From 8 points for a win to 25: Every F1 scoring system

2010 F1 season

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The new F1 points system, which will give 25 points for a win next year, has provoked much debate and criticism.

Points in F1 have produced strange situations in the past. At one race seven drivers shared a single point. Other drivers have found themselves unable to score points in a race due to a quirk of the rules. And two drivers failed to win world championships despite scoring the most points during a season.

The new points system may not be perfect, but it’s certainly an improvement on what we had before. Here’s how the points system has changed over the years.

1950: Top five score, eight for a win

PositionPoints
18
26
34
43
52

The driver who set fastest lap during the race scored an extra point

The first F1 race winners got eight points – equal to what second place has been worth since 2003. Next year drivers will get eight points for finishing fifth.

Attempting to give a point to the driver who set the fastest lap was thwarted by 1950s lap timing technology. At the 1954 British Grand Prix seven drivers were credited with the best lap time of 1’50, the timekeepers being unable to measure their lap time any more accurately.

So the single point was shared between Alberto Ascari, Jean Behra, Juan Manuel Fangio, Froilan Gonzalez, Mike Hawthorn, Onofre Marimon and Stirling Moss. Each got one-seventh (0.14) of a point.

1958: No sharing

Up until 1958, drivers who shared their car with another driver also shared the points scored. And if a driver drove in more than one car which scored points, he accumulated each points finish.

This made for some complicated calculations. For example, in the searing-hot 1955 Argentinian Grand Prix Giuseppe Farina and Maurice Trintignant both drove in the cars which finished second and third, each time with a different third driver. So they each scored one-third of the second place points plus one-third of the third-place points, totalling three-and-a-third.

Thankfully they put a stop to this in 1958. From then on a driver could only score points if they drove the car single-handedly, as it’s been ever since.

1960: Top six score

PositionPoints
18
26
34
43
52
61

Points were extended to sixth place in 1960. This was also the year when the point for fastest lap was dropped.

1961: Nine points for a win

PositionPoints
19
26
34
43
52
61

The value of a win was increased to nine points in 1961, and the points distribution remained unchanged until 1990. This was the longest period of stability in the F1 points system.

1991: Ten points for a win, every race counts

Ayrton Senna scored the first ten-point win in 1991
PositionPoints
110
26
34
43
52
61

Thought of by many as the best points system F1 had, the value of a win went up to ten points in 1991. Ayrton Senna won the first four ten-pointers on the trot.

This is the high-watermark for the value of winning in F1. At this point a win was worth 66% more than second place. Today it is worth just 25% more and that will remain the same in 2010 with the new points system.

The 1991 season also saw the dropping of the “best results count” rule – more on that below.

2003: Points down to eighth

PositionPoints
110
28
36
45
54
63
72
81

In 2002 Michael Schumacher set a new record for the earliest a world championship had ever been decided. He sealed the title in the French Grand Prix on July 21st, with six rounds to spare.

The new points system introduced in 2003 was clearly designed to stop that happening again as it slashed the relative value of a win compared to second place. Despite that, two years later Schumacher was able to wrap up the title four rounds before the end of the season.

The “best results count” rule

Alain Prost scored more points but lost the title in 1988

Before 1991 drivers could only count their best points scores from a limited number of races. For example in 1990 of the 16 races on the calendar a driver could only count his 11 best scores.

The number of races counting varied with the calendar. At first it was close to half, then in the late sixties the number of races counted increased to around 80% of the calendar. That trend was abruptly reversed in 1979, and for much of the eighties a pattern developed: 16 races, best 11 scores counted. The chart below shows the details for each season the “best results count” rule was used.

Race results counted and dropped, 1950-1990 (click to enlarge)

The “best results count” rule tends to colour our view of previous champions. For example both Alberto Ascari’s championship wins were far more emphatic than the official points standings suggested:

1952

PositionDriverTotal pointsPoints droppedActual points
1Alberto Ascari3617.553.5
2Giuseppe Farina24327

1953

PositionDriverTotal pointsPoints droppedActual points
1Alberto Ascari34.512.547
2Juan Manuel Fangio27.51.529

There are other examples similar to Ascari’s. The best-remembered details about Mike Hawthorn’s 1958 championship win are that he only won once and beat Stirling Moss by a single point. The fact he lost three separate scores worth seven points, while Moss kept all his scores, tends to get overlooked.

The most famous examples of this concern drivers who ‘lost’ championships because of the “best results count” rules. This happened on two occasions. In 1964 Graham Hill lost to John Surtees by a single point. While Surtees kept all his scores, Hill had two deducted.

And in 1988 Ayrton Senna beat Alain Prost 90-87. But Prost had a mammoth 18 points deducted to Senna’s four. Debate still rages over the ‘fairness’ of the system. I’ll let you sort that one out in the comments! Their points-scoring finishing positions that year were as follows:

Finishing positionAyrton SennaAlain Prost
187
237
300
410
500
610

The “best results count” rule was dropped at the end of 1990. This has definitely been an improvement – it has certainly made championship-deciders easier to follow.

Splitting the season

Alan Jones couldn't score any more points after his 1979 Montreal win

As if the “best results count” rule wasn’t complicated enough, for 14 years the championship was effectively split into two. Drivers could only score points in a certain number of races in the first and second halves of the season. Here’s how they were shared out:

1967: Five from the first six and four from the last five
1968: Five from the first six and five from the last six
1969: Five from the first six and four from the last five
1970: Six from the first seven and five from the last six
1971: Five from the first six and four from the last five
1972: Five from the first six and five from the last six
1973-4: Seven from the first eight and six from the last seven
1975: Seven from the first eight and five from the last six
1976: Seven from the first eight and seven from the last eight
1977: Eight from the first nine and seven from the last eight
1978: Seven from the first eight and seven from the last eight
1979: Four from the first seven and four from the last eight
1980: Five from the first seven and five from the last seven

The strangeness of this system was shown up in 1979 when Alan Jones arrived for the final race of the season unable to improve on his points total. He’d already won four of the preceding seven races, giving him a maximum score for that portion of the season.

The “split season” system was dropped the following year. But you have wonder that, had a variant of it been in use in 2009, Jenson Button would have been in serious trouble in the second half of the season.

What about the constructors’ championship?

The less-heralded sibling of the drivers’ championship, the constructors’ championship, began in 1958.

Ferrari are quite fond of pointing out they’d have even more than their still-huge tally of 16 titles had the title begun in the same year the drivers’ did. Still the first constructors’ champions was not the Scuderia but Vanwall.

To begin with only a team’s highest placed car could score points in each race. When the “best result counts” rule was in place, this also applied to the constructors’ championship.

It wasn’t until 1979 that both a team’s cars could score. At that year’s Brazilian Grand Prix Ligier became the first team to score a then maximum 15 points for a one-two finish.

For a while, only teams who entered two cars throughout the season could score points. So in 1984 Osella and ATS could not claim the two and one point respectively scored by drivers Jo Gartner and Gerhard Berger because they were single-car entrants.

The future: 25 points for a win

Jenson Button would have scored 230.5 points under the new rules in 2009

Here is the new F1 points system for 2010:

PositionPoints
125
220
315
410
58
66
75
83
92
101

Read more: 2009 standings under 2010 F1 points system

As we’ve already discussed here the new points system is proportionally little different to what has gone before – though seventh place being valued at five points instead of four looks like a mistake.

It’s been pointed out that awarding 25 points for a win from 2010 will render comparisons with previous championships impossible. But as we’ve seen here trying to compare drivers’ performance based on points scores is already meaningless.

The failing of the 2010 F1 points system is that it doesn’t address the under-valuing of a win, a knee-jerk change brought in six years ago. Ultimately, it’s not the points system that makes a championship exciting, it’s how closely-matched the cars are.

Update: The 2010 points system was changed again after this article was written. The following system is now being used: 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1.

2010 F1 points system

Images (C) Red Bull/Getty, Honda, Honda, Williams/Sutton, Brawn GP

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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77 comments on “From 8 points for a win to 25: Every F1 scoring system”

  1. Prisoner Monkeys
    22nd December 2009, 10:17

    Wow. Some of that stuff from the 50s and 60s – points-sharing, split seasons – was unnecessarily complicated. It’s almost as if the Powers That Be at the time wanted the drivers’ title to come down to the final race with all the drivers priming for a win since no-one would know the minimum place they’d need to win the title. ounds like something Mr. E would do … was he around back then?

    1. I’m sure there was a logic behind it. i think the dropping of scores made more sense at the time than it does with hindsight, although I can’t offhand think of the rationale behind it.

      I wonder if either dropping scores or splitting the season is down to the fact that these seasons were pre-Concorde agreement and thus maybe it was some sort of attempt to try and guarantee teams turning up at races, although I may be grasping at straws.

      It is much easier nowadays, although the new scoring system lacks a lot of the aesthetic of the older ones.

      1. To my best knowledge, dropping scores tends to reduce the impact of retirements during close championship seasons. A few British club championships still have dropped scoring in place for just such eventualties (The Clio Cup springs to mind.)

      2. I’m sure there was a logic behind it. i think the dropping of scores made more sense at the time than it does with hindsight, although I can’t offhand think of the rationale behind it.

        I think there were two reasons. First and foremost was to reflect the fact that teams didn’t enter every race on the calendar as a matter of course. So dropped scores meant you could challenge for the title without having to enter every round. Remember that the Indy 500 counted as a round of the world championship for some time, even though few regular F1 drivers entered.

        Secondly, to take reliability into account. F1 cars were not always as bulletproof as they are now. Dropped scores “allowed” drivers to record a few DNFs without it damaging their points total.

        1. Ah, I see – thanks DanThorn and Tim :-)

          1. Actually, drop scores are still quite used in sailing, as it is quite easy to f… up a race (it is after all a mechanical sport who depends a lot on the elements! Plus there are so many priority rules that you can have penalties for more or less anything… Point is, clean races are rare). Often, only the 4 out of 5 best results are counted for in a regatta.

  2. The table for the points system of the future is a bit off.
    It goes upto 8 and then 7,8 are repeated again.

    That might want to be corrected.

  3. I agree that pointing system is not that important, at the end. Moreover if you keep proportion unvaried.
    But I think that you need to keep the point system as more constant as possible, during seaasons, to not confuse the fans.
    My favourite was 9 (or 10), 6, 4, 3, 2, 1.
    In the 80’s it seems to me it worked well, even if there were a lot of teams, and awarded the winner enough. I don’t like “count” systems at all, each driver should be allowed to keep all the point he gets (even if I understand that the reason was to penalize the reliable based drivers…).
    I don’t like next year pints…too many positions awarded, and a strange 2 points jump between 7th and 8th. I don’t understand why we needed so complex modifications.

  4. The 10-6-4-3-2-1 system was definately the best. Sadly nowadays the cars are far too reliable for it to be a fair system, but the proportions are perfect. The new points should have been the 1991 system multiplied by 2.5 for the first three places, and then extending the points down to 10th in much the same way as the previous system, giving 25-15-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. The new points have some irregularities which I hope are addressed before the start of the season.

    1. The new points should have been the 1991 system multiplied by 2.5 for the first three places, and then extending the points down to 10th in much the same way as the previous system, giving 25-15-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.

      I like that.

  5. It’s been pointed out that awarding 25 points for a win from 2010 will render comparisons with previous championships impossible. But as we’ve seen here trying to compare drivers’ performance based on points scores is already meaningless.

    This was the case last season, too, when trying to compare several bad starts to previous seasons by Ferrari.

    The different points systems throughout the years made that difficult, so looking at finishing positions is a better way to compare teams/constructors as well as drivers.

    I reckon comparing points tallies for either drivers or constructors, although relatively innocent in the past, with the new 25-points-for-a-win, will be utterly pointless.

  6. Spot the missing K! (and No have I haven’t just smoked a big one.)

    It’s not good is it, that they fail to address the devaluation of a win. I mean surely it came up in conversation so there must be some reasoning behind it. Maybe it’s to keep the championship close. It’s a poor system if you ask me, I think points down to tenth is excessive also. Maybe they should have one points system for the drivers and another for teams.

    1. I found it! What do I win?

      1. My respect and admiration*

        *Terms and conditions apply.

  7. well, its still easier to understand than the V8 Supercar point system……….

    1. drivers get exactly 47.98 points for a race win, and 73.2 points for second. However, should the car be painted green, there are an extra 14.29 points with a margin of error of 11.6 points.

      Its like a game of Numberwang

      1. Rotate the boards!

  8. Excellent article Keith, the old points systems did need a lot of explaining. Now that all teams race at every event it is easy to see why they dropped the best 11 from 16. Much easier now.

  9. Great article Keith.

    I’ve always presumed that the rationale of dropping scores was to do with the very poor reliability of the cars in those eras. If they hadn’t dropped scores the championship winner could easily have been the person who drove the most gently and just nursed their car, rather than pushing and providing a good race.

    Not only do the differing points systems make comparisons over the years almost impossible, so do the number of races. It’s been possible recently for a driver to score more points in a season than it was for an early driver to score in a whole career.

    Because of all that in my opinion about the only half realistic way you can compare drivers from different eras is the wins to starts ratio…. and even that is heavily affected by the changes in car reliability….. but for what it’s worth on that basis Fangio at 45% and Schumacher at 36% are way ahead of anyone else.

  10. The pre war championship had a pretty strange points system too: the winner got 1 point, second placed driver got two points and third placed driver got 3 points.
    The rest could get between 4 and 7 points depending on how much of the race they completed (and 8 points if you didn’t start).
    The driver with the lowest total points was the champion.
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Championship_(auto_racing)

    1. Again, sailing competition often use this type of system

      1. Plus, Did Not Finish (DNF) or Did not Start (DNS) are counted as last + 2

        1. This is way late, but posterity: A DNF gets finishers + 1, while DNS get starters +1.

  11. It’s all OK except for 7th place.
    01 25
    02 20 -5
    03 15 -5
    04 10 -5
    05 8 -2
    06 6 -2
    07 5 -1 ??? should be 4
    08 3 -2 ???
    09 2 -1
    10 1 -1

    1. There’s more incentive to push for 7th from 8th than there is to go from 6th from 7th. Which is a bit silly really.

    2. Well, the fact that there are 5 points between the first 3 places is clearly a mistake too.

      It means you gain relatively less and less by going up the podium. You gain 50% by going from 4 to 3, 33% for going from 3 to 2 and only 25% from 2 to 1. Absurd! This was wrong in the previous system too though. Although much less so.

      1. Why not simply introduce this system here below. That way a 1st and 3rd place (39 pts) would be more worth then finishing twice 2nd (38 pts).
        1: 25
        2: 19
        3: 14
        4: 10
        5: 7
        6: 5
        7: 4
        8: 3
        9: 2
        10: 1

  12. I used to run an online NASCAR racing league (Oval Racing League) and we always dropped some results from a season.

    This method helps to remove the unfairness of getting taken out by somebody in a ‘stupid’ as opposed to ‘racing’ incident. Also it allows for missing a race or two.

    I think they probably used it in the old days because car reliability used to be shocking, and these days most races only lose one or two cars to actual car component failure. The travelling aspect may have been a factor in the early days of F1 but I think it was kept into the modern era for the above reason.

    1. I think they probably used it in the old days because car reliability used to be shocking

      Yep I think that was a big part of it.

      Though perhaps you could argue people were more comfortable with complicated mathematical systems in the past. After all it wasn’t until 1971 that we had decimalised currency in Britain.

      1. You have to remember that, in the 50s (less so in the 60’s), there privateers entered in a lot of races. Often these guys just hadn’t got the money to travel anywhere other than to their closest races.
        Traveling to a flyaway was just a pipe-dream.

  13. The only thing I didn’t like about the 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 point system was that only 8 drivers scored points. 10 is better, but I think it should be 20, or even 26. In this case it doesn’t even matter if you are 9th or 20th.

    1. But you dont want it like V8 Supercars… no no no no no, its horrible

      1. As much as I love the V8s, I have to agree that the points system is stupid. For 2nd place to be 92% as good as 1st is ridiculous. Finishing 5th is 74% as good as winning and finishing 10th is 52% as good as winning. And finishing 30th is 10% as good as winning.

        To those who say they want F1 to have a points system that goes all the way to 26th, you just have to look at this to see how pointless it is.

        1. 1st place 100, 2nd place 80, 3rd place 60, 4th place 50, 5th place 40, 6th place 30, 7th place 25, 8th place 20, 9th place 16, 10th place 14, 11th place 12, 12th place 10, 13th place 8, 14th place 7, 15th place 6, 16th place 5, 17th place 4, 18th place 3, 19th place 2, 20th place 1. That would basicly keep the first places the same, but would award places from 10 to 20 as well.

          1. That could work, but in the later half of the season it could result in a driver just needing to finish 20th to win the championship, so they just cruise around the back of the pack instead of fighting for points when there are less of them.

          2. Yeah you’re right.

  14. brilliant article, wow who decides all of these changes? kinda confusing for the casual fan. (not that I am of course!)

  15. Wow what stupid points systems they had back then. Very confusing. Great post :)

  16. Keith – why start at 1950?

    This always annoys me… Formula 1 may have started then but we’ve had Grand Prix’s for just as long before that as after (well nearly)

    The 1930’s European Championship did have some mad scoring – just defining the 1939 rules is a mission even in itself – see the thread here: http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=8247&hl=1939+european

    so Keith…care to educate your readers on pre-1950 scoring??

    :)

    here’s hoping…

    Ted

    1. I usually begin with 1950 as a starting point for things like this because it’s when the modern world championship began. And, as you point out, figuring out exactly what was done for scoring in the years before that is quite tricky!

  17. It all looks very fine and simple, 26 cars and points down to 10th, but what incentive is there to encourage all the other drivers to continue? OK, so there is always that awe-inspiring battle for 11th place, but doesn’t the FIA (or is it FOM and FOTA who decide these things?) need to do a little bit more to encourage the back markers to try harder (and show that they are not just there to make up the numbers)?
    I would like to see points for fastest lap, leading the race and the most positions gained between start and finish. On the new scoring, they only need to be 1 or 2 points, but it would maybe help towards having fewer Zeros on the scoresheets.
    And yes, maybe FL and Leader points would normally go to the usual suspects, but occasionally they wouldn’t, and that might help keep us fans interested too……

  18. Great article, I have often wondered about all the changes in the F1 points system but never got round to looking researching it myself.

    As I started following F1 in 1991 I am biased towards the 10-6-4-3-2-1 system.

    I must say that although I don’t like the point spread as it is now I do prefer the current system to some of the previous ones such as best results count, sharing points and points for fastest lap.

    I think after you have decided on a points system the first question is how many places do you want to award points to, and how much should each position be worth as a percentage of the points for a win.

    When you have decided on those criteria you could then work out the points for each position starting from 1 point for the final point scorer and then work up to the winner, rather than saying X points for the winner and then work out the rest.

  19. How about a medals system where the one with the most wins becomes champion, and if there is a draw it goes to the points

    1. Bernie, is that you?

      1. no just joking about the idea

        1. Bernie has a sense of humour :) hehehehe

  20. 1 – 20
    2 – 14
    3 – 10
    4 – 6
    5 – 4
    6 – 3
    7 – 2
    8 – 1
    Done, bigger advantages for winning and podiums, still only 8 drivers

    1. I like – but that’s way too logical for the FIA.

    2. —————–
      Pos Pts Gap
      —————–
      1 20 +5
      2 15 +3
      3 12 +2
      4 10 +2
      5 8 +1
      6 7 +1
      7 6 +1
      8 5 +1
      9 4 +1
      10 3 +1
      11 2 +1
      12 1
      —————–

  21. This is the high-watermark for the value of winning in F1. At this point a win was worth 66% more than second place.

    Was not that 40%?

    1. 10 is 166% of 6 (6 multiplied by 1.66 gives you ~10).

  22. 10-6-4-3-2-1. Let’s just go back to that. I’m pretty sick of superfluous rules changing every season. Ever since 1994, the FIA seem to be trying to fit a body kit to a Ferrari…

  23. Had forgotten about the point for fastest lap. I think that could be re-introduced. As shown several times last season, that would be a valid way for some of the lower ranked teams to get some points on the board, as well as making the other teams think a bit about what they want to do for their tyre strategies.

    1. I just hate the idea of a driver needing to score one point in the final race to be champion, and doing it by ignoring the race and just bolting on soft tyres and doing qualifying laps.

      1. HounslowBusGarage
        22nd December 2009, 20:29

        But Keith, if a driver only needed one point from the race, he could tootle around like a mobile chicane and be happy in 10th place.
        Both situations would be anticlimactic.

        1. The problem comes when a driver does this all season and manage to score 15 points along with some 4th and 5th places and end up being ahead of a driver that was most of the championship fighting for the 3rd place but didn’t scored any fastest lap.

  24. I think that it looks ok, man I had no idea that the points systems were so funky in the past.

  25. The best points scoring system IMO would be the one used from 1961 to 1990, with all results counting, and a point for fastest lap and pole position.

  26. Nice article to put things in perspective. I think too we often look at changes to the sport as if they were happening for the first time. To tell the truth, I don’t think I would mind seeing the ‘best results’ system reintroduced in some way, though I’m sure it’s more complicated than it’s worth.

  27. A few typos in that article, Keith!

    Suggestion:
    25-18-14-10-8-6-4-3-2-1
    Rationale:
    – the largest points gain is 2nd-1st (obviously)
    – there’s as strong an incentive to get on the podium as there is to move up to 2nd
    – ditto for the top 6, the ‘traditional’ scorers when most people here grew up ;-)
    – dito for the rest

    BUT – on second thoughts, winning a race is a reward in itself. Likewise, getting on a podium is a reward in itself (and both of these come with shiny trophies!) So there’s no absolute requirement that these be represented in points as well: points exist for the purposes of the championship, so the system should be designed with an exciting and fair championship in mind!

  28. I’d like to see more reward for winning. My thought for a while has been:

    1 – 20
    2 – 15
    3 – 12
    4 – 9
    5 – 7
    6 – 5
    7 – 4
    8 – 3
    9 – 2
    10 – 1

    I like going to 10th place with the bigger field of 26. But, I don’t want to see it expand to the Nascar system where everyone gets a point.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing a point for pole position, and possibly one for fastest lap.

  29. Great piece, thank you…

  30. How about 2/3 of the way into a championship we reset the top 1/3 drivers to the same unattainable point count (unattainable by those whose points are not reset), and give 10 bonus points to the those top 1/3 of drivers for every win up to that point. Then resume scoring as usual…. with 170 points for winning, 5 points for leading a lap (attainable only once in a race)…

    I don’t think there’s anything more bizarre than that!

    1. You’ve been peeking at NASCAR’s championship system again, haven’t you?

      (But you forgot the 5 points for leading the most laps.)

      Actually, not a bad concept–it makes the last third of the season a real pressure-cooker for those drivers who qualified for the reset by meeting a minimum points level, while still giving the rest of the field the regular racing incentives(sponsorship money, driver contracts, etc) to putting on a good show.

      Not saying that sort of thing would work for F1, but it does seem to work okay for NASCAR.

      1. But even with the “Chase for the Cup” in NASCAR there’s dissatisfaction with how predictable the last few championships have been. I think it comes back to the point that if one person’s doing all the winning they’re going to be champion regardless of whether they’re Michael Schumacher or Jimmie Johnson, and fiddling with the points system isn’t going to turn a one-sided championship into an exciting one.

  31. Mike "the bike" Schumacher
    22nd December 2009, 22:24

    I never realised how long the “best results count” rule lasted for !950-1990. What a C*** rule.

  32. I don’t think the new point system will make any difference.

  33. Thanks for the article. I learnt something new about F1 reading it.

  34. Well gents all good posts, as always differing views, but think about it would make it interesting, and spice things up and allow the drivers to play a joker to double their points in races they fancied winning.

  35. I like the idea of dropping points because we could make it Best of 16 out of 20, thus in essence keeping the traditional format of 16 races. It would also save the seasons of people who had appallingly bad luck with reliability, although that has become far less common.

    I appreciate the field is much more competitive and it’s going to be hard for smaller teams to score points, but won’t that make it a greater achievement? F1 is about the best of the best, and personally I feel if you can’t get higher than 6th out of 26 then you don’t really deserve points, but at least up to 8th was a nice compromise. And if the actual number of points a team receives (rather than their relative position to other teams in the final standings, ranked on countback if several have 0) is such a problem (i.e. financial rewards), then change that system instead.

    It’s just another fudge to make things more interesting – don’t mess with the proportion, but change the number, so if someone drops out and their main rival wins, the title race is changed dramatically. On the flip side, a driver can run around in 9th place knowing they’ve scored enough to preserve their lead or even win the championship. Yet another constraint to please the commercial element at the expense of letting be whatever happens on the track.

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  37. if we didnt have the silly limited numbers of engines and penalties for gearboxes breaking etc etc, unreliability would be much more of a factor and 10-6-4-3-2-1 would work again.

    its these background rules that are overcomplicating matters so much – preventing the flat out pure racing we all want to see.

  38. Veeeeery ridiculous. Happily this is over.

  39. I do believe all of the concepts you have presented Tebow Jets Jersey to your post. They’re very convincing and can certainly work. Nonetheless, the posts are too short for starters. May just you please Manning Broncos Jersey prolong them a little from next time? Thanks for the post.

  40. re: this post and the Points Calculator

    https://www.racefans.net/points-calculator/

    Why is the FIM points system not included in the list? It’s a better system than some of those shown (i.e. IndyCar, NASCAR, current F1 system). It drops points by 5, by 4, 3, 2 then one down to 15th place. FIM: 25 20 16 13 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.

    None of the F1 points systems has ever been perfect. 9/6/4 was the best. 10/6/4 rewarded winning too much, and 10/8/6 too little. (9/6/4 with a point for pole position would have been tolerable.) And if the “best races” had been used in 2009 (5 of first 9, 5 of last 10), Vettel would have won that world championship, not Button.

    Why does the number of points positions have to be an even number or a multiple? I’d rather see a hybrid of past systems, with seven points positions: 10/7/5/4/3/2/1. A win is worth twice as much as third place, and the 1st-2nd gap is bigger than 2nd-3rd. Under this system, the 2014 points standings would be (before Singapore):

    Nico Rosberg – 92
    Lewis Hamilton – 84
    Daniel Ricciardo – 58
    Fernando Alonso – 37
    Valtteri Bottas – 36
    Sebastian Vettel – 32
    Jenson Button – 19
    Nico Hulkenberg – 17
    Felipe Massa – 15
    Kevin Magnussen – 9
    Sergio Perez – – 8
    Kimi Raikkonen – 8
    Everybody else – 0

    Riccardo is closer to Rosberg and Hamilton, but requires more help to catch them than the current system. Alonso is above Bottas because he scores more consistently, even with fewer podiums. And the second place for Magnussen and third for Perez mean they leapfrog Raikkonen.

    As for double points, what a stupid idea, especially on a terrible track like Abu Dhabi. The only reason to award double points is for a longer race. Turn Monza into a 500km, 3 hour endurance race and I’d support it. F1 engines have to last at least two races now (600+km), so it’s not like they can’t handle that distance.

  41. Sorry for reviving an old discussion, but:

    I would like the points to be this:
    25-15-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1
    That gives the same relative values as the 1991 rules for places 1 through 3, and allows for points to be given down to 10th place.
    Places 4 to 10 are given slighty more than under the 1991 rules to get an even slope down to 10th place.

    For reference, the 1991 points were:
    10-6-4-3-2-1

    Relative values: (Win normalized to 100)
    1991: 100-60-40-30-20-10
    idea: 100-60-40-32-24-20-16-12-8-4

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