Are the 'new points' working?
- Published on Apr 6th, 2010 by Adam Milleneuve
Trophy for Rosberg © MercGP Twitter
Here's Nico Rosberg's trophy from coming third in the Malaysian Grand Prix over the Easter weekend, pretty isn't it. As well as trophies for the top three drivers, they also receive points, in order of their finishing position. For 2010, the points scale was heavily revised with points for victory being a massive 25 rather than 10 and with all cars down to 10th place receiving points, rather than previously just the top eight.
Now, three races into the 2010 championship and here at Badger we're all rather pleased to see that the top five drivers are covered by only four points - i.e. it's all pretty even and no one is just running away with it, phew. The only slight hiccup is that 2008 runner up, Felipe Massa is topping the tables with 39 points, despite not winning a race or having any particular performance of note so far this year.
In the far-from-entertaining season opener in Bahrain, he followed Alonso home in 2nd place with no answer to the Spaniard's speed, in Australia he came home in third place after holding up Alonso for most of the race and having no answer to Robert Kubica in 2nd place and then just now in Malaysia he was as quick as Alonso who had a problem with his car and looked slow relative to Hamilton who seemingly overtook every car in the field including those in the GP2 race earlier that day.
Nothing personal against Felipe, he's a great chap and we're so very pleased he came-back this season after the horrifying accident in Hungary last season, but to comeback and lead the championship after an less than inspiring performance so far seems a bit cheeky and questions whether this new system has made any difference whatsoever (granted we'd rather have this than the medals idea from Bernie)
The new points are supposed to be designed to encourage drivers to over-take and go for glory, sadly it seems to have made no difference so far and just causes a headache when comparing to previous seasons' stats and results.
Those with a more short-sighted opinion could say the new system works really well because it's kept them all close in the table, but that's not quite true - as the graphic below shows, even on the old system it's still close - and therefore it's the different race results (and Vettel's unreliable Red Bull) that has kept the championship even. As ever with F1, they change so many different rules that it's tricky to see what's worked and what hasn't. For more on F1's silly rule changes read "Breaking the formula - Rules are there to be... changed?"
What to do you think of the new points? Good, bad, indifferent?
click to make it bigger!
I think rather than the new points scoring making the difference it has been the weather and Red Bull reliability. Without mechanical problems Vettel could easily be on 75 points now. Rain during the race helped Button in Australia and a wet qualifying put the Ferraris at the back of the grid resulting in lots of drivers near the top of the table. I am still not convinced that races will not be processional when we have dry qualifying and a dry race. Even the most aggressive drivers seem to find great difficulty in overtaking cars that are 2 seconds a lap slower. Lets hope I'm wrong!
You've missed 0's out on the race winners scores from each round.
We've had 3 rounds so far and 3 different winners, in the other two rounds each winner hasn't been on the podium, so the system has rewarded the most consistant driver. The points system was changed so that people had more incentive to go for first, but as shown this weekend, that's not going to happen if the guy in front is your team mate.
Consistancy is still key so really you can say nothing's changed. And i still think awarding points to the top 10 is too much like Christmas; everyone gets something even if they're slow.
If Vettel won 7 races and retired from the rest, he'll still lose the championship if Massa trundles home in the top 4 for every race, but under the old point system it would look closer due to the lower points.
It's not out of the question though for the championship to be around the midpoint of the season, and if that happens then it'll be a big failure for the points system.
In 2002 under the old 10-6-4-3-2-1, yes the driver who won the most races won the championship, but he was home and dry in round 11 of 17, and no one wants to see that.
...championship to be OVER around...etc
I think the new points system works quite well. If someone went on to dominate the season and won lots of races then the points gap is big enough to make a real difference but then if there are 5 or 6 evenly matched drivers all capable of competing for victories like we have at the moment then it also rewards consistency which is what you want for a championship pointys system. I don't know how you can say Massa is cheeky for coming back from a horrendous injury last year and to now be leading the championship, seems a bit disrespectful to me, it's not his fault that the points he has accumulated based on the results that he has managed so far this season have put him on top of the table, maybe the other drivers should do better! I agree that he hasn't exactly set the world on fire with his performances so far this season but he has been more consistent than the other title contenders so far and is being rewarded for it, which is exactly how it should be. As for Massa holding up Alonso well unless the team tell him to (which they obviously aren't at the moment) he's not exactly going to just pull over and let him through is he? If Alonso is quicker than him then he should overtake him, Hamilton has shown that it is possible to overtake other cars if you are aggressive and committed to having a go.
Hi Thomas. I'm afraid I can't agree with you that it's disrespectful to be honest. Massa shouldn't be treated with kid gloves just because he had an accident, awful though it was.
Agree with you regarding consistency though - it's a very valuable trait in F1, as Red Bull might find to their cost.
I'm not saying that he should be treated with kid gloves, of course not, but what exactly is he being called cheeky for? Is he being called cheeky for coming back to racing after a serious injury? I agree it is super cheeky, he should have retired! I mean what if Cesc Fabregas recovers from his current injury and goes on to win the world cup with Spain this year, that be really cheeky wouldn't it! Or is he being called cheeky because he's leading the world championship because he's scored more points than everyone else? Leading a points based championship hey who would've thought it, he should be banned! I guess Michael Schumacher is the cheekiest F1 driver in the history of the sport because he scored more points than everyone else in 7 seasons!
He means cheeky in the circumstance of Felipe not being the fastest over the past 3 races, not doing much of note other than overtaking Button in Malaysia and generally not being as quick as he should have been, yet is leading the championship.
I thought that was quite clear in the piece...
I think that we all agree that so far this season that, apart from a few flashes of brilliance such as his starts in Australia and Malaysia and the overtake of Button, Massa's performances haven't been fantastic, but he has got better results. For example he's been the only driver to finish on the podium twice whereas the drivers who have won a race have got 2 average/low scores to go with it. For most of the second half of last season Jenson Button wasn't the fastest driver, in fact at times he looked decidedly average, yet he ended up winning the championship. Now was that cheeky or was that getting good enough results to get the job done?
Maybe there should be a 'cheeky' world championship too!