all the points they can get. When top10 are just getting points you could just as well park the car when you are p16 or p14. If everybody gets points then every position matters and you’d no longer see the hamiltons asking to park the car when they are outside top10 with no hope of points.

    One thing I’m not sure is how good this would be for the championship. The last thing I’d want to see is that the championship leader needs to finish 18th to win the dwc in the last race. What a disappointing end to the season that would be.

  31. What they really should bring back is a more progressive drop of points.

    In the nineties you’d get 10 points for a win and only 60% of that for P2. Nowadays it’s 72%.

    A while back (mid to end 2000’s) it was even 80% for a P2, in a “Bernie’s effort” to keep the championship open till the last race. In practice this made it almost impossible to claw back a deficit once a driver had gotten a lead (mostly by a DNF for the competitor).

    Having the points drop off more should encourage drivers to fight for position rather than just finish the race. Although they would first need to fix the aero and tyres to allow actual fighting again.

  32. Sergey Martyn
    6th July 2018, 21:21

    Don’t forget to award 20th driver with a tiny champagne bottle from minibar and a trophy – though like Mr. Bean has said – a microscopic one.

  33. I can pretty much see the value in this, right now battle for 15th is pointless. But with. New system awarding points for P20… That would promote racing.

    Right now I am sure teams with nothing to gain order their drivers to take it easy if they are not near P10.

    Also remove blue flags.

  34. The most stupid proposal since 1950..

  35. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    6th July 2018, 22:04

    I think this might be a good idea, because it helps separate teams/drivers at the lower end on overall pace not a fluke result. The points have changed so much that it doesn’t even make it like a everyone wins because they’ve lost their rarity so extending them isn’t going to change much there.

  36. Loads of great ideas and analysis, but I haven’t seen any discussion on what is the overall motivation for pitching this.
    One thought is that Liberty desperately wants more teams and entrants. Who in their right mind would invest the $$$ just to be at the back of the field and fighting it out for a “pointless” last place…..and no money.
    Yes, points down to 15th or 20th will provide some recognition and ultimate overall classification for new teams at the back of the field, but unless they revise the payout to see that they get money at the end of the season, there will ALWAYS be the issue that the last placed two (or three) teams go broke.

  37. Daniel (@collettdumbletonhall)
    6th July 2018, 22:17

    If it ain’t broke…

    The current points system is fine but I can’t believe that they have to pay for points they receive. What sort of system is that? Bizarre.

    1. @collettdumbletonhall – for the top teams, the payment is often a drop in their vast bucket even considering the points they rake in, especially alongside the intangible marketing benefits of finishing that high up.

      As we move away from the big teams, I agree that it increasingly becomes a penalty. That said, teams already have an basic entry cost of half a million USD without even bringing the points into the equation (see @alianora-la-canta‘s comment above).

  38. Although I have derided this in the comments above, in a way I can quite see the point of this and it exemplifies the difference between the amateur and professional sides of motorsport.
    I go to quite a lot of club racing and I’m always surprised and entertained by a hard-fought battle for fifteenth place which will pay no points dividend, but engages the drivers involved immensely, stokes their egos and entertains the spectators.
    Next, let’s look at F1 or indeed any class of racing where resources are restricted. “What’s the point of me trundling around in fifteenth place and using up engine mileage that might be needed towards the end of the season where I could find myself in 11th position and use my ‘newer’ engine to pick up a valuable point. I might be better of retiring from this race and hoping for better next time out.”
    So to counter that resource restricted argument and encourage racing all the way down the places, the Strategy Group propose points all the way down to the foot of the table.
    No. Points for finishers at the flag only, please. I would not want to see a driver in a race of high attrition pull into the pits and still bag a haul of points.
    Teams pay a levy at the end of the season on the number of points accrued? “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”. What for? It can only be to earn from the success of the previous season, and I can’t quite equate that with a the desire to have level playing field at the start of the next season. From this perspective, it only looks like some sort of ‘success tax’, a financial success ballast by another name withe proposed carrot of points down to the bottom of the board. Daft.

  39. Claire Williams approves.

  40. Do I get any points for watching? If 20th place gets one i want one too.

  41. Lyle Clarke
    7th July 2018, 1:00

    THE FANS DON’T WANT IT SO PLEASE DON’T DO IT. Simple.

  42. Finally

  43. *shakes cane* Back in my day, only SIX drivers scored points and the winner scored nearly TWICE as many points as second place!

    Anyway, I see no reason to change the points system. However, I am open to rewarding one point for pole position and, if the driver is at least a classified finisher, one point for fastest lap.

  44. Not a good idea, it should be an achievement to score points. It’s a good story that Leclerc has finished in the points in 5 of the past 6 races. Likewise if Williams score this weekend. It all becomes a tad meaningless if points are handed out simply for finishing.

  45. The way it currently is in F1 is perfectly fine. I feel like the way it is in MotoGP with down to 15th is perfect. But there they have 24 riders on the grid so I am not sure it would be good for F1. Well if they manage to increase the grid then it would be good I think.

    When MotoGP had only a small grid in the late 2008 to about 2012 or something, with sometimes only 17 riders on the grid, it was very awkward to see guys given points in 15th place. Especially since very often some rider DNFd. So yeah I agree with most here. Giving everyone points just for finishing with down to 20th place is stupid. I feel like you need between at least 5 and 10 riders/drivers more on the grid at the start of a rac than you giving out points. So like in MotoGP it is 15+9 -> Perfect. In F1 it is currently 10+10 nearly perfect since I would like to see a bigger grid.

    Finally I would like to see it extended to 15th if they commit to increase the grid by about two teams.

  46. And, in addition to extending points to the top 20, perhaps we could add trophies for fourth and fifth place, and invite them up to the podium.

  47. The proposal would only make points cheaper, and with more points on the table more drivers will be “I’ll keep the points I have” instead of “IIII HHHAAAVVVEE TTTOOOO GGGEETTT TTTEEENNNTTTHHH”, meaning at most less racing in the midfield (it’s probably not actually going to change much in that respect but like many others here I don’t see how that’s going to get drivers more motivated to race).

    When BUT, VET, VES etc became the youngest drivers to score points, that really meant something. Somewhere between showing up and a weekend like Monza 2008. And that was when winners were already awarded duble-digit points.

    With this proposal that’s just not the case anymore.

    Plus much like people like underdog victories I like flukishly high results from underdogs from time to time to really have meaning as well

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