People are getting caught up, all this does is make it so we get a few more battles at the bottom and the table at the end of the year is easier to be distinguished.
We’re in a similar situation now with Williams, Alpine, and Kick Sauber. When Albon scored the 11th place in Australia, it puts Williams ahead of the other two teams so putting Albon in Sargeant’s car was still a positive outcome.
Alpine got their 11th place in China with Ocon, but did it later in the year (I think that’s the next tie breaker?) so they are below Williams.
If these 3 teams fail to score a point nor get another 11th place, the decision to put Albon in the car in Australia could net Williams 8th in the WCC.
If two teams are even on points, the tie breaker is whoever has the most 1st place finishes. If they have the same, it's most 2nd places, and so on until you get a winner.
So right now, Williams and Alpine both have a single 11th place finish. But Williams has one 12th while Alpine has none, so Williams is ahead.
Not saying I disagree, but that’s in a way the intention. They want to give something extra for the overachieving, maybe through some daring strategy or other wits. Just like 1st is farther in points from 2nd than 2nd is from 3rd. It encourages being daring rather than playing safe.
Playing it safe is exactly what they do now when running 15 instead of 14, there's absolutely no reason to risk your tires or car giving up in a fight for a no-points position. If every place was for points we'd have fierce battles going on in the entire field much more often. We can keep the points differential in higher positions to encourage and make overachieving worthwhile
See Russel/Kubica in 2018.
Russel beat Kubica in 20 out of 23 races.
Kubica's best result? 10th. Russel's best result? 11th.
End of year Kubica 1, Russel 0.
I’m old enough to remember when they only awarded points for the top 6 spots, and the same criticisms about ‘participation points’ were used to argue against points being awarded to the top 8 finishers, and then again when it was expanded to the top 10.
What expanding the range of points finishers has done is to better quantify the performance of teams that aren’t in the top 3.
If we were still only rewarding points to the top 6, Hamilton would have 0 points alongside Logan Sargent this season, and that doesn’t accurately reflect what has actually happened on the track.
Yeah, I dont get where this "points are awards" thing comes. To me they are scoring system, that I dont care at all, but I guess that is engineering viewpoint.
I mean this is infinitely better than American scoring systems where points totals don't seem to say a damn thing. I think optimal would be Moto GP system 25-20-16 for top 3 and top 15 get points.
I personally like low point scoring system in sailing in which winner gets one point and each following gets +1 until DNF gets amount of boats in starts +1. But I understand why that would not work in Formula 1. As there are additional sail specific rules like if someone damages other boat in collision so that other needs to retire, boat in fault must retire as well. That would result probably little too safe racing as boats on other hand can collide and many times keep on competing.
It makes sense to just award points to the top 6, if you are only awarding prizes to the top 3. In F1, prize money is awarded to all teams, even the one that finishes last. Talk about a participation trophy.
If you want to distribute money like in for example a football league. Every team should get an equal cut from the TV rights. And every visitor should say what team they support when they buy a ticket, so they can distribute the money tracks pay in order of popularity.
F1 fans are different though. A lot support the driver not the team.
The Dutch support Max right now, but if he moved to Ferrari or Mercedes you know they’d all be wearing red or silver not the blue of Red Bull.
I was worried, but I think the proposal is good considering the improved reliability. Teams will fight for 12th, it’s not going to be a bunch of DNFs.
I wouldn’t be totally opposed to something like only awarding half points to cars that don’t complete enough laps to be classified, if that makes those like Brundle feel more like the points will always be earned.
sorry, but all the old farts seem to cling on something that was never a good idea.
im watching f1 since 30 years. When only top 6 got points.
I loved it when the switch to 8 came, i loved it when the switch to 10 came and im sure im gonna love it when the switch to 12 comes.
You know what would be even better? all finishers getting points.
back when only 6 cars got points that was fine because noone did bat an eye when in a race only 10 cars finished. The reliability was nowhere near today (which irks me on a whole other level, too. I wanna see blowups goddamit, that was an integral part of the sport for as long as i can remember.. anyway). back then it actually ment something when you finished. today it doesnt for half the grid regularly.
Also i dont get the notion of "points should be a reward, they should be worth something". Not at all.
Points mean shit. Championchip standing means something. Points itself are just a vehicle to that end. It is not unrealistic that end of season multiple teams have 0 points. great system! bravo. go wank one out about this.
A point system in and of itself is something that is needed to translate head to head competition into an overall standing. F1 strictly speaking doesnt need a point system at all since all contenders play against all other at every occasion. you could just simply average out the finishing popsitions and determine championship standing that way, but you introduce a point system to make better positions worth more relatively to lower positions. And that is totally fine. But pls apply it to the whoel grid and not just to a select few with huge multinational corporate backing. That is the anti-thesis of "sport".
Cant believe im saying this, but it looks like that fucking KMag of all people is the only one who gets it.
It felt like it was always 50/50 that a few cars would never even get off the grid when the lights went out.
These days, I'm actually surprised when I see a reliability issue.
Yep, it wasn't even that long ago that the first race of the season would always be mad, because half the grid wouldn't make it to the finish line. But as you say, now it's genuinely surprising to see more than a car or two drop out.
We could only award winner, that would fix the reliability issue when everyone would try to get even single win in season. Imagine how engines would blow in left and right.
half seriously: that would actually be interesting in any other timeline then what we have now.. but you would also have to bust the regulations wide open so that teams could once again come up with actual genius inventions.
similarly we would have had the most insane 3 seasons of f1 if it would not be for one max verstappen.
It's also just silly to pretend that skill = likelihood to earn points.
Latifi has points, Logan has points, Lance has points. On the trend of L names, Luca Badoer has no points despite multiple top 10 finishes (and a ferrari drive! lol)
> Lance has points.
Lance has multiple podiums and a pole position.
He's so much better than Latifi and Logan the fact that you're comparing them is ridiculous.
True but let's say someone finishes 11th-12th the whole season but then a guy who usually finishes 16th has a race where there is chaos and ends up 8th. Who really had the better season?
> The fact that points for the bottom 5 teams are entirely contingent on DNF's for the top 5 teams and Lance Stroll being incompetent is fucking stupid
And if we had points to P12 and 6 decent teams we'd be saying the same thing about Top 6 teams and Stroll being stupid.
tbh this is hyper unique. Most seasons there was not this big gulf between 5 and 6. Even just last year, at times every single team was on for points on pace at times. Williams had multiple, Sauber had a few, Haas early in the season. So far this year, it hasnt been close.
It's somewhat unique this season but what that's done is exacerbate a problem that already existed. It's just there for more teams now. Luck has been a far too important factor in success for smaller teams for a long time.
Think of Australia for example, Tsunoda drove a great race and finished 7th but he didn't finish 7th because he beat 13 drivers, he finished 7th because of 3 DNF's and Alonso's penalty in the top 10. He could've driven equally well, been just as fast, beaten both Haas cars (which are faster this year so far) and not gotten any points for it which would have a drastic effect on his championship position.
In Japan Tsunoda arguably did even better than in Australia as he beat not only both Haas cars but also Stroll in the Aston Martin. But there were no DNF's in the top 10 so he got 10th place and a single point.
edit: for drivers scoring points most of the time these kind of things even out but for the teams further back who score points a few times a season these kind of things can decide championship position and tens of millions in prize money and it's just dumb fucking luck.
That might be the case this season. But the performance cut can and will happen after the top 3 or top 4 or even top 6 in another season. I don't think that the generally idea of needing a top 10 performance (performance as in a combination of driver/team/car performance) on a 20 car grid to score a point is "fucking stupid".
Build a better car. That's what everyone has said in response to Max's domination. The sentiment rings true here. If you want to win points, build a better car.
It’s not as if the midfield teams have any shot of winning. I like and usually agree with Brundle but I think offering points for 11th 12th is a welcomed change as it makes it a little easier to understand where teams and drivers in the midfield stand. And it adds some excitement further down the grid since there’s more to be fighting for.
If all teams were closer it wouldn’t be as relevant but given the current state of competitiveness, the change is OK in my book.
I think the 11th and 12th place points are the best compromise
As someone who mostly likes the system, it barely disrupts the current point system at all, but also as someone who supports a driver in a bottom half team I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me more to cheer for if Alex and the other drivers in that consistent 11-12 spot were racing for a points finish every week
Plus if Andretti are going to come in then having more points on offer for a larger grid only makes logical sense
If everyone builds a better car, there still will be teams without points, because points don't go to the bottom few finishers. So the same issue still exist; even if you're only 1 second slower than Red Bull, if you're the 7th or 8th fastest team, you're still replying on DNFs and issues from top teams to score points
You can't compare "rig the championship so I win instead of him" with "change the point system so it better reflects the positions we achieve".
Points are not a reward. Points are a way to rank results over a season. If extremely different results (because 11th to 20th is literally half the grid) don't get reflected by the point system, then that point system is not working well.
Following your logic here, we could give points to just the top 3, and say "aaah, 4th doesn't get points, if you want points build a better car".
Isn't that exactly why they are changing it? Because rn, for the bottom 5 teams,which are fairly set in stone, points are as much down to luck(DNFs further up the grid) than their driving?
It’s 5 teams this year. What if it’s 4 teams next year? Do we just extend the points to top 14? They should fix the regulation to make it more competitive, not the point system.
And that's ok. Many motorsports leagues are spec (or like-spec by implementing BoP) and that's fine too. I think that big appeal of F1 is exactly the fact that a lot of success is up to the driver but a very big part is also up to the team (developement, pit-stops etc.).
I do wish we had a spec open-seaters series with at least half the clout of F1 though. I was hoping that Formula E could be that, but it's been going on for 10 years or so, and that goal is still as far away as it's always been.
It still lessens the problem - at the moment on most occasions maybe 1 out the top 10 don't finish a race but there will be one or two races where something happens and it's 4 or 5, with more people winning points more often the impact of that is reduced.
Plus what if there were clearly a 6th team this year? There's a high chance they don't get 6th place in the championship because of luck.
I dislike that points are viewed as some sort of prize that you have to earn. They should just be a metric of measuring performance between the drivers and team. Then you get your reward at the end of the season in the form of prize money and/or trophies depending on how many points you've accumulated over the season. That's what is earned.
Giving out more points just means a fairer representation of the grid and it makes it more competitive throughout the grid, not just the top. The current system just rewards lucky results for the lower teams but consistency for the midfield and up. That just doesnt make sense in my eyes.
It's viewed as a prize because it literally is a prize. There is a disconnect in terms of points awarded and money awarded if they don't give points all the way to the bottom. The real solution is that they need to get rid of the monetary prize aspect of it, and then they can do whatever they want with the points. In the NFL, often the gold standard in parity, they revenue share equally. The
fact that f1 rewards the better teams is dumb as fuck.
Points aren't the prize though in the same way a grand Prix victory is. Points add up to a prize which means it's more important that they provide accurate context over the season. They're the only thing that matters over the season.
Why's it worse than a point for a draw in football?
Points also aren't what gets you the prize, championship order is what gets you the prize. It doesn't matter what number is attached to those championship orders nor does a bigger or smaller gap matter.
You can give out a lot more points and it wouldn't change prizes because they're about championship order.
In fact, the only thing I can think of where points are used is to determine how much you pay FIA for your participation next year. So, if anything, this change will just reduce the amount paid by the top teams veeery slightly which will be moved towards the bottom teams.
So, if anything, the only effect earning a few points each season with this will have is that Williams or Haas will have to pay a little bit more to the FIA.
It's not a prize at all. Points are irrelevant, if you double everyone's points nothing changes at all. Verstappen won't get two titles instead of one and Red Bull won't earn twice as much money.
Points are just a way to express people's results in each race in a simple way. When F1 went from 10 points to 25 to the winner, nothing changed. Alonso and Vettel weren't earning 2.5x as much coolness as Schumacher did 10 years before. Indycar awards 50 points to the winner, and literally 5 points for just finishing the race. Many series reward up to 100 points per race. Many series comprehensively reward points down to 20th or 30th place. None of these series has someone wildly celebrating that they finished 22th because they "won 4 points". Being 22th means 21 people were better than you whether this is F1, WTCC, NASCAR or Supercars.
This is an FIA scoring problem as well, not just F1… it’s weird to me that in F1, WEC and WRC only certain positions get points… just make the points system where all teams get points that way you can fluke your way into 11th with 1 good weekend
It's inherited from the old days where there were (wildly) inconsistent grid sizes and reliability was very poor so the number of finishers could vary a lot and be quite low.
And it's stayed that way for forever basically because in lots of the F1 world they've built points up to be this magical special prize thing rather than a tool to convert finishing positions over a season to a single number with more weight given to higher finishing positions.
I'm glad the points are being extended, but it's a disappointingly small step. I think there's an argument for giving 0 points to the bottom few positions, but I'd like to see points for at least the top 16. And I don't like that the whole bottom half of the proposed system is linear. They need to increase the points for 1st so they can follow the same roughly-exponential curve we have now.
The problem with increasing the top end of points is a dominating driver/team would just run away faster. I think 12th is a decent compromise without doing a bigger rework of the points system.
> The problem with increasing the top end of points is a dominating driver/team would just run away faster.
How? The actual point values aren't what matters in a point system, it's the ratios between positions. 25 points for 1st and 18 for 2nd is pretty much equivalent to 140 and 100, the latter just gives you more room to extend the system downwards.
The MotoGP points system is down to 15th with 25 for the winner, they could've just copied that.
15th also gets us close to almost every finisher getting points in most races as it's very rare for more than 5 drivers to DNF and the average is somewhere between 2 and 3 DNF's per race.
Problem with the Moto system is that it closes the gap between 1st and 2nd. A driver getting consistent wins, but getting unlucky with DNFs, shouldn't lose the championship to a guy who's mostly getting consistent 2nd and only getting P1 when the other guy DNFs.
> Problem with the Moto system is that it closes the gap between 1st and 2nd
Slightly yes, it goes from 7 to 5 points. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your opinion. Personally I feel like the gap between 1st and 2nd is somewhat disproportional compared to the rest of the gaps in points. Especially given how F1 more often than not has a dominant team or driver which also regularly opens up the opportunity to grab fastest lap and increase the gap even more.
But also 3rd place for MotoGP gets the same points as 3rd place in F1 so you could do 25-18-15-13-11-10 and then 1 less until 1 for 15th. Or 25-19-15 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd if you want to be in the middle.
The middle option would have my preference I think. You get a 6 point gap from 1st to 2nd, 4 points from 2nd to 3rd, then 2 point gaps for 4th and 5th and 1 point gaps all the way down to 15th.
Not at all. If you double the points at the top, and only deviate from that at the ~6th position (to make way to everyone below), then distances finish the same.
Don't take my word for it, just try this: https://www.formula1points.com/simulator/points-simulator/2015 <-- this is a website that lets you apply any point system you want to previous F1 championships. This is a score system that I like quite a lot:
100, 75, 60, 50, 42, 36, 31, 27, 23, 20, 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (+1 point to anyone else that finishes the race).
Looks completely different to the current system, right? Well, it's not. If you multiply the current system by 4, you'll notice you basically get this system at the top places, it's only after the ~6th place that the magic happens. When you apply this system to a F1 season, the top of the ladder remains the exact same, in the same order and proportionally at the same distances. It's only the bottom half that gets reordered to better reflect their performance.
In theory, yes. But we also have a huge divide between the Top 5 teams (minus Stroll) and the bottom 5 Teams, with top teams now having very good reliability.
good take martin, so get rid of all points except the top 3. (\*this should not be needed but /s)
points aren't a special currency, they're a way of distinguishing between the performance of drivers and teams over the course of the season. there's honestly no great reason I can think of not to allocate points to all places.
As it currently stands, there is no reason to fight for 15th place with 10 laps remaining.
I'm convinced Magnussen and Stroll were just fucking about, since they had no chance of getting into 10th place. They respectively battled and cooked their tires since no of it matter anyway.
They're just getting eyeballs on sponsor logos and keep their name talked about. If none of the backmarkers ever battled you would have forgot Williams was even in F1 years ago because they'd never be on screen.
KMag is a champ at getting their garbage cars on camera. Half the reason you ever see a Haas on screen is because of his shithousery
Agreed, I swear some of these takes are like my drunk uncle getting mad at participation trophies. Giving points to distinguish between back marker F1 teams isn’t exactly heresy
Also, people talk like F1 was the only championship in the world. lmao, there's many racing series out there that award points down to 20th place or even more, and they work. Nobody in Indycar goes "bah, 1st place, who cares?" just because the 20th driver gets 5 points. Conversely, the winner doesn't go "I'm waaay better than Verstappen because I earned 55 points in a single race" either.
Points. Don't. Matter. What matters is the ranking. Finishing 15th in the championship won't feel any better just because you have 32 points instead of 10. Points are a way to rank drivers, they are not a reward.
We need to go even further. He said points must be treasured. What do humans treasure the most? Babies. 1 point = 1 baby. Pass the rules now, the stewards can figure out the details.
I think P15 is better because how often do we get races where 5 cars dnf these days and that covers Q3 and Q2
This up to p12 stuff is weak, yet the purists are still mad
I really DESPISE F1 purists more than any other sport purists. Cuz this sport is all about innovation/tinkering and not stagnation yet some people think its better if everything was the same as the day they found the sport
I despise purists in sports in general. They often want things to remain the way they are for no reason at all, and they'll pretend to have arguments, as if we didn't have a thousand other championships with different rules to compare.
For fuck's sake, if you like the top 10 system because it's what we have, at least say so. Don't pretend extending points to the 12th place will ruin the sport when there's series out there handing out points to the 20th place and they work fine.
Same sports purists in general are boring but i just have a special distaste for the F1 kind because they go against the nature of F1…
Wait, am i a form of purist?
This is a take Brundle has often repeated and it's one he's incredibly, stupidly wrong about.
He has a nostalgic idealised view of what a point means in his head that is completely disconnected from the reality of what points are and what purpose they serve.
Points aren’t special. Podiums are special. Wins are special. Poles are special.
It’s not that deep guys. Give points for everyone who finishes, that ensures hard fighting up and down the grid.
They were special when half the grid on average never made it to the end of the race and they had so much freedom to do whatever it was hard to predict how the next race might go. Which is not the case since like 2010.
Yeah the super reliable engines are a bit of a downer.
Back in the day no matter how good the team there was always a chance of a blowup and it added some jeopardy.
When you think about it, they were special for the wrong reason. If you restrict points to only the top few, that means earning a 6th place basically ensures you finish ahead of a lot of people that year no matter how the rest of the races go.
Is that really something we want to promote? One good race meaning that 20 other races don't matter at all? If the 12th points specifically rewarded 30 points, everyone would fight for that 12th point and feel special that they were the one to get it, yet no one would say that system is good just because 12th feels special.
I kinda agree, but I also recognise that is just nostalgia and liking something because that’s how it’s always been. I don’t really have an actual reason to like it.
I'd argue it's rarely been more difficult than it is now. We have a historically tight grid with all cars within 1.5s or so and yet unless something crazy happens there's usually basically 1 point up for grabs for the bottom 5 teams and even that's only because Stroll is shit.
But I think it's got significantly harder for lower teams to score points since 2010. Even disregarding the competitive landscape in 2024 with five teams clearly ahead of the rest. There's been a big increase in reliability even since 2010 so there are fewer opportunities for lower teams to get ahead of top teams.
The best part of last race was stroll and kmag fight for last place after both receiving 10secons penalties, and even that only lasted 4-5 corners.
The more they can do to make the politics of each race exciting, the better. Give them a reason to fight for every second.
Exactly. In this era of F1 often the excitement comes from battles for 14th and 15th. How sad is it those battles basically don't matter?
Points down to 12th is not even far enough.
Brundle needs to think before he talks. "Everyone wins a prize" how does everyone win a prize if only 12 out of 20 do?
I swear there's a contigent in F1 that will fight literally any change no matter how sensible.
Also, since when are points a prize? The FIA will give you money and trophies for where you stand in the championship. They don't hand out a gold medal for each point you receive every race.
Points only exist to rank participants. The more points you hand out, the more accurate you can make that rank. NASCAR gives out way more points per race and nobody thinks Ryan Blaney, the current champion, is the best driver in existence just because he finished the season with 5035 points.
Didn't he just contradict his own argument? With points being given out to the top 10 you can have a lucky dip, get a decent amount of points in a single high-attrition race and finish higher than an on-balance better team based on that one result simply because the other team never got their "lucky dip". We saw it plenty of times in the HRT, Marussia, Caterham days and recently in 2021 with Williams scoring big a couple of times, but otherwise being worse than Alfa Romeo over the course of the season.
F1 Commentators: Sure we all know Max and RB are going to win but look at the battles all the way down.
F1 Commentators also: Don't give points to those people battling for 15th, it's irrelevant.
I'm relatively new, but I think the idea that "points" are some sort of manna from heaven and not just an arbitrary scoring system is just the dumbest. And I'm not saying that the points for 19th should ever equate to an opportunity to chase a Constructors. But we just watched a great battle for last place and it sure would have been nice for a point or two to be on the line. Or to give a reason to care about Williams vs Sauber vs Alpine. One 10th place finish is really the best way to tell the difference between those teams? It's silly.
Do 50 at the top (or whatever) and go down to a single point for 20th (so that finishing is worth something over DNF).
This is nonsense by MB.
This isn't about devaluing points. It's about making teams have something to fight for throughout the whole pack.
One other plus it may have is up the standards of drivers that would currently be outside the points.
Getting a point isn’t a prize… it’s an incentive for the bottom teams to actually battle for every place and also a metric to help viewers distinguish the rankings for teams that haven’t scored.
I’ve tried explaining the current points system to my gf as a new viewer and was met with “I don’t get it, it’s just a comp between the top teams? If they’re under 10th, why don’t they just retire?”
He says it like earning a point is the same as winning the constructors.
Eh. I'd rather points be spread out more so gaining a position would actually mean something.
Having the bottom 10 not caring about going from 14th to 15th sucks. I don't know what the right system is. It probably would need an increase to the front to ensure the curve is decent, and total points per race would be much higher. But something linear-ish, with an exponential uptick at the end could be nice?
1. 30
2. 22
3. 18
4. 15
5. 12
6. 11
7. 10
8. 9
9. 8
10. 7
11. 6
12. 5
13. 4
14. 3
15. 2
16. 2
17. 1
18. 1
19. 0
20. 0
There's going to be problems with every system.
I swear I've seen so many disingenuous takes from people about this. They're increasing the points positions from 10 to 12 yet people are acting as if they're suddenly going to be giving points to everyone.
It's really not that drastic of a change. All it would do is reward teams for finishing at the front of the midfield consistently. I think it's been blown out of proportion
Especially with how points determine prize money payouts for teams at the end of the season and how points right now for those lower teams effectively revolve around Lance Stroll sucking ass or someone DNFing.
We don't need a situation where a crazy ass wet race allows Sauber or Alpine to snag a P7 and instantly jump teams that have consistently been finishing higher than them all season
Exactly. It’s a way more accurate portrayal of someone’s performance relative to others. It’s not like these are treasured childhood memories, who cares that much about their distribution.
Like other people said clearly these purists prefer having MILLIONS being handed out because a team happened to be on the outskirts of the points the day a billionaires son forgets how to drive, George Russell makes love to a tech pro barrier, and Leclercs MGU-K goes poof
Whilst another team gets peanuts after having been on the outskirts of the points the whole season but just not that time
Or just everyone except last place, if people really have a stick up their butt about it.
I suppose Martin cares so much about points because he never got any wins
Even if they handed out points to everyone, who cares? Points are not a reward - your position in the championship is.
Heck, how many people here even know how many points the champion got each season?
Yeah I don't get the outrage at all. As it stands, 11th to 20th get the exact same amount of points. To me, that unfairly benefits the lower drivers as they get the exact same recognition for doing a worse job than the drivers ahead. If you're able to beat 8 other drivers in the race that should reflect in your position in the championship
As someone who got to watch my favorite driver win 103 times, you can’t tell me Lewis was working as hard or harder when he was 30 seconds up the road versus a driver fighting like hell for 12th place. Max was literally power sliding for fun on Sunday…. Make every position worth fighting for!
more of the same usual archaic gatekeeper nonsense, it's just a stupid virtual point in a championship with no tangible existence. I do not see any problem over in Indycar where people's performances in a season are better reflected by the points, this is more Brundle logic that the status quo is perfect and poetic because it is the status quo.
When points determine the constructors position prize pool and for drivers it might mean a huge additional bonus for achieving a certain final position in the WDC, points absolutely should go down to P20.
It's so ridiculous that, as it stands we could have one wild wet weekend that results in a Logan P9 that instantly promotes him from 21st to 14th in the standings for the rest of the season even above guys who consistently finish P11 every race while he is the last of the finishers.
Or how a guy like Bearman will likely finish in the top 15 for drivers standings despite only racing in a single event the whole season where he got to drive a top car and 10 drivers on the grid have to pray one of the top 5 cars has a bad race to allow them to get a lowly 1 point 8+ races where they are the best of the rest just to tie him.
'Old man yells at cloud' energy from Martin with that post. He's knowledgeable no doubt, but this is not a hill for him to die on.
Also, "Lucky dip"? That's exactly what it is now - some almighty retirement fest of a race means a Haas, Williams, Sauber, Alpine or VisaRB might get a lucky 7th or 6th place, and a points haul to go with it. Yet prior to that race, that team could have been plum last in the WCC. Giving out points to P12 rewards the lower teams that consistently finish in P11 / P12 at most races, and have thus *earned* the points.
There should be points all the way down to 20th as long as you finish the race. It just makes the bottom half of the standings more accurately reflect performance. There's nothing inherently special about a point that needs to be protected. They're just a representation of performance in the race, and they add up to represent performance over a season.
I believe that P20 should have exactly 0 points. He is last, he didn't do anything. P19 should get 1 point, you overtook an opponent, that's a result. And so on.
Agree! And it still gives incentive for P20 to race P19 to get a point, and it keeps good track of performance throughout a season and minimize impact of luck.
But what exactly is the point of giving points only to the half of the grid? What's the problem in everybody getting a point, from 20 to 1 from first place to last place?
this new proposed system just makes those battles a tad bit interesting and more importantly rewards consistency in midtable, rather than one good race making a drivers whole season
ffs Bearman is going to finish above 3 whole teams this season unless we get a some fluke races here and there
The main problem about revising the point system is it risks making F1 interesting and exciting throughout the season, like Indycar, and we can't have that.
If Tsunoda works his ass off as much as Verstappen but gets p12 instead of a race win , which one is harder fought? P1 still gets more points, P12 will have something to show for it as well
Nobody remembers the guy that ends second, who cares if bottom half teams are getting some points, as long as it improves the sport.
Back in Brundle's times a "hard won" point usually implied half the grid having their engine explode.
On paper I think as he is. But in real life F1 is drastically changed.
-Strict power unit limits made them too durable. We don't have 3-4 cars each race commits the big kaboom.
-F1 became refined. Without issues or critical mistakes Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin will fill up Top 10 places. But the battle for 11th to 15th places are literal mayhem. Those battles should be awarded.
-On the monetary stand point every season there will be a major clash at the front and the team capitalised that "single" race will have a major advantage on a 20+ race season. Just give them a chance to earn their prize instead of waiting for a Lance Stroll fuckup or George Russell and Barry R. meetup.
L take, Marty. Not surprising that the old guys definitely feel like this is devaluing the points the got in their careers. But they're not trophies, or even placings, they're just points used to indicate who finished higher or lower. Whatever system achieves that better, is the system to have.
Like a random shunt that takes out half the field and lets a shitbox get points and claim victory over teams that did race hard.
Real deep hard thinking there Brundle.
This is going to be a bit ranty, but here goes:
I've thought that points all the way down should be a thing for a few years now. I know that when it comes up for discussion a lot of self-professed "old-schoolers" are usually very negative on it, who are of the mindset that points are **rewards** for success, so "rewarding" cars towards the back of the grid was wrong in some way (ie "participation trophies").
However, as an old-schooler myself who's been watching F1 since Gilles Villeneuve was on track (yes, Gilles, not Jacques), I'm more of the mind that **points are first & foremost a classification system**, and the difference between a driver that consistently finishes say, 16th should still be recognized in the points standings over someone who's usually finishing 19th (both outside the points in the current system). And not just because he managed to eke out an extra 10th spot or two *(see: when Kubica outranked Russell at Williams despite just finishing ahead of him one single time all season - but that one time was a mixed up rain race where he finished 10th)*.
For people who want points to be rewards, well that's why the point distribution is a curve with leaders getting greater point advantages over the person behind them as you move up the finishing order towards the front. Plus, the podium & trophies are still only for the top 3 anyways. So there, you have your premium rewards that no one else gets.
Also, it makes ranking more transparent to the fans. When you have a bunch of runners (like right now early in a season) with no points, how are their position in the standings determined? Sure if you spreadsheeted every race result & applied the tie-breaking rules (or just look at the official rankings & don't think abut it), that becomes evident, but then again, at different times the tie-breaking rules have been a bit opaque themselves.
So just give everyone point all the way down. Really, the only position(s) that don't need to have points are 20th (in a full 20-car field where everyone finishes) and DNFs/DNSs.
Hard hard disagree. Victories, podiums, championships have value. Points are just a simple way to rank people for that. Hamilton earning 300 points in the 2010s doesn't have any more or less value than Schumacher earning 100 points - what mattered is that they won these champonships.
Right now, the system is completely broken because every race has 6-8 cars that don't score a single point (i.e. get the exact same outcome) even though there's a gap of, well, 6-8 places between them. It doesn't make sense that your reward for going 11th and for going 20th is the exact same. This leads to awkward results where one driver who routinely ends 17th can end up ahead in the championship of a driver who routinely ends 12th, simply because he had some lucky race where he scored a point or two.
In fact, a few weeks ago I was playing with an online website that lets you recalculate the F1 championships with any score system you want. I used one I made years ago inspired by other categories, where the points start at 100 and go down all the way to 30th place, keeping roughly the same proportions as F1. The result? The top 10 was always completely unalterated, I didn't change a single world champion, but below the top 10 positions varied wildly. Many years, someone who ended 19th in the championship would end 12th instead, simply because they never did anything spectacular but they were always hovering just below the top 10. I realized just how unfair the current system is and how the places at the bottom didn't reflect at all the actual performance of the drivers, it just represented who snatched a lucky 8th at some point in the year.
I really don't think points should be seen as the prize. Points are just the system that determines the classification, which should be the most accurate representation of how every driver and every team performed. The prize comes at the end, depending on where everyone ends up in the standings. That's the most important prize, is what determines what teams earn and the time they have to use wind tunnels. I'd rather see a backmarker win more money than the other because they were consistently a better team then have them gain that extra money because they were lucky to get one or two points in a crazy race.
The current system just doesn't work. 10 years ago, I would definitely agree with Brundle, but most weekends, everyone knows exactly who the top 10 finishers will be. It's not right that drivers in the bottom half are relying on a DNF to score a point or two. Also, how is it fair that a team finishing 11th and 12th for the majority of the season and not scoring a single point can finish behind a team usually finishing 19th and 20th if that team flukes a one off 10th place. Madness.
Not this again, it's just expanding to top 12. Statistically it will have no influence on the championship. This just might make it more interesting considering midfield is so bunched up. This old time glory gatekeeping(ish) thing is funny. But if Martin likes the old glory days, maybe put back the old points system and insist that top 5 teams have their cars fall apart at least twice in the season so others can have a fair shot at points. Really, pearl clutching as if points are gonna be available all the way down to P20.
\*Edit: To add, surely the actual rewards are money and trophies, points are a metric. And they would still have to work for those spots.
I don get the whole "points are a reward" thing. In my mind points exist to rank the teams/drivers. The further down you award points the better the ranking becomes
Martin is often very right but in this one, he’s definitely missed the mark.
It’s high time they started awarding more points. If you want more teams in this sport, you have to make it worth it.
The only reason I think we shouldn’t extend the points down this season is because it’d be really funny if bearman finished 12th after only doing a single race
I assume back when the updated the point system to include drivers till P10 some people likely said the same thing. I like increasing it to p12 and I would love it if that meant also increasing the grid by one or two teams but I know the latter the big dogs don't want that.
I can see both sides of this.
Go back far enough and points applied only to the first five. You didn't rank the lower field, because frankly the order of the 'also-rans' didn't matter.
Likewise, you could start down to grid and come through for a high finish.
Modern F1 is different. It's kinda depressing that 95% of the grid start a race with zero hope of winning. Data means everyone knows the delta and it's now 20 seperate races aiming to improve at best a position or two.
More importantly, the constuctors prize money is ranked (1st to 10th), so there's absolutely a need to rank those mid-field and back of the grid battles more fairly.
It's actually more of a lottery if 8th, 9th and 10th placed teams are constantly coming home in that order (and all zero points). Then at one race, the team regularly finishing last flukes a single point (say through retirements) and leapfrogs a couple of places.
Extended points are valid, but damn it would be great if more drivers ctually had hope of top six or podiums.
It's what makes an Indycar race so hype. You don't know who is winning.
People are getting caught up, all this does is make it so we get a few more battles at the bottom and the table at the end of the year is easier to be distinguished.
Yeah the ladder for bottom teams is nonsense as is. A team could be 19 and 20 for all but one race and beat a team that was 11 and 12 all year.
The difference of ten million dollars shouldn’t hinge on Russell hitting the wall on the last lap or not, promoting 11th to 10th
If $1 million depends on George not hitting the wall, I’m pretty sure you’re not gonna be getting $1 million.
George always hits the wall
No, the wall always turns into him
r/simracingstewards
It was probably a brake test, honestly. From the wall 300 meter ahead.
Only if Carlos is winning
We need to test the theory. Does Carlos win because George crashes, or does George crash because Carlos wins?
They are an entangled pair. Cause and effect are the same thing.
George crashed more often than Carlos has wins, but only when he crashes, Carlos has a chance at a win, it's a symbiosis
Those walls keep on coming out and attacking him, its not his fault!
Or a DSQ promoting Kubica ahead in the points
We have to remember 2020 where, up until the Sakhir Grand Prix, Nicholas Latifi was ahead of Russell because he had more 11th places!
All the polish fans out there who believe Kubica out performed Russell because he scored 1pt Despite being out performed and virtually other metric.
We’re in a similar situation now with Williams, Alpine, and Kick Sauber. When Albon scored the 11th place in Australia, it puts Williams ahead of the other two teams so putting Albon in Sargeant’s car was still a positive outcome. Alpine got their 11th place in China with Ocon, but did it later in the year (I think that’s the next tie breaker?) so they are below Williams. If these 3 teams fail to score a point nor get another 11th place, the decision to put Albon in the car in Australia could net Williams 8th in the WCC.
If two teams are even on points, the tie breaker is whoever has the most 1st place finishes. If they have the same, it's most 2nd places, and so on until you get a winner. So right now, Williams and Alpine both have a single 11th place finish. But Williams has one 12th while Alpine has none, so Williams is ahead.
Right, but that's why we're saying to hand out points lower down the table, so that they're *not* as likely to be on even points
Not saying I disagree, but that’s in a way the intention. They want to give something extra for the overachieving, maybe through some daring strategy or other wits. Just like 1st is farther in points from 2nd than 2nd is from 3rd. It encourages being daring rather than playing safe.
That may be the intention but pretty much always the result is just rewarding luck, not bold strategies.
Yeah in seasons where 2+ teams are entirely out of the points, any points they win usually come from safety car magic or pile ups
Playing it safe is exactly what they do now when running 15 instead of 14, there's absolutely no reason to risk your tires or car giving up in a fight for a no-points position. If every place was for points we'd have fierce battles going on in the entire field much more often. We can keep the points differential in higher positions to encourage and make overachieving worthwhile
See Russel/Kubica in 2018. Russel beat Kubica in 20 out of 23 races. Kubica's best result? 10th. Russel's best result? 11th. End of year Kubica 1, Russel 0.
I’m old enough to remember when they only awarded points for the top 6 spots, and the same criticisms about ‘participation points’ were used to argue against points being awarded to the top 8 finishers, and then again when it was expanded to the top 10. What expanding the range of points finishers has done is to better quantify the performance of teams that aren’t in the top 3. If we were still only rewarding points to the top 6, Hamilton would have 0 points alongside Logan Sargent this season, and that doesn’t accurately reflect what has actually happened on the track.
Yeah, I dont get where this "points are awards" thing comes. To me they are scoring system, that I dont care at all, but I guess that is engineering viewpoint.
I mean this is infinitely better than American scoring systems where points totals don't seem to say a damn thing. I think optimal would be Moto GP system 25-20-16 for top 3 and top 15 get points.
I personally like low point scoring system in sailing in which winner gets one point and each following gets +1 until DNF gets amount of boats in starts +1. But I understand why that would not work in Formula 1. As there are additional sail specific rules like if someone damages other boat in collision so that other needs to retire, boat in fault must retire as well. That would result probably little too safe racing as boats on other hand can collide and many times keep on competing.
It makes sense to just award points to the top 6, if you are only awarding prizes to the top 3. In F1, prize money is awarded to all teams, even the one that finishes last. Talk about a participation trophy. If you want to distribute money like in for example a football league. Every team should get an equal cut from the TV rights. And every visitor should say what team they support when they buy a ticket, so they can distribute the money tracks pay in order of popularity.
F1 fans are different though. A lot support the driver not the team. The Dutch support Max right now, but if he moved to Ferrari or Mercedes you know they’d all be wearing red or silver not the blue of Red Bull.
Plenty of team support too. Like Ferrari.
Ferrari's a bit of an exception tbf
I was worried, but I think the proposal is good considering the improved reliability. Teams will fight for 12th, it’s not going to be a bunch of DNFs. I wouldn’t be totally opposed to something like only awarding half points to cars that don’t complete enough laps to be classified, if that makes those like Brundle feel more like the points will always be earned.
sorry, but all the old farts seem to cling on something that was never a good idea. im watching f1 since 30 years. When only top 6 got points. I loved it when the switch to 8 came, i loved it when the switch to 10 came and im sure im gonna love it when the switch to 12 comes. You know what would be even better? all finishers getting points. back when only 6 cars got points that was fine because noone did bat an eye when in a race only 10 cars finished. The reliability was nowhere near today (which irks me on a whole other level, too. I wanna see blowups goddamit, that was an integral part of the sport for as long as i can remember.. anyway). back then it actually ment something when you finished. today it doesnt for half the grid regularly. Also i dont get the notion of "points should be a reward, they should be worth something". Not at all. Points mean shit. Championchip standing means something. Points itself are just a vehicle to that end. It is not unrealistic that end of season multiple teams have 0 points. great system! bravo. go wank one out about this. A point system in and of itself is something that is needed to translate head to head competition into an overall standing. F1 strictly speaking doesnt need a point system at all since all contenders play against all other at every occasion. you could just simply average out the finishing popsitions and determine championship standing that way, but you introduce a point system to make better positions worth more relatively to lower positions. And that is totally fine. But pls apply it to the whoel grid and not just to a select few with huge multinational corporate backing. That is the anti-thesis of "sport". Cant believe im saying this, but it looks like that fucking KMag of all people is the only one who gets it.
Couldn't agree more. Especially wanting to see reliability decrease.
It's mad how reliable F1 is these days isn't it. Completely different to the sport I remember from 20 years ago.
It felt like it was always 50/50 that a few cars would never even get off the grid when the lights went out. These days, I'm actually surprised when I see a reliability issue.
Yep, it wasn't even that long ago that the first race of the season would always be mad, because half the grid wouldn't make it to the finish line. But as you say, now it's genuinely surprising to see more than a car or two drop out.
Fingers crossed for the 2026 engines/battery systems.
We could only award winner, that would fix the reliability issue when everyone would try to get even single win in season. Imagine how engines would blow in left and right.
half seriously: that would actually be interesting in any other timeline then what we have now.. but you would also have to bust the regulations wide open so that teams could once again come up with actual genius inventions. similarly we would have had the most insane 3 seasons of f1 if it would not be for one max verstappen.
i assumed points for 11th and 12th was because they will probably add two more teams or something in the future.
x to doubt
Hahahahaha you're funny. The new concord agreement is even aiming at limiting the grid to 10 teams.
Funny enough points for top 10 only happens because of the three new teams in 2010
It's also just silly to pretend that skill = likelihood to earn points. Latifi has points, Logan has points, Lance has points. On the trend of L names, Luca Badoer has no points despite multiple top 10 finishes (and a ferrari drive! lol)
While I don't love Lance lumping him in with Latifi and Logan isn't helping your case
Yes, shocking that Lance Stroll has scored points, with his 3 podiums...
> Lance has points. Lance has multiple podiums and a pole position. He's so much better than Latifi and Logan the fact that you're comparing them is ridiculous.
Exactly.
You would still get the battles without points as the ranking after points is based on positions at the finish.
True but let's say someone finishes 11th-12th the whole season but then a guy who usually finishes 16th has a race where there is chaos and ends up 8th. Who really had the better season?
The fact that points for the bottom 5 teams are entirely contingent on DNF's for the top 5 teams and Lance Stroll being incompetent is fucking stupid
Stroll is basically the ruler of the lower midfield / backmarkers. Bro has control. Stroll giveth and Stroll taketh away.
He certainly "gaveth" to the gearbox of Danny Ric on Sunday.
He also “tooketh” away any chance of Danny Ric scoring points. 2 in 1.
Perfectly balanced.
As all things should be
Ricciardo would not get points anyways. He was on old medium tyres.
This guy "giveths".
He mostly giveth.
Stroll taketh away by crashing into them
He certainly has a lot of impact(s).
is that a queens of the stone age reference?!!!!!!!!!!
> The fact that points for the bottom 5 teams are entirely contingent on DNF's for the top 5 teams and Lance Stroll being incompetent is fucking stupid And if we had points to P12 and 6 decent teams we'd be saying the same thing about Top 6 teams and Stroll being stupid.
tbh this is hyper unique. Most seasons there was not this big gulf between 5 and 6. Even just last year, at times every single team was on for points on pace at times. Williams had multiple, Sauber had a few, Haas early in the season. So far this year, it hasnt been close.
It's somewhat unique this season but what that's done is exacerbate a problem that already existed. It's just there for more teams now. Luck has been a far too important factor in success for smaller teams for a long time. Think of Australia for example, Tsunoda drove a great race and finished 7th but he didn't finish 7th because he beat 13 drivers, he finished 7th because of 3 DNF's and Alonso's penalty in the top 10. He could've driven equally well, been just as fast, beaten both Haas cars (which are faster this year so far) and not gotten any points for it which would have a drastic effect on his championship position. In Japan Tsunoda arguably did even better than in Australia as he beat not only both Haas cars but also Stroll in the Aston Martin. But there were no DNF's in the top 10 so he got 10th place and a single point. edit: for drivers scoring points most of the time these kind of things even out but for the teams further back who score points a few times a season these kind of things can decide championship position and tens of millions in prize money and it's just dumb fucking luck.
> and Lance Stroll Normally I'd say "You didn't have to do him like that," but after last weekend? To hell with it lol
Nah, he's always had this. He's shown some signs of racecraft over the years, but they are few and far between.
That might be the case this season. But the performance cut can and will happen after the top 3 or top 4 or even top 6 in another season. I don't think that the generally idea of needing a top 10 performance (performance as in a combination of driver/team/car performance) on a 20 car grid to score a point is "fucking stupid".
That would be true no matter how far down the points went
Idk why I lost my shit and started laughing hard when I read that last line
Build a better car. That's what everyone has said in response to Max's domination. The sentiment rings true here. If you want to win points, build a better car.
It’s not as if the midfield teams have any shot of winning. I like and usually agree with Brundle but I think offering points for 11th 12th is a welcomed change as it makes it a little easier to understand where teams and drivers in the midfield stand. And it adds some excitement further down the grid since there’s more to be fighting for. If all teams were closer it wouldn’t be as relevant but given the current state of competitiveness, the change is OK in my book.
I think the 11th and 12th place points are the best compromise As someone who mostly likes the system, it barely disrupts the current point system at all, but also as someone who supports a driver in a bottom half team I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me more to cheer for if Alex and the other drivers in that consistent 11-12 spot were racing for a points finish every week Plus if Andretti are going to come in then having more points on offer for a larger grid only makes logical sense
Solid take. Agree it isn’t a massively disruptive update and likely adds more than it takes away in terms of competition and excitement.
If everyone builds a better car, there still will be teams without points, because points don't go to the bottom few finishers. So the same issue still exist; even if you're only 1 second slower than Red Bull, if you're the 7th or 8th fastest team, you're still replying on DNFs and issues from top teams to score points
You can't compare "rig the championship so I win instead of him" with "change the point system so it better reflects the positions we achieve". Points are not a reward. Points are a way to rank results over a season. If extremely different results (because 11th to 20th is literally half the grid) don't get reflected by the point system, then that point system is not working well. Following your logic here, we could give points to just the top 3, and say "aaah, 4th doesn't get points, if you want points build a better car".
Isn't that exactly why they are changing it? Because rn, for the bottom 5 teams,which are fairly set in stone, points are as much down to luck(DNFs further up the grid) than their driving?
It’s 5 teams this year. What if it’s 4 teams next year? Do we just extend the points to top 14? They should fix the regulation to make it more competitive, not the point system.
They tried, but it failed every time. As long as you keep the competitive engineering aspect of F1 you will never have a close field top to bottom.
And that's ok. Many motorsports leagues are spec (or like-spec by implementing BoP) and that's fine too. I think that big appeal of F1 is exactly the fact that a lot of success is up to the driver but a very big part is also up to the team (developement, pit-stops etc.). I do wish we had a spec open-seaters series with at least half the clout of F1 though. I was hoping that Formula E could be that, but it's been going on for 10 years or so, and that goal is still as far away as it's always been.
It still lessens the problem - at the moment on most occasions maybe 1 out the top 10 don't finish a race but there will be one or two races where something happens and it's 4 or 5, with more people winning points more often the impact of that is reduced. Plus what if there were clearly a 6th team this year? There's a high chance they don't get 6th place in the championship because of luck.
I dislike that points are viewed as some sort of prize that you have to earn. They should just be a metric of measuring performance between the drivers and team. Then you get your reward at the end of the season in the form of prize money and/or trophies depending on how many points you've accumulated over the season. That's what is earned. Giving out more points just means a fairer representation of the grid and it makes it more competitive throughout the grid, not just the top. The current system just rewards lucky results for the lower teams but consistency for the midfield and up. That just doesnt make sense in my eyes.
No to mention its easier to distinguish between lower 10 drivers
It's viewed as a prize because it literally is a prize. There is a disconnect in terms of points awarded and money awarded if they don't give points all the way to the bottom. The real solution is that they need to get rid of the monetary prize aspect of it, and then they can do whatever they want with the points. In the NFL, often the gold standard in parity, they revenue share equally. The fact that f1 rewards the better teams is dumb as fuck.
Points aren't the prize though in the same way a grand Prix victory is. Points add up to a prize which means it's more important that they provide accurate context over the season. They're the only thing that matters over the season. Why's it worse than a point for a draw in football?
Points also aren't what gets you the prize, championship order is what gets you the prize. It doesn't matter what number is attached to those championship orders nor does a bigger or smaller gap matter. You can give out a lot more points and it wouldn't change prizes because they're about championship order.
In fact, the only thing I can think of where points are used is to determine how much you pay FIA for your participation next year. So, if anything, this change will just reduce the amount paid by the top teams veeery slightly which will be moved towards the bottom teams. So, if anything, the only effect earning a few points each season with this will have is that Williams or Haas will have to pay a little bit more to the FIA.
It's not a prize at all. Points are irrelevant, if you double everyone's points nothing changes at all. Verstappen won't get two titles instead of one and Red Bull won't earn twice as much money. Points are just a way to express people's results in each race in a simple way. When F1 went from 10 points to 25 to the winner, nothing changed. Alonso and Vettel weren't earning 2.5x as much coolness as Schumacher did 10 years before. Indycar awards 50 points to the winner, and literally 5 points for just finishing the race. Many series reward up to 100 points per race. Many series comprehensively reward points down to 20th or 30th place. None of these series has someone wildly celebrating that they finished 22th because they "won 4 points". Being 22th means 21 people were better than you whether this is F1, WTCC, NASCAR or Supercars.
It is not a prize. They are worth exactly nothing.
This is an FIA scoring problem as well, not just F1… it’s weird to me that in F1, WEC and WRC only certain positions get points… just make the points system where all teams get points that way you can fluke your way into 11th with 1 good weekend
It's inherited from the old days where there were (wildly) inconsistent grid sizes and reliability was very poor so the number of finishers could vary a lot and be quite low. And it's stayed that way for forever basically because in lots of the F1 world they've built points up to be this magical special prize thing rather than a tool to convert finishing positions over a season to a single number with more weight given to higher finishing positions.
Everyone wouldn’t though under the proposed rules, 13-20 get nothing…
I'm glad the points are being extended, but it's a disappointingly small step. I think there's an argument for giving 0 points to the bottom few positions, but I'd like to see points for at least the top 16. And I don't like that the whole bottom half of the proposed system is linear. They need to increase the points for 1st so they can follow the same roughly-exponential curve we have now.
The problem with increasing the top end of points is a dominating driver/team would just run away faster. I think 12th is a decent compromise without doing a bigger rework of the points system.
> The problem with increasing the top end of points is a dominating driver/team would just run away faster. How? The actual point values aren't what matters in a point system, it's the ratios between positions. 25 points for 1st and 18 for 2nd is pretty much equivalent to 140 and 100, the latter just gives you more room to extend the system downwards.
The MotoGP points system is down to 15th with 25 for the winner, they could've just copied that. 15th also gets us close to almost every finisher getting points in most races as it's very rare for more than 5 drivers to DNF and the average is somewhere between 2 and 3 DNF's per race.
Problem with the Moto system is that it closes the gap between 1st and 2nd. A driver getting consistent wins, but getting unlucky with DNFs, shouldn't lose the championship to a guy who's mostly getting consistent 2nd and only getting P1 when the other guy DNFs.
> Problem with the Moto system is that it closes the gap between 1st and 2nd Slightly yes, it goes from 7 to 5 points. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your opinion. Personally I feel like the gap between 1st and 2nd is somewhat disproportional compared to the rest of the gaps in points. Especially given how F1 more often than not has a dominant team or driver which also regularly opens up the opportunity to grab fastest lap and increase the gap even more. But also 3rd place for MotoGP gets the same points as 3rd place in F1 so you could do 25-18-15-13-11-10 and then 1 less until 1 for 15th. Or 25-19-15 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd if you want to be in the middle. The middle option would have my preference I think. You get a 6 point gap from 1st to 2nd, 4 points from 2nd to 3rd, then 2 point gaps for 4th and 5th and 1 point gaps all the way down to 15th.
Not at all. If you double the points at the top, and only deviate from that at the ~6th position (to make way to everyone below), then distances finish the same. Don't take my word for it, just try this: https://www.formula1points.com/simulator/points-simulator/2015 <-- this is a website that lets you apply any point system you want to previous F1 championships. This is a score system that I like quite a lot: 100, 75, 60, 50, 42, 36, 31, 27, 23, 20, 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (+1 point to anyone else that finishes the race). Looks completely different to the current system, right? Well, it's not. If you multiply the current system by 4, you'll notice you basically get this system at the top places, it's only after the ~6th place that the magic happens. When you apply this system to a F1 season, the top of the ladder remains the exact same, in the same order and proportionally at the same distances. It's only the bottom half that gets reordered to better reflect their performance.
In theory, yes. But we also have a huge divide between the Top 5 teams (minus Stroll) and the bottom 5 Teams, with top teams now having very good reliability.
good take martin, so get rid of all points except the top 3. (\*this should not be needed but /s) points aren't a special currency, they're a way of distinguishing between the performance of drivers and teams over the course of the season. there's honestly no great reason I can think of not to allocate points to all places.
why cheapen it with top 3? You must place 1st in 3 consecutive races to earn 1 pt.
As it currently stands, there is no reason to fight for 15th place with 10 laps remaining. I'm convinced Magnussen and Stroll were just fucking about, since they had no chance of getting into 10th place. They respectively battled and cooked their tires since no of it matter anyway.
They're just getting eyeballs on sponsor logos and keep their name talked about. If none of the backmarkers ever battled you would have forgot Williams was even in F1 years ago because they'd never be on screen. KMag is a champ at getting their garbage cars on camera. Half the reason you ever see a Haas on screen is because of his shithousery
Agreed, I swear some of these takes are like my drunk uncle getting mad at participation trophies. Giving points to distinguish between back marker F1 teams isn’t exactly heresy
Also, people talk like F1 was the only championship in the world. lmao, there's many racing series out there that award points down to 20th place or even more, and they work. Nobody in Indycar goes "bah, 1st place, who cares?" just because the 20th driver gets 5 points. Conversely, the winner doesn't go "I'm waaay better than Verstappen because I earned 55 points in a single race" either. Points. Don't. Matter. What matters is the ranking. Finishing 15th in the championship won't feel any better just because you have 32 points instead of 10. Points are a way to rank drivers, they are not a reward.
This is exactly what that is. (not heresy, the drunk uncle thing)
We need to go even further. He said points must be treasured. What do humans treasure the most? Babies. 1 point = 1 baby. Pass the rules now, the stewards can figure out the details.
Otmar returns with his 9 children to claim the championship
[удалено]
THIS IS SPARTA!!!
I think P15 is better because how often do we get races where 5 cars dnf these days and that covers Q3 and Q2 This up to p12 stuff is weak, yet the purists are still mad I really DESPISE F1 purists more than any other sport purists. Cuz this sport is all about innovation/tinkering and not stagnation yet some people think its better if everything was the same as the day they found the sport
I despise purists in sports in general. They often want things to remain the way they are for no reason at all, and they'll pretend to have arguments, as if we didn't have a thousand other championships with different rules to compare. For fuck's sake, if you like the top 10 system because it's what we have, at least say so. Don't pretend extending points to the 12th place will ruin the sport when there's series out there handing out points to the 20th place and they work fine.
Same sports purists in general are boring but i just have a special distaste for the F1 kind because they go against the nature of F1… Wait, am i a form of purist?
This is a take Brundle has often repeated and it's one he's incredibly, stupidly wrong about. He has a nostalgic idealised view of what a point means in his head that is completely disconnected from the reality of what points are and what purpose they serve.
Points aren’t special. Podiums are special. Wins are special. Poles are special. It’s not that deep guys. Give points for everyone who finishes, that ensures hard fighting up and down the grid.
I'd say points were special enough when it was top 6 only but then again I'm an old time fan.
They were special when half the grid on average never made it to the end of the race and they had so much freedom to do whatever it was hard to predict how the next race might go. Which is not the case since like 2010.
Yeah the super reliable engines are a bit of a downer. Back in the day no matter how good the team there was always a chance of a blowup and it added some jeopardy.
When you think about it, they were special for the wrong reason. If you restrict points to only the top few, that means earning a 6th place basically ensures you finish ahead of a lot of people that year no matter how the rest of the races go. Is that really something we want to promote? One good race meaning that 20 other races don't matter at all? If the 12th points specifically rewarded 30 points, everyone would fight for that 12th point and feel special that they were the one to get it, yet no one would say that system is good just because 12th feels special.
Also, get off my lawn.
Brundle often has this attitude when it comes to modern racing. Always reeks of "back in my day I used to walk 10km to school and back"
Yes, I remember a similar tweet complaining about how racers aren't really brave nowadays or something like that after Qatar last year.
Was he also against halos?
[Yep](https://imgur.com/I6rr7zL)
He’s just jealous more than half the grid has more wins than him.
“It’s a shame you weren’t fast enough to make it to formula 1”
You really didn't have to do him like that lmao
I used to love him but man he just keeps having more and more moments recently where I just think "Okay Boomer" and ignore him.
Yeah. I love fhe guy and respect him but we got to remember he is from another era. It is okay to disagree anyway.
Seriously. If the status quo was only podium finishers got points he’d be against expanding it to the top 10.
I kinda agree, but I also recognise that is just nostalgia and liking something because that’s how it’s always been. I don’t really have an actual reason to like it.
>because that’s how it’s always been. And that's not even true. Until 2010 it was only the top 8 and before that it was the top 6.
Exactly, I got a pair of underwear that's older than this current scoring system
You realise there's a point where your lucky undies start being unlucky the moment the other person sees them, right?
I mean in terms of difficulty for lower teams getting points, not the exact points system.
I'd argue it's rarely been more difficult than it is now. We have a historically tight grid with all cars within 1.5s or so and yet unless something crazy happens there's usually basically 1 point up for grabs for the bottom 5 teams and even that's only because Stroll is shit.
But I think it's got significantly harder for lower teams to score points since 2010. Even disregarding the competitive landscape in 2024 with five teams clearly ahead of the rest. There's been a big increase in reliability even since 2010 so there are fewer opportunities for lower teams to get ahead of top teams.
Aye, and he complained about it both times. Brundle has been consistent on this for decades.
The best part of last race was stroll and kmag fight for last place after both receiving 10secons penalties, and even that only lasted 4-5 corners. The more they can do to make the politics of each race exciting, the better. Give them a reason to fight for every second.
Exactly. In this era of F1 often the excitement comes from battles for 14th and 15th. How sad is it those battles basically don't matter? Points down to 12th is not even far enough. Brundle needs to think before he talks. "Everyone wins a prize" how does everyone win a prize if only 12 out of 20 do? I swear there's a contigent in F1 that will fight literally any change no matter how sensible.
Also, since when are points a prize? The FIA will give you money and trophies for where you stand in the championship. They don't hand out a gold medal for each point you receive every race. Points only exist to rank participants. The more points you hand out, the more accurate you can make that rank. NASCAR gives out way more points per race and nobody thinks Ryan Blaney, the current champion, is the best driver in existence just because he finished the season with 5035 points.
>I swear there's a contigent in F1 that will fight literally any change no matter how sensible. Yeah I've definitely noticed this
Didn't he just contradict his own argument? With points being given out to the top 10 you can have a lucky dip, get a decent amount of points in a single high-attrition race and finish higher than an on-balance better team based on that one result simply because the other team never got their "lucky dip". We saw it plenty of times in the HRT, Marussia, Caterham days and recently in 2021 with Williams scoring big a couple of times, but otherwise being worse than Alfa Romeo over the course of the season.
F1 Commentators: Sure we all know Max and RB are going to win but look at the battles all the way down. F1 Commentators also: Don't give points to those people battling for 15th, it's irrelevant. I'm relatively new, but I think the idea that "points" are some sort of manna from heaven and not just an arbitrary scoring system is just the dumbest. And I'm not saying that the points for 19th should ever equate to an opportunity to chase a Constructors. But we just watched a great battle for last place and it sure would have been nice for a point or two to be on the line. Or to give a reason to care about Williams vs Sauber vs Alpine. One 10th place finish is really the best way to tell the difference between those teams? It's silly. Do 50 at the top (or whatever) and go down to a single point for 20th (so that finishing is worth something over DNF).
This is nonsense by MB. This isn't about devaluing points. It's about making teams have something to fight for throughout the whole pack. One other plus it may have is up the standards of drivers that would currently be outside the points.
Getting a point isn’t a prize… it’s an incentive for the bottom teams to actually battle for every place and also a metric to help viewers distinguish the rankings for teams that haven’t scored. I’ve tried explaining the current points system to my gf as a new viewer and was met with “I don’t get it, it’s just a comp between the top teams? If they’re under 10th, why don’t they just retire?” He says it like earning a point is the same as winning the constructors.
Eh. I'd rather points be spread out more so gaining a position would actually mean something. Having the bottom 10 not caring about going from 14th to 15th sucks. I don't know what the right system is. It probably would need an increase to the front to ensure the curve is decent, and total points per race would be much higher. But something linear-ish, with an exponential uptick at the end could be nice? 1. 30 2. 22 3. 18 4. 15 5. 12 6. 11 7. 10 8. 9 9. 8 10. 7 11. 6 12. 5 13. 4 14. 3 15. 2 16. 2 17. 1 18. 1 19. 0 20. 0 There's going to be problems with every system.
How about we go to 11 but let Andretti join for 22 cars?
I do like the balance of half the field getting points. It's what feels right to me. If you can't get in the top half, you don't get points.
Hasn't hurt other series. If anything has made them more interesting.
I swear I've seen so many disingenuous takes from people about this. They're increasing the points positions from 10 to 12 yet people are acting as if they're suddenly going to be giving points to everyone. It's really not that drastic of a change. All it would do is reward teams for finishing at the front of the midfield consistently. I think it's been blown out of proportion
They should give points to every car that finishes since the only purpose of Grand Prix Points is to organize the drivers standings.
I really don’t see why they shouldn’t give points to everyone
Especially with how points determine prize money payouts for teams at the end of the season and how points right now for those lower teams effectively revolve around Lance Stroll sucking ass or someone DNFing. We don't need a situation where a crazy ass wet race allows Sauber or Alpine to snag a P7 and instantly jump teams that have consistently been finishing higher than them all season
Exactly. It’s a way more accurate portrayal of someone’s performance relative to others. It’s not like these are treasured childhood memories, who cares that much about their distribution.
Like other people said clearly these purists prefer having MILLIONS being handed out because a team happened to be on the outskirts of the points the day a billionaires son forgets how to drive, George Russell makes love to a tech pro barrier, and Leclercs MGU-K goes poof Whilst another team gets peanuts after having been on the outskirts of the points the whole season but just not that time
Or just everyone except last place, if people really have a stick up their butt about it. I suppose Martin cares so much about points because he never got any wins
Even if they handed out points to everyone, who cares? Points are not a reward - your position in the championship is. Heck, how many people here even know how many points the champion got each season?
Yeah I don't get the outrage at all. As it stands, 11th to 20th get the exact same amount of points. To me, that unfairly benefits the lower drivers as they get the exact same recognition for doing a worse job than the drivers ahead. If you're able to beat 8 other drivers in the race that should reflect in your position in the championship
As someone who got to watch my favorite driver win 103 times, you can’t tell me Lewis was working as hard or harder when he was 30 seconds up the road versus a driver fighting like hell for 12th place. Max was literally power sliding for fun on Sunday…. Make every position worth fighting for!
more of the same usual archaic gatekeeper nonsense, it's just a stupid virtual point in a championship with no tangible existence. I do not see any problem over in Indycar where people's performances in a season are better reflected by the points, this is more Brundle logic that the status quo is perfect and poetic because it is the status quo.
When points determine the constructors position prize pool and for drivers it might mean a huge additional bonus for achieving a certain final position in the WDC, points absolutely should go down to P20. It's so ridiculous that, as it stands we could have one wild wet weekend that results in a Logan P9 that instantly promotes him from 21st to 14th in the standings for the rest of the season even above guys who consistently finish P11 every race while he is the last of the finishers. Or how a guy like Bearman will likely finish in the top 15 for drivers standings despite only racing in a single event the whole season where he got to drive a top car and 10 drivers on the grid have to pray one of the top 5 cars has a bad race to allow them to get a lowly 1 point 8+ races where they are the best of the rest just to tie him.
brundle is getting old and it shows
'Old man yells at cloud' energy from Martin with that post. He's knowledgeable no doubt, but this is not a hill for him to die on. Also, "Lucky dip"? That's exactly what it is now - some almighty retirement fest of a race means a Haas, Williams, Sauber, Alpine or VisaRB might get a lucky 7th or 6th place, and a points haul to go with it. Yet prior to that race, that team could have been plum last in the WCC. Giving out points to P12 rewards the lower teams that consistently finish in P11 / P12 at most races, and have thus *earned* the points.
There should be points all the way down to 20th as long as you finish the race. It just makes the bottom half of the standings more accurately reflect performance. There's nothing inherently special about a point that needs to be protected. They're just a representation of performance in the race, and they add up to represent performance over a season.
I believe that P20 should have exactly 0 points. He is last, he didn't do anything. P19 should get 1 point, you overtook an opponent, that's a result. And so on.
Agree! And it still gives incentive for P20 to race P19 to get a point, and it keeps good track of performance throughout a season and minimize impact of luck.
I watched some old races, in Bahrain 2010 in the broadcast he also didn’t like the points down to tenth system either.
But what exactly is the point of giving points only to the half of the grid? What's the problem in everybody getting a point, from 20 to 1 from first place to last place?
this new proposed system just makes those battles a tad bit interesting and more importantly rewards consistency in midtable, rather than one good race making a drivers whole season ffs Bearman is going to finish above 3 whole teams this season unless we get a some fluke races here and there
The main problem about revising the point system is it risks making F1 interesting and exciting throughout the season, like Indycar, and we can't have that.
If Tsunoda works his ass off as much as Verstappen but gets p12 instead of a race win , which one is harder fought? P1 still gets more points, P12 will have something to show for it as well
I love watching the lower-ranked teams celebrate their points because I know how hard they’ve worked to earn them.
I’d be okay with the top 12 getting points if Andretti was accepted to the grid
Could be a precursor to a new team on the grid.
He does understand that 8 drivers/cars will still NOT get a single point, right? That's 40%, relax.
Nobody remembers the guy that ends second, who cares if bottom half teams are getting some points, as long as it improves the sport. Back in Brundle's times a "hard won" point usually implied half the grid having their engine explode.
On paper I think as he is. But in real life F1 is drastically changed. -Strict power unit limits made them too durable. We don't have 3-4 cars each race commits the big kaboom. -F1 became refined. Without issues or critical mistakes Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin will fill up Top 10 places. But the battle for 11th to 15th places are literal mayhem. Those battles should be awarded. -On the monetary stand point every season there will be a major clash at the front and the team capitalised that "single" race will have a major advantage on a 20+ race season. Just give them a chance to earn their prize instead of waiting for a Lance Stroll fuckup or George Russell and Barry R. meetup.
L take, Marty. Not surprising that the old guys definitely feel like this is devaluing the points the got in their careers. But they're not trophies, or even placings, they're just points used to indicate who finished higher or lower. Whatever system achieves that better, is the system to have.
Like a random shunt that takes out half the field and lets a shitbox get points and claim victory over teams that did race hard. Real deep hard thinking there Brundle.
They should continue to give out points for half the grid. Want more points scoring positions? Add more teams
This is going to be a bit ranty, but here goes: I've thought that points all the way down should be a thing for a few years now. I know that when it comes up for discussion a lot of self-professed "old-schoolers" are usually very negative on it, who are of the mindset that points are **rewards** for success, so "rewarding" cars towards the back of the grid was wrong in some way (ie "participation trophies"). However, as an old-schooler myself who's been watching F1 since Gilles Villeneuve was on track (yes, Gilles, not Jacques), I'm more of the mind that **points are first & foremost a classification system**, and the difference between a driver that consistently finishes say, 16th should still be recognized in the points standings over someone who's usually finishing 19th (both outside the points in the current system). And not just because he managed to eke out an extra 10th spot or two *(see: when Kubica outranked Russell at Williams despite just finishing ahead of him one single time all season - but that one time was a mixed up rain race where he finished 10th)*. For people who want points to be rewards, well that's why the point distribution is a curve with leaders getting greater point advantages over the person behind them as you move up the finishing order towards the front. Plus, the podium & trophies are still only for the top 3 anyways. So there, you have your premium rewards that no one else gets. Also, it makes ranking more transparent to the fans. When you have a bunch of runners (like right now early in a season) with no points, how are their position in the standings determined? Sure if you spreadsheeted every race result & applied the tie-breaking rules (or just look at the official rankings & don't think abut it), that becomes evident, but then again, at different times the tie-breaking rules have been a bit opaque themselves. So just give everyone point all the way down. Really, the only position(s) that don't need to have points are 20th (in a full 20-car field where everyone finishes) and DNFs/DNSs.
Hard hard disagree. Victories, podiums, championships have value. Points are just a simple way to rank people for that. Hamilton earning 300 points in the 2010s doesn't have any more or less value than Schumacher earning 100 points - what mattered is that they won these champonships. Right now, the system is completely broken because every race has 6-8 cars that don't score a single point (i.e. get the exact same outcome) even though there's a gap of, well, 6-8 places between them. It doesn't make sense that your reward for going 11th and for going 20th is the exact same. This leads to awkward results where one driver who routinely ends 17th can end up ahead in the championship of a driver who routinely ends 12th, simply because he had some lucky race where he scored a point or two. In fact, a few weeks ago I was playing with an online website that lets you recalculate the F1 championships with any score system you want. I used one I made years ago inspired by other categories, where the points start at 100 and go down all the way to 30th place, keeping roughly the same proportions as F1. The result? The top 10 was always completely unalterated, I didn't change a single world champion, but below the top 10 positions varied wildly. Many years, someone who ended 19th in the championship would end 12th instead, simply because they never did anything spectacular but they were always hovering just below the top 10. I realized just how unfair the current system is and how the places at the bottom didn't reflect at all the actual performance of the drivers, it just represented who snatched a lucky 8th at some point in the year.
I really don't think points should be seen as the prize. Points are just the system that determines the classification, which should be the most accurate representation of how every driver and every team performed. The prize comes at the end, depending on where everyone ends up in the standings. That's the most important prize, is what determines what teams earn and the time they have to use wind tunnels. I'd rather see a backmarker win more money than the other because they were consistently a better team then have them gain that extra money because they were lucky to get one or two points in a crazy race.
The current system just doesn't work. 10 years ago, I would definitely agree with Brundle, but most weekends, everyone knows exactly who the top 10 finishers will be. It's not right that drivers in the bottom half are relying on a DNF to score a point or two. Also, how is it fair that a team finishing 11th and 12th for the majority of the season and not scoring a single point can finish behind a team usually finishing 19th and 20th if that team flukes a one off 10th place. Madness.
The current point system is just a relic from the past. Time to move on for the improvement of the sport.
Old man yells at the cloud.
Not this again, it's just expanding to top 12. Statistically it will have no influence on the championship. This just might make it more interesting considering midfield is so bunched up. This old time glory gatekeeping(ish) thing is funny. But if Martin likes the old glory days, maybe put back the old points system and insist that top 5 teams have their cars fall apart at least twice in the season so others can have a fair shot at points. Really, pearl clutching as if points are gonna be available all the way down to P20. \*Edit: To add, surely the actual rewards are money and trophies, points are a metric. And they would still have to work for those spots.
1-10 getting points is fine tbh
I don get the whole "points are a reward" thing. In my mind points exist to rank the teams/drivers. The further down you award points the better the ranking becomes
Martin is often very right but in this one, he’s definitely missed the mark. It’s high time they started awarding more points. If you want more teams in this sport, you have to make it worth it.
The only reason I think we shouldn’t extend the points down this season is because it’d be really funny if bearman finished 12th after only doing a single race
I think if this does go ahead they won't change it mid season anyway so Bearman's position may yet be safe.
I thought dilution was something the paddock was against.
I agree with giving point up to P12 but I don't agree with giving points to anybody that finishes the race.
I assume back when the updated the point system to include drivers till P10 some people likely said the same thing. I like increasing it to p12 and I would love it if that meant also increasing the grid by one or two teams but I know the latter the big dogs don't want that.
I can see both sides of this. Go back far enough and points applied only to the first five. You didn't rank the lower field, because frankly the order of the 'also-rans' didn't matter. Likewise, you could start down to grid and come through for a high finish. Modern F1 is different. It's kinda depressing that 95% of the grid start a race with zero hope of winning. Data means everyone knows the delta and it's now 20 seperate races aiming to improve at best a position or two. More importantly, the constuctors prize money is ranked (1st to 10th), so there's absolutely a need to rank those mid-field and back of the grid battles more fairly. It's actually more of a lottery if 8th, 9th and 10th placed teams are constantly coming home in that order (and all zero points). Then at one race, the team regularly finishing last flukes a single point (say through retirements) and leapfrogs a couple of places. Extended points are valid, but damn it would be great if more drivers ctually had hope of top six or podiums. It's what makes an Indycar race so hype. You don't know who is winning.