Championship points
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I know this topic comes round every few years, but the current championship standings are a little unusual.
Lewis Hamilton has won three out of four races so far this season, yet is not leading the world championship. Then again, the championship leader has had a very consistent run of form.
In truth I think the points system is probably just fine, and that over a season the balance is probably about right in terms of rewarding wins vs consistency. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something not quite right in this specific scenario.
Any thoughts?
@hamilfan is right, if it stays this close til the end, then the last race will decide it… Who needs a points structure when you only need 1 race right?
I have no interest in the double points for the purposes of this discussion. It’s purely about the per-race points structure.
It’s better than the old one. If we were still on the 10-8-6 system, Hamilton would be four points behind (34-30) and so would have to win two more races with Nico second to even draw level and would have to win three more races with Nico second to take the lead. With the current system however just one more win will give Hamilton the Championship lead.
I would like to see a win more rewarded. Possibly 25-15-10-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. This would reward a win highly, as well as the other podium positions over the rest of the minor points. Under this system we would have HAM on 75 with ROS on 70. That seems about right to me.
Good systems.. I’d only suggest 8 points for 4th @jleigh. Mainly for scenarios like we have now (2 team cars followed by 2 team cars etc.), this might give more balance, although I’d also be interested to see if people disagree with that statement.
Consistency vs. Wins – I guess it boils down to what we want to see, and what structure the championship has. Number of cars is important in deciding this, as is reliability and how much a factor the car is in the results.
I think the current points system is quite good, but perhaps it is not suited that well to one team dominating, as then you would like a more pronounced difference between second and first. I’ve just been reading up on the 1988 season (partly to learn how the dominance of then compared to that of now – so far the WO5s have not lapped the entire field yet) and a strange situation with the points system also occurred then.
Because the ’11 best results’-rule was still in place, the championship was decided effectively by Bernie’s medal idea: the driver with the most wins is champion; for an identical number of wins, the number of second places is counted, and so on. Senna had 8 wins versus Prost’s 7, and was champion despite scoring fewer points than Prost in total. So in some ways the points situation was the opposite of what it is now: Lewis’s DNF would not have mattered so much because you would be allowed to disregard a few results, and his three wins to one would come in handy when the final points would be tallied up at the end of the season.
Just a little historical perspective:
The 10-8-…system mentioned above was the least rewarding ever for the winner, no surprise as it came at the height of Schumacher dominance, the #1 to #2 ratio was 1.25. The current system’s 1.38 ratio is comparable to the 8-6-… system from 1950-1960 with its 1.33.
The most used system 9-6-… had ratio 1.5 (1960-1990), in the next decade the 10-6-… system rewarded the most, the ratio was 1.67.I am partial to the 9-6-.. system, but I do not mind the current ratio either.
Speaking about a dominant team, another number of interest is what share the 1-2 finish yields of the total available:
8-6-… gives 58%
9-6-… gives 60%
10-6-… gives almost 62%
10-8-… gives 46%
25-18-… gives 39%So the current system makes a “one dominant team season” last longest before the WCC is mathematically over.
Interesting thoughts. I suspect there’ll never be a system that works well for all situations, and what we have is pretty good.
Thinking on it more, the only thing I’d change is increasing the number of points and having points for all finishing positions. That would eliminate the weird situation of several drivers with zero points, and no way to tell by looking at the points table why certain drivers are ahead of others.
I agree with @jleigh, I’ve always thought that podium places should be worth a lot more. I’d cut it down to 8 places though, because I think getting into the points should be an achievement rather than something obvious for half the teams. Given that we have 22 cars, that’s more than 33% being awarded points.
Thus, 15-10-7-5-4-3-2-1. And if you’re insistent on 10 places being awarded, then 25-15-10-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 sounds perfect.
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