Boullier expects double points rule to stay

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Eric Boullier doubts F1’s deeply unpopular double points rule will be dropped before the season starts.

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Double points rule unlikely to change (Autosport)

“This has been decided. It went through. Maybe there will be more discussions about it, but I have no idea. To be honest, I am quite easy on this one.”

Six key points to watch for in new-look F1 for 2014 (James Allen on F1)

“Double points for final race of the season – smaller teams will completely change their design process in an attempt to secure these points as it could make a significant difference to their constructors’ position.”

Davide Valsecchi: "About me, Lotus and Kovalainen" (F1 Passion)

“When there are drivers, such as the Mexicans or Venezuelans, who bring even ??15 million, if not more so, the mission becomes impossible for me. The economic situation is tragic in Italy, I know that because my family works in the building field, which is one of those that were most affected by the crisis.”

Catching up with The Hulk (Force India)

“Never before there has been a situation like this, when with just a couple of weeks before the first test nobody has any idea of where everyone is. It’s a pretty unique situation for everyone.”

Mansour Ojjeh hands McLaren role to brother (Adam Cooper’s F1 Blog)

“Mansour Ojjeh has relinquished his role as a director of the McLaren Group. He has been replaced by his younger brother Aziz, his partner in the TAG organisation.”

Romain Grosjean’s Facebook page

Grosjean has a new logo incorporating his driver number on his helmet.

Infiniti concept ties to Formula 1 styling (The Detroit News)

Infiniti president Johan de Nysschen: “The Q50 Eau Rouge is the latest example of how the future of Infiniti is driven by ground-breaking design.”

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Comment of the day

What’s the deal with Bernie Ecclestone’s vast archive of unseen F1 footage? @Gt-racer enlightens us:

A reason why more of it isn’t made more widely available is that its all still on its original media and in boxes on shelfves. It hasn’t all been moved onto digital media or onto any type of network server which would allow quick access to everything and going through that process would take months if not years with the amount of material they have there.

That is a big part of why there’s no sort of online portal where you can buy/stream the races, The archive isn’t set up in a way that would make that possible yet.

As to whats in the archive, Everything from 1981 onwards and some stuff from before that which FOM have brought over the years.

The full race broadcasts (Although some from the early 80s are incomplete), highlights, unedited footage from all trackside camera recordings, all the in-car recordings, all the live data recordings for telemetry, team radio and the timing/tracking systems, all the archive camera recordings captured from the non-live cameras, all the test footage from cameras/equipment that gets trialled which is stuff not made public, multiple language commentary tracks from the broadcasters and probably more stuff I’ve forgot to include.

Also remember that this is from every session over the weekend and not just the race footage.
@Gt-racer

From the forum

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Ed!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

A rare Formula One car made a brief public appearance on this day 20 years ago. Satoru Nakajima took the Honda RC101B out on track at Suzuka.

The car was powered by a V12 engine of the same type used by McLaren in 1991 and 1992. Honda’s chassis project was a development of two previous cars but none were ever entered for a race. This is believed to be a picture from the demonstration.

Image © Lotus/LAT

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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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67 comments on “Boullier expects double points rule to stay”

  1. I don’t understand how Ecclestone, as a supposedly clever businessman, could let the archive sit there like that, without any digitisation which would at least facilitate the possibility of better access (and more money) in the future. Just because it would be a long process wouldn’t mean it isn’t worth it.

    1. Chris (@tophercheese21)
      15th January 2014, 0:26

      I could be way off here, but, what if he wants it to remain hidden from the public because it adds to the mystery and general shady-ness of Bernie’s public perception.

      I think Bernie has worked very hard to make Formula One difficult to access, which in turn makes people want to get at it all the more. From pitlane access, to television rights and online content. Formula One comes across as very exclusive and private, which is partly why so many people are drawn to it.

      After reading his biography it seems Formula One is very much a product of his elusive, cunning and perfectionist personality.

      I’d love to see this archive become digitized but I doubt it will ever happen. I mean, FOM are so incompetent when it comes to online content in the first place: look how long it takes them to publish a race edit, they’re hopeless. Lol

      1. I disagree, F1 content is difficult to access to keep the television contracts valuable. It seems that in Bernie’s mind exclusivity equals value.

    2. Ecclestone likes to do everything as cheap as possible.

      If the archive went up tomorrow, all digitised and available to stream, how many would slog through it? Not many. Would they pay for it on a race-by-race, season-by-season basis? Not likely.

      Bernie makes money from footage by selling years worth of it to other companies, and lets them deal with the intricacies of getting an audience for it. To put the archive up, he’d have to get a lot of work done. The Digital F1 experiment put him off all that “be a first adopter” business.

      If someone wants to buy the rights to do the donkey work for him and have first dibs on it for a year or two he might. But that’s about it.

    3. It was never something that anyone really felt needed to be done.
      There wasn’t much interest relating to the archive so it was never seen as a priority, More recently there has been more interest so I am surprised it doesn’t appear they have made any moves to make accessing the archive any easier for non-FOM staff.

      The archive is well sorted & labelled so finding specific content is really easy, As such anyone wanting to use archive footage generally gets a copy of what they ask for pretty quickly & I guess thats another reason for the lack of rush to change things.

      1. @gt-racer Any idea how many hours of footage the FOM produces every race weekend? It must be in the hundreds right? I would do the math but I don’t know how many cameras they use or how long before and after they record each session.

        1. Well there’s the world-feed broadcast for every session + all the extra feed’s they produce for each session (in-car, pit lane, highlights, timing, tracking). They have 9 in-car cameras recording at any 1 time & perhaps 20-30 additional cameras around the track, in the pits/paddock etc…
          They also don’t stop recording when the F1 cars aren’t running as there also responsible for any support categories running that weekend.

          They also have everything shot by the individual broadcasters like Sky & BBC each weekend including all the broadcast commentary tracks.

          When they had the digital ppv service running 97-02 you also had all the footage been produced by the local host broadcaster.

          1. Ok, let’s go conservative and say they start and finish 1 hour before and after the sessions, also that they don’t stop recording in between, that would be 7.5 hours on Friday, 6 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday.

            With 25 track cameras plus 9 onboards that would be a total of 540 hours.
            Also if we add team radios and everything else you said they may get to a thousand.
            Now I know why nobody wants to sort that out!!!

          2. I’m pretty sure the cameras would be running around half an hour before the first session of the day (whether that’s F1 or not – although i’m sure at some of the larger circuits, the circuits themselves might slot in their own programs, like they did at Silverstone in 2008 when I attended as a spectator, they had their own studio analysis and everything, although if that was FOM as well, then F1Digital lives :P) until the same after the final session in the evening. I reckon over 12 hours per day at least. Plus it would include all the extra stuff FOM might film such as interviews etc. for the Season reviews.

  2. And, to me at least, Grosjean’s new helmet says “Reightman”. Or “Rhuitman” if I read it in French.

    1. *Reightmain and Rhuitmain

      1. sounds a bit like “reuterman”?

    2. @matt90 I guess he’s telling us he’s the Reight man for the job!

      Erm, I’ll get my coat.

    3. i doubt anyone sane will read 8 as O.

      1. I wonder if he saw M4X and VAL77ERI doing it but didn’t actually understand how or why it made sense, so just replaced a random letter in his name.

  3. Is that Lotus picture the coin slot in Maldonado’s car?

    1. haha, took me a while to get it and realise the coin slot isnt actually a thing but i got there eventually

  4. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    15th January 2014, 0:58

    So if the rule stays, it will eventually become “boring” even for the new “thrilled” fans they want to attract. It will end up with hazzards and shields as a well known movie with Mr Statham.

    1. Formula One isn’t a Call of Duty video game where the bar needs to be raised with each year a new game is released. This idea of a slippery slope doesn’t actually exist. Most rule changes tend to be reactionary, knee-jerk bandages for deeper, more complex problems.

      Though, F1 does need to move forward. Going backward or being stagnate is really against the idea of being the pinnacle of motorsport. F1 needs make changes and experiment to try to produce a better product for the majority of the population who don’t currently watch motorsport.

      But, why should they even devote months of their time and millions of their dollars to fix the problems at the heart of the sport, if the current fans will hate any change they would hope to make within the hour they announce it.

  5. Boullier never says nice things, he always “we arent going to the test, the Qantum deal didnt work out, Kimi is leaving us, we need Maldonado, double points is going to happen”. At least people like Whitmarsh tries to make bad things sound good.

    1. That’s why no-one likes Whitmarsh, he’s so clearly a business man trying to promote a crappy product.

    2. ‘At least . . . Whitmarsh tries to make bad things sound good.’

      Funny, that sounds suspiciously like self-delusion and excuse-making. You could call it mere optimism, but I wouldn’t.

      I think there’s quite a lot to like in Boullier’s sometimes gruff manner.

  6. I think I have now been here for 4 years! That has really has flown by. Keep up the good work Keith, this site has definitely been a factor in going from a casual fan of F1 to a huge fan of it.

    As for Boullier, I sincerely hope the reason he’s ‘easy’ on it isn’t because his team won’t be around by that time.

    1. I think that’s a bit of a cruel and unnecessary thing to say. Losing teams is never good for the sport. Even when it’s an eternal backmarker like HRT – so you can only imagine the damage that would come from the collapse of a team like Lotus.

      I have high hopes for the double-points rule myself. I think it will become the criticality point for the sport, where the teams finally wake up and realise that temporary solutions offer no relief, and realise that if they want meaningful, long-term change, then it has to come within, rather than tinkering with the rules. With any luck, double points will be the bad rule that we have to have.

      1. Oh I don’t think losing a team is good at all. What I meant was I really hope that doesn’t happen. It was just a slightly clumsy way of putting it!

  7. The Honda RC101B looks very Jordan 192-ey.

    1. And I thought Michael Schumacher was the Stig.

  8. On the Infniti article one can read:

    Bartsch said Infiniti sold 125,000 cars in 2013, “substantially driven by the Q50.” The Eau Rouge concept is a lowered and bespoilered styling exercise inspired by Infiniti’s Formula 1 race car, the RB9

    Wow!

    1. I was about to say the same thing! Infiniti sponsor Red Bull, they are not an F1 entrant, anyone with even a passing interest in the sport knows that. That statement is blatantly bending the truth (I don’t want to say it is a blatant lie, even though it is :p).

      1. I wouldn’t say it’s a lie – bending the truth a bit by calling it Infiniti’s F1 car. But RB Technologies has access to the entire toolbox of Nissan/Renault and it’s subsidiaries. It’s not just sponsorship but a full partnership.

        1. They may be technical partners, but it still doesn’t give them the right to say its their car. Red Bull design, build and race it, Renault power it, Infiniti provide cash and tech support. It’s that simple.

          If all team partners can say a car is “theirs” then there is nothing stopping Pepe Jeans saying they are 4 time WCC’s. :p

          1. I suggest you look up ‘Badge Engineering’.

          2. @optimaximal Fully aware of badge engineering, but in my view we are dealing with incorrect marketing speak here.

      2. I would say its even worse because it bears no tie to reality at all. That car is a bloated blob with a big engine, in that sense closer maybe to NASCAR than to refined F1 cars @geemac!

        Might be me, but I think this car is as ugly as the rest of their offering, or even worse because its supposed to look racy and nimble?

        1. They shouldn’t be allowed to call that car “Eau Rouge”.
          It should be “Turn 7” or something, to celebrate its links to an ugly stepped-nose F1 car with DRS driving (to a target lap-time) around a flat, boring track by Tilke.

    2. Then there’s also the fact that this Infiniti is something that is filled with features which take away from driver engagement.

      If you’re making a performance, F1-related version of a car, I expect it to be stipped of driver aids (or with a pre-programmed button that turns things off), and be simple with only basic comforts (i.e. climate control). An ‘F1-inspired’ car named ‘Eau Rouge’ should be a balls-to-the-wall performance model, not another sedan with special paint and bodywork.

  9. That is the first comments I have read/heard from Davide Valsecchi since he was passed over by Lotus to take over the driving role for the last two races of the year. That was a harsh decision IMO and really must have given him cause to wonder what he was doing with his year. Very interesting to read he did not bring money; it suggests Lotus must have had a very high opinion of him. Sad but not surprising that he hasn’t been paid anything.

    I have been thinking about the upcoming test session and in particular the role of ‘test’ drivers. The article referred to in the round up a few days ago featuring Gary Parffet mentioned he’d be back at the MTC on the driving simulator which had been updated with data gained from the ‘real thing’ down in Jerez. While i understand there are limitations on wind tunnel
    and CFD simulations in place (only allowed certain number of hours per week) I was wondering if there were any limitations
    re the driving simulator ?
    Personally I think it would be a bittersweet thing to be a test driver if all you got was the simulator duties; I don’t believe it would compare to the experience of driving the real car at all, regardless of it’s benefit to the teams design squad.

    1. The main thing I got from the Valsecchi interview was that he took massive swipes at Grosjean, Kovalainen, Maldonado, Perez and Gutierrez. He’s a quick talented guy yes, but that doesn’t give him the right to undermine the skills of nearly a quarter of the grid (at season end 2013), two of whom are race winners (and pole sitters) and another two of whom have scored multiple podiums.

      There is a growing trend among guys without a budget to make thinly veiled swipes (very thinly in some cases) at drivers who do bring a budget, implying that if they were in the same car they’d be world beaters. They seem to be looking for support from those fans who think if a driver brings a single dollar to a team they should be shot at dawn and never allowed to sit in a racing car again. It’s nonsense and it makes the drivers involved sound bitter and petty. The sport has changed and drivers need to bring a budget, its part of a driver’s remit these days. Whether it is a good thing or not is debatable, but it is a fact of life. Everyone needs to move on.

      1. Valsecchi’s problem is that when he won the GP2 title, the grid was the weakest it has been since the series’ inception. So every stone he throws at the drivers on the grid is a stone that could be levelled straight back at him. If you drew up a list of the twenty-two drivers who deserved to be on the grid in lieu of the twenty-two who are (or will) already there, Davide Valsecchi would probably come in at around number twenty-three. He seems to be relying on his nationality rather than his talent, having somehow come to the conclusion that Italian drivers are somehow guaranteed a place on the grid by virtue of being Italian.

        1. Very true, I was going to mention that but I didn’t want to be accused of going on a tirade against Valsecchi.

        2. “Davide Valsecchi would probably come in at around number twenty-three”

          What even behind driver’s like Chilton, Van Der Garde and Gutierrez who he comfortably beat in GP2.

          You serious?

          1. I’d say Gutierrez and possibly van der Garde are better than Valsecchi.

            He’s saying he’d be 23 out of a group of the 22 drivers on the current grid and 22 of the most deserving not on it. I think he’s probably only more deserving that Chilton, and Ericsson at a push if he’s on the grid.

            I don’t think we’ll ever see Valsecchi on the grid because there is better talent and good enough pay-drivers out there. Is he that good that he can get in on talent alone? It’s questionable.

          2. He wasn’t necessarily saying that those names deserve to be among the top 22 either.

        3. @girts – I didn’t like how Valsecchi pointed out that Kovalainen is no “great champion”, given that the Italian himself was less impressive

          I find it off-putting as well when Valsecchi speaks disparagingly of other drivers, and wonder about his integrity and reliability since he now refuses to criticize Lotus and adopts an incredibly conciliatory tone towards them, after having been merciless in his criticism before Austin, TX (USA) race.

          “According to my contract my salary was like that of a waiter. They haven’t paid me yet. I’m sure that as soon as they’ll be in a position to do so, they’ll solve their debt. They’ve always behaved well towards me, ever since they chose me…I’m very grateful to Lotus for having chosen me as third driver, without asking anything in return. I can’t complain. Try to look for a job as third driver without paying a single euro!”

          @matt90 @prisoner-monkeys

      2. @geemac I think their frustration is understandable. There is clearly something wrong with the whole system if FR3.5 champions (Frijns, Wickens) and GP2 champions (Valsecchi, Leimer) have no chance to get to F1.

        I didn’t like how Valsecchi pointed out that Kovalainen is no “great champion”, given that the Italian himself was less impressive in feeder series and hasn’t proved anything in F1 (yet). But I wouldn’t mind seeing him at Marussia alongside Bianchi and I believe that FIA, FOM and the teams should act to make sure that drivers don’t need to bring a budget, one shoudn’t accept the current state of affairs.

        1. @girts Everyone mentions Frijns during these debates and I agree he is a great talent, but let’s not forget that he won that FR3.5 title partly as a result of barging Jules Bianchi off the track in a poorly timed and poorly executed move in the title show down. F1 teams don’t want drivers like that and if they do have one in their car (e.g. Maldonado) they often bring enough budget to “compensate” for the odd episode of brain fade.

          Let’s not forget that he has also had F1 tests with Sauber and Red Bull. Drivers who impress in these tests often get a shot at a seat (e.g. Magnussen with McLaren and Ricciardo with Red Bull). It often isn’t enough to just be quick, drivers have to impress on a number of levels (attitude, engineering aptitude etc) , people have to realize that he may well have been found wanting by the teams he tested with. There is a lot more at play than meets the eye.

          1. It’s also worth noting that Frijns was offered a place on Red Bull’s Young Driver program which could have lead to him getting a position at Toro Rosso. Not only did he turn down their offer, he then publicly poured scorn on Red Bull (calling them “slave drivers” and complaining that they “work their drivers like dogs”) in a move that made him look like a tempestuous driver and seems to have made other teams back away from him.

            As for Valsecchi, I’d agree that you need to look beyond just GP2 and look on his career as a whole, and his overall career isn’t particularly strong. He may be claiming that it is down to their money, but to be blunt the pay drivers he complains about have also beaten him quite comprehensively in junior series, so he cannot claim to be more talented than them either.

            After all, he takes a thinly veiled swipe at Maldonado, yet Maldonado utterly demolished him in FR3.5 (scoring 103 points against 43 for Valsecchi). It’s hardly as if Valsecchi can claim his team was a poor one either – his team mate, who was a rookie, finished 4th in the championship that season (against 15th place for Valsecchi).
            He also takes a swipe at Perez, even though Perez beat Valsecchi in the GP2 series two years running (outscoring him by 22 points to 12 in 2009 and 71 points to 31 in 2010), despite having more experience in GP2 than Perez.

            Even van der Garde has beaten Valsecchi more often than not in GP2, and although he did end up beating Gutierrez in GP2, it’s worth noting that Valsecchi had considerably more experience than Gutierrez (Valsecchi was in his fifth season against Gutierrez’s second season).

            All in all, Valsecchi can complain all he likes about money, but it’s not a difficult decision when his rivals are faster and have the additional bonus of sponsorship backing.

        2. But do those drivers necessarily deserve to be in Formula 1? I don’t think anyone could reasonably say the grid is any less complete than it could be with the likes of Valsecchi and Leimer absent from it.

  10. If Valsecchi thinks that he is going to get a seat because he is Italian, he has no business being in Formula 1. Perez, Gutierrez and Maldonado were not chosen because of their nationalities. Two of them, at least, have major titles to their name, while Perez proved to be a competitor in GP2. However they have performed in Formula 1, they all got themselves into a position where they could be considered for a seat based on their talent. Nationality does not come into it.

    1. @prisoner-monkeys

      Nationality does not come into it.

      It certainly does. I cannot imagine PDVSA supporting an Italian driver.

      Whilst I believe that Maldonado and Perez deserve to be in F1 on merit, they’re not good enough to be picked by one of the top teams that don’t ask their drivers to bring extra funding. And all the other teams need the money. If Maldonado had no financial support, I think he wouldn’t be in F1, not because of lack of talent or “attitude” but because the teams would be forced to get the funding elsewhere.

      Valsecchi doesn’t claim that he should be in F1 because he’s Italian, he just points out that many drivers need sponsorship money to be in F1 today and if you happen to come from a country where this money is not available, then tough luck. Nationality shouldn’t play any role but that’s not the case at the moment.

      1. @girts – But Valsecchi’s comments imply that, if all things were equal between him and Maldonado, Maldonado would get a seat by virtue of being Venezuelan. He is pinning too much emphasis on the nationality of the driver.

      2. @girts

        if you happen to come from a country where this money is not available, then tough luck.

        … And for Valsecchi it is not the case as Ferrari is Italian (but there is already many people in Ferrari’s programme). There is a lot of countries (like mine, Belgium) where there is no Ferrari, Petronas or PDVSA.

        1. But I prefer not having a Belgian driver than a paid one, actually. (Big hopes for Vandoorne!)

    2. “Nationality does not come into it”

      UMM, I think you will find it does. How do you explain Felipe Massa still having an F1 race seat? Do you realy believe he would still be in F1 if he was Italian?

      I’am prity sure that Felipe is still in F1 soley because of his Nationality. Bernie has stated on numerous occasions that he needs a Brazilian driver on the grid. Sadly for Valsecchi Bernie does not need Italian drivers in F1 as he has a famous red Italian team.

      1. I’am prity sure that Felipe is still in F1 soley because of his Nationality.

        This is impossible to argue effectively b/c you’re making a huge – flawed – assumption about why he is sponsored, as well, and what the impact of his $$ is (negligible or marked?).

  11. My birthday is the 15/12 @keithcollantine – it’s probably a mistype on my part in the birthday section!

    Thank you anyway to those who had acknowledged it on this and twitter and thank you again those (who were in quite some number) who wished me a happy birthday on the 15th of December!

    1. @vettel1 Apologies, have sorted it.

  12. There may be considerable criticism of the double points rule for the last race right now, and if it ends up having no effect on the championship this year (i.e. The champion would have been champion even if standard points were awarded) then hopefully it will be ditched for 2015 and we can all forget about it. But just imagine if it not only affects the championship, but results in Vettel making it five in a row! Then people really WOULD flip out about it!

  13. Valsecchi’s problem is not which country he comes from, it’s the fact the GP2 field when he won the series was very poor. You had Calado in his rookie season, Frijns for a bit and a few others not quite on the pace yet… In addition to that, and to a degree Bird has a similar issue, is his age. He isn’t exactly young, and a lot of teams seem to take that into account. If he suddenly finds funding he might make his way into a Caterham or Marussia but that’s it. His attitude towards other drivers put me right off him, he can’t go around saying that he’s better than a quarter of the field when he has no proof of it.

    1. Bird is a sort of Paffet/Turvey driver. He isn’t young enough to get an F1 seat now so it would take some funding for him to find one, and I can’t imagine he’d get any. So he’ll just be a test driver for a few years while racing in other series. He’ll probably end up in DTM with Mercedes.

  14. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said at the end of last year that although his team had voted in favour of the idea in December’s F1 Strategy Group meeting, he was not in favour and suggested that the rule could be ditched for 2015.

    Ey?! So he was against the double points idea, yet voted in favour?…

    1. I know…sounds silly. I might be mistaken but I think what happened is that BE was pushing the teams that were voting on this to accept the last 3 races as double pointers, and they balked at that and so ‘compromised’ with accepting one race.

      Personally I get that everyone benefits from the season decider going down to the last race, with perhaps 2 or maybe even 3 potential WDC winners, but I simply can’t convince myself that people will be happy if someone who has done a better job all year loses it and the WDC winner only wins it because of the extra points awarded, perhaps without even having to push and win the final race but being able to cruise to it, depending on circumstances.

      BE’s desire, or likely need, for bums in the seats until the very end, after a string of predictable RBR domination and viewer turndown, has trumped the quality of the product. The fans will turn out in droves…to watch a potentially anti-climactic and disappointing finish brought on simply by points manipulation, not actual racing on the track. The opponents to double points…90% of us…will be trotting out the math and who would have won without this change to the points structure. If the WDC winner would have been different there will be outrage, and if the winner would have been the same then BE will continue to push for the final 3 races as double pointers.

  15. I see Valsecchi’s beef with this one, but also he needs to pay his dues. When he was on camera in Austin he gave a few raised eyebrows to the camera “I’M NOT HAPPY”. But F1 bosses dont like that.

    As GP2 champ he would have seen the next drive in F1, fair call. A 3rd driver at Lotus not too bad either- one more year. You can certainly understand his anger when Lotus went with Hiekie! But he shoudn’t vent the anger publically like he did, especially against other drivers.

    Personally I would have given Davide the drive, at least at Austin to see how he went. I really feel sorry for the 3rd drivers that dont drive- “You’re fast, talented, almost got the seat but please spend 12 months on the simulator and do interviews in the Paddock Club” Hardly things F1 dreams are made of- ask Buemi!!

  16. This “Q50 Eau Rouge” just looks like another uninspired japanified BWM, as is the last Citroën C-Élysée.

    1. Furthermore, I doubt they paid anything to Spa Grand Prix organization for the name …

  17. The worst thing about the double points rule beyond the usual demeaning reasons is that it gives a much more confusing point of comparison between season points totals than what we have currently. Whenever F1 point scoring is changed it presents a challenge for comparing stats of different seasons using different points rules. Through the 2013 season it is fairly easy to make comparisons between different seasons. One can calculate a previous scoring method against the current method or vice-versa. Since the proposed new method alters the points value for specific races rather than for a full season, it will require further explanation to make different season comparisons. I’m not usually a stat oriented person, but this is just one more example of lack of forethought going into such a ridiculous rule change. Just wait though. If Bernie gets his way there could be 3 double points races in 2015 further skewing statistical comparisons to previous seasons.

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