F1 Fanatic

Dreadful idea. It would make the scoring system unnecessarily complicated and incomprehensible to the casual fan.

Points should only be given out based on where they finish. Otherwise we could have drivers clinching a championship by doing a low-fuel qualifying run in the middle of a Grand Prix:

Four mistakes F1 must avoid

Keith, how will they do a low fuel qualifying run in the middle of a race if refuelling isn’t allowed. They wouldn’t finish the race.

I think that Championship points should only be awarded based on where they finish, but I think there is a possibility to award prizes to drivers who do get the fastest lap. It won’t affect the points situation, so teams in the points won’t consider it a worthwhile gamble to do a run on a fresh set of faster tyres late in the race because it would compromise strategy. But having a whole bunch of drivers pushing towards the end of the race, doing “glory runs” would be entertaining.

Woah… “dreadful idea” is a bit curt. I mean, I’d probably agree it’d be an unnecessary complication, but it’s best not to shoot down reader suggestions like that

I’m not for it in general, and while I can’t imagine a team taking the car into the garage and draining all but a couple fast laps worth of fuel mid way through a race, they could quite easily bolt on a set of brand new tyres two laps from the end to do a brilliant lap.

I remember a few years ago Kimi won the DHL most fastest lap award, or something to that effect, does it still exist?

If only a single point were given for pole or fastest lap, then that is unlikely to decide a championship. If a single point is all that’s needed to mathematically eliminate the competition then sure, doing a low fuel quali-like run in the middle of a race should get you point, but it would hamper a race you were almost certain to get points in anyway, so who cares how that point is earned (perhaps there could be a proviso to say that the fastest lap can only be earned by somebody classified at the end of the race, as this wouldn’t guarantee championship victory any more than sitting in 3rd all race then retiring right at the end). I don’t know if I’d be bothered or not, but a single point for either pole or fastest lap isn’t something I’d rule out. For one thing, as I pointed out in an article, if quali is so special that it deserves it’s own tyres, perhaps the significance of pole should be recognised and complemented with a point for pole.

However, I agree that any more than 1 point would make things confusing to follow. I think even the most casual fan would be able to understand though, if going fastest ‘done gone and got that man a point.’

The only drawback in my mind would be the argument that all of an F1 race weekend is geared solely towards finishing in the best possible position, and that that is all that should be rewarded. It is a fair argument, but when a single point is only 4% the value of a race win I think one can be afforded to be given out.

Perhaps a single point could be given to the constructor (and only constructor) who does the fastest pit stop. This would add confusion, but it’s only the constructors championship, so casual fans are unlikely to care as much lol.

Points for overtaking and gaining most positions would be terrible, it wouldn’t even work.

Everyone would try and start last so Qualifying would just have no one coming out on track to set a lap time.

Then people in the race would try and drop to the back of the grid but that in turn would allow people to overtake them, so everyone would go into the pits to avoid being overtaken properly.

No Qualifying and then the entire race being spent as a stand-off in the pitlane doesn’t sound much fun to me.

Yeah, I agree that some of the suggestions above are unnecessary, but I think a point for fastest lap sounds like a decent idea if implemented well, such as the suggestions above of it only being available if you finish the race, or finish in the points, as this would stop drivers going out for one quik lap to clinch the title. I think the fastest pitstop idea could also work if points were given to the Constructors Championship.

I think the most overtakes idea wouldn’t really work, because as we saw in Keith’s overtaking statistics, it’s hard to define a “proper” overtake i.e. do first lap passes count, how long must you keep the position, do DRS passes count etc, which would make that idea just way too complicated.