Medals to decide championship?

[AzShadow]

I was hoping this wouldn't happen, stupid system. The only reason why this passed was because of Bernie's Bias towards Ferrari. Now I'm kinda hoping 18 of the drivers win, so it can be a true championship .

Actually this rule change should favor McLaren more as they're the only top team that focuses on one driver from the start of the season. Ferrari's drivers will steal victories from each other which will be a major disadvantage. Even if McLaren was slower at the season start, they still can win the whole championship by winning the last races.

This rule will totally change the way the cars are developed too. All winter the teams have been trying to get good reliability and speed, but now speed will become much more important while finishing every race won't be that crucial anymore.

So if someone came 2nd ALL the time they could still not end up winning? This is so c**p.

That's the idea kind of. Some people don't like it that the ones who just stick with the 2nd place win so easily.

It seems to me that sometimes people complain about every decision FIA makes and it's kind of weird because when you watch this long enough you see rule changes all the time. First nobody likes them, then they think that the changes were good or then the changes will be scrapped. I don't know if this will work either, but it could bring some positive aspects too. At least we should see more kamikaze attempts from the ones who are in 2nd place during the race. Some complained that this will favor the one with the best car, but so did the point system as well. They all have their downsides.

"Any time we make any changes, there are a whole bunch of people who say, 'forget it, it won't happen,'" said Ecclestone on Wednesday during a press conference hosted by the Australian Grand Prix organisers.

"When we had two races engines, everyone said you can't do it because the teams won't finish races. Everything that is proposed, the teams always say forget it - it is just par for the course."

As for petitions, FIA didn't care about FOTA's proposal which was based on a global fan survey so what do you think are the odds with anything else?

[alex1369]

i wish that one driver winns the first 9 races, and then he does go to a coffe, its so stupid, in 2002 and 2004 schumi won it in first 9 races and he could get a brake if this stupid system wuld be active there, i hope one driver winns first 9 races and then shows bernie how stupid he is, he is then champion in the ninth race-- what bull, we want fight till the end the last turn like 2008 -- that is what we want

[phil1993]

Just thinking about it, its unlikely we'll have such intense season finales: Brazil 08 final corner would have been irrelvant and it'll be a case of who wins and take away some of the drama

"The new system could, however, remove much of the suspense of the title chase later on in proceedings, should one driver be uncatchable in terms of race victories as the campaign nears its conclusion"

exactly, say:

Raikkonen 6 wins (87 points)
Hamilton 4 wins (85 points)

Heading to Abu Dhabi, it would be nailbiting, but instead KR would be champion...

[phil1993]

BBC's Andrew Benson on the rule changes

Spoiler:

When Bernie Ecclestone first proposed his idea to settle the Formula 1 drivers' title by number of wins, the immediate response was not favourable.

The sport had just delivered two sensational championship showdowns in a row, in 2007 and 2008, so why fix what was clearly not broken?

Now Ecclestone has got his way, following Tuesday's decision by governing body the FIA, but the idea does not appear to be any more satisfactory than when F1's impresario first made his idea public in November last year.

The best justification for the new system is that, had it been in place for the entire history of F1, it would have left a list of champions that is more satisfying to the purist than the actual list.

Britain's first world champion, for example, would have been Stirling Moss, not Mike Hawthorn.

It's difficult to argue against the basic rightness of that given that a) Moss won four races in 1958 to Hawthorn's one; and b) Moss has no championship to his name despite being regarded as one of the greatest racing drivers of all time - a status to which Hawthorn has no claim.

Jim Clark, a man held in the same sort of esteem as Moss, would be a four-time champion, adding titles in 1964 and '67 to the ones he actually won in '63 and '65.

Among other changes, Alain Prost - second in the list of race winners behind Michael Schumacher - would have won five titles rather than four - which, given that the great Frenchman lost titles in agonising circumstances in 1982, 1983 and 1984 seems fair enough.

Likewise, Nigel Mansell would be a three-time champion instead of simply having his single title in 1992 - probably a fairer reflection of his ability and status.

On the other side of the coin, three-time winner Nelson Piquet would not have won any titles, which seems fair enough given the men who would have won them instead (Prost twice and Mansell).

Worryingly for the future, there is the probability under the medal system that in a season of dominance - such as that enjoyed by Michael Schumacher and Ferrari in 2004 - the championship would be decided far earlier than under the current points system, with a consequent decline in TV audiences.

Equally, the different winners dry up after 1991, when the number of points for a win changed from nine to 10 - which suggests that tweak did its job.

The only time a different driver would have won the title since then was last year - when, as every media report has pointed out, Lewis Hamilton would have lost out to Felipe Massa.

And that's where the problems begin with the new system - as well as the other changes made by the FIA World Council on Tuesday.

Hamilton would have lost out because Massa won six races to his five - but those tallies would have been reversed had it not been for the controversial decision to demote Hamilton to third in the Belgian Grand Prix.

Few people in F1 have absolute faith in the decisions made by the FIA and its stewards - and the idea of extending the areas vulnerable to them will fill many with disquiet.

Within F1, though, the new points system is being seen as a smokescreen deflecting attention from something far more controversial - the decision to implement a split-level championship in 2010.

There will be an optional budget cap of £30m - and teams operating within it will have more technical freedom to develop their cars and engines. Those that choose to spend what they like will be forced to operate within the current more restrictive rules.

Would a poorer, smaller team with a more powerful engine and freer play with aerodynamics produce a faster car than a big-budget manufacturer operating within constraints but with a better driver?

It's an intriguing question - but there will not be an answer, because FIA president Max Mosley says his organisation "will balance the median performances by adjusting the cost-capped cars should this prove necessary".

The idea of the FIA fiddling about with the performance of all the cars so the championship remains competitive will fill the teams with horror.

Through bitter experience - and whether they are right or wrong, this writer is not in a position to say - the teams do not trust the FIA to do this impartially.

What makes it worse are the factors that lie behind these decisions.

F1 has so far emerged relatively unscathed from the global economic crisis - but fears that one or more of the major car manufacturers will pull out of the sport this year remain, and I'm told by someone who knows both men well that Mosley and Ecclestone are "paranoid" there will not be enough cars on the grid in 2010.

Mosley is undoubtedly right to worry about the impact of the global meltdown on F1 - the commercial departments of the various teams are finding it extremely difficult to tie up new deals as they stare at the looming end of current sponsorship contracts - and his £30m proposal means that teams could compete solely on the prize money and television income provided by Ecclestone's companies.

But that does not necessarily make Mosley's plan the right one.

For a start, there are significant doubts about the FIA's ability to police a budget cap.

Mosley insists his "forensic accountants" can divine how much money a team is spending. But one insider told BBC Sport on Wednesday: "We don't publish our accounts until a year later - and even our own accounts department can't tell me how much we spend."

And then there's the lack of transparency inherent in the policing of the "equivalency" of the two types of cars.

It would have been far better to do what was done in 1987 and 1988, and create a temporary two-tier championship while - in that case - the big teams weaned themselves off turbo engines, but with a clear set of rules for each and a clear end in sight to the disparity.

It also has to be remembered that this is merely the latest salvo in the ongoing struggle for control of F1 between Mosley and Ecclestone on the one side, and the teams' organisation Fota on the other.

The visions of the two sides are completely separate.

Mosley and Ecclestone have made little secret that they want absolute control over a low-tech, low-budget category in which essentially similar cars are differentiated more or less only by different colour schemes.

The teams - all of them - want much more freedom as well as a greater share of Ecclestone's revenues.

The decisions announced yesterday are merely the latest salvo in an increasingly bloody war.

As one insider put it: "I think Max will win in the end - cutting costs is what he has to do. But there will be a watering down because there always is. That's how he works. He goes in ruthlessly, and then backtracks and backtracks."

The battle now is over how far the teams are able to push him back.

[megasyxx]

'New scoring system could confuse fans' - Button

Jenson Button is positive about Formula One's new scoring system despite believing that it could lead to confusion for some fans. The Brawn pilot has been one of the quickest drivers in the last two tests, and has been tipped by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone as one man who could benefit from the new policy.

"I think the system is logical and interesting, although some people could find it tricky to understand why, for example, a driver with 60 points can be champion instead of one who has 100," Button told Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport.

The explanation behind such a scenario is that the new procedure awards the title to the driver who has scored more Grand Prix wins instead of the system used since the inauguration of Formula 1 in 1950, which involved the highest points scorer finishing at the top of the standings, although the system saw a number of modifications and clauses over it's 59 years of usage.

"For sure the new rule is an incentive to always go for the win," Button said in Jerez on Tuesday, "but could be risky because, after nine races, we could find ourselves with a driver that has already won the title while the guy who's second is only 18 points behind."

from f1.gpupdate.net

[iceman1]

Nico sees the changes as "nonsense" and Quick Nick says that it's not to his taste and "silly" :
http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/mo ... sid=104480

[AzShadow]

If someone wins the first 9 races, then I don't see how he could lose the championship, no matter what the point system is. 2007 and 2008 had quite spectacular finales but they don't happen that often. Besides, sometimes the new regulation would have gave us more interesting final races like in 05 and 06 when the title contenders were tied with wins. So it's not so simple as to say that the new rules would break everything. And if not the same kind of finals, then at least better individual races. It's hard to judge it yet.

[phil1993]

The FIA is to vote on a revised points structure for Formula 1 at a meeting of its World Motor Sport Council tomorrow, autosport.com has learned, with radical cost-cutting measures also due to be unveiled.

A proposal unveiled by the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) to change the current points structure to a new system that rewards more for winning - broken down 12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 – has been officially put forward to the FIA for consideration.

The WMSC will now look at the document and take a vote on whether or not to adopt it for 2009.

That was Monday, no mention of the "medals" system



[s]10-6-4-3-2-1[/s] [s]10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1[/s] [s]12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1[/s] [s]Medals[/s] WINS!!!

[Rachael The Great]

I've thought about a scenario. Okay...
So, if someone came 2nd in all races, then everyone else got a one win and one person had 2 wins, that person would win the whole championship? Which is just stupid because the person who got second place would have more points wouldn't they?

[WDC]

yes rachael, thats correct!
there are many silly outcomes that could occure, we just have to hope that they dont so that it makes racing more exciting!
not many of the drivers are supporting this new system! i hope they scrap it before melbourne, unfortunantly there isnt a lot of time.

[WDC]

another point that has come to mind.
if you are following the leader but are 30+ seconds behind... wouldint it make sense then to retire the car... save the engine and try again the next race.
this could lead to very disapointed fans!
what does everyone think?

[Ali]

another point that has come to mind.
if you are following the leader but are 30+ seconds behind... wouldint it make sense then to retire the car... save the engine and try again the next race.
this could lead to very disapointed fans!
what does everyone think?

Nope. This is a hybrid system. Points are also important. If you consider 2007 and 2008, it will be very much likely to have a close championship so every point may count. However, you can do it if you're out of points but still, there may be another retirements during the race which may give you point. I don't think it's a good strategy to save engine. Points are much worthy than an engine.

[Rachael The Great]

another point that has come to mind.
if you are following the leader but are 30+ seconds behind... wouldint it make sense then to retire the car... save the engine and try again the next race.
this could lead to very disapointed fans!
what does everyone think?

Good point actually, cause you'd literally get no futher to winning the championship cause you didnt actually win the race.
But then again, the points matter too cause if (by any chance) there was a draw (doubt it, like) then they'd need points to determine the winner.

[Powerslave]

This is stupid. What a garbage rule.

Lets give a scenario:

Driver 1 wins 5 races, and DNF's from the other 12.
Driver 2 wins 4 races, but finishes 2nd in every other race.

Driver 1 still wins.

With the points system, Driver 1 would have 50 points, but Driver 2 would have 142 points. Nearly 3 times as many.

You have a flaw in your scenrio.
I.E.What about the other 8 races? Can't we have a third driver that will be able to win 6 or more races from the ramaining 8 and take the title?!
Acording to your scenario, we must have at least 2 more regular winning drivers, each with a min.of 4 wins, and only then Driver 1 would 100% win the title!

I'd modify your scenario a bit to make it more realistic


Driver 1 wins 7 races, and DNF-es from the other 10.
Driver 2 wins 6 races, but finishes 2nd in every other race.

Again this time, Driver 1 still wins the title, although Driver 2 would have 148 point, against Driver 1 with 70 points.
BUT, this time the uncertainty of a third driver screwing drivers 1 & 2 is eliminated 'cause there are only 4 races left to be won by a random driver.

All the same, i agree with you completely (and with the majority of current F1 drivers's complaints) that with these new rules, there are more chances to conclude the title winner at mid-season, than with any other alternative rules...
-We'll just have to wait a bit longor to see if it's going to work or not.

[WDC]

yes a driver would want points, lets say...
example 1:
you receive a penalty and experience dramas that put you way down the order, by half distance the chances for points are slim and if you were to make it, it would only be for 1 or 2... i would rather save my engine (since it has to last 3 weekends) and try again when circumstances are better next race.

example 2:
you are ahead in championship by 20+ points and youre in no position to challenge for the lead. retire the car and save the engine!

example 3:
a twist on example 2, you are leading the championship by 20+ points and the drivers in first.second and third are not threatening for the championship and you dont have much chance in catching them...again, retire the car and save the engine.

these scenarios may come about and if it does, obviously for me in melbourne, its irrelevent but say im watching the italian grand prix at monza and im like the tifosi that only want to see ferrari race and half way through the race once of these scenarios takes place i wouldnt be very happy!

is that fair?