Comments on: A Very Big Day Indeed

By: Ridwan

Ridwan — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:37:34 +0000

C’mon guys. The medal concept is a good thing. I don’t understand the fuss about the teams that don’t get medals. The teams will still get paid based on the points system. Eventhough if points are replaced by medals for the Constructors Championship, you can still rank the teams based on the medals they received or you could also rank based on the number of positions achieved. This is the purest form of scoring for motor sports. Thus no more teams (like Mclaren asking Lewis to get 5th position in Brazil) ordering their drivers to get the minimum points for the Championship. Where’s the racing in that!!! I supposed Lewis is thinking likewise.

By: speedmerchants

speedmerchants — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:44:30 +0000

JA writes: Thanks for your comments on this. Jamie’s points idea is interesting, but I agree with Isaac that it messes too much with the history books. It’s very important that the heritage of the sport is preserved where possible.

People always want to tinker with F1. Some things need to be tinkered with regularly, especially on the technology side, but points and so on should be left pretty much as they are. And this system has given us some very close championship finishes lately…

By: Isaac

Isaac — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 09:04:05 +0000

The problem is with Jamies proposal is that the history books might as well be thrown out the window, under this points scheme Massa would of scored as many points in 1 season as Schumacher did in his whole career.
But i do think they can get away with changing the scores a little bit

1ST=12
2ND=8 POLE POSITION=5
3RD=6 2ND ON GRID=3
4TH=5
5TH=4
6TH=3
7TH=2
8TH=1

Something like that, it would create interesting tactical battles and people quallifying on pole who isnt going to win in a million and see someone come through from the back of the grid, I think it would work well. sure you disagree.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:01:21 +0000

I like Jamies points scheme, well thought out and a viable alternative to medals, but given a choice between medals and what we have now, then has to be medals for me.
I also worry a lot about the tyre blankets going. Surely bridgestone will just start producing race distance tyres, especially with no refulling, so all possibility of strategy goes out of the window as nobody would come in and risk the position loses for cold tryes…

Maybe we could spice it up by giving the cars Ben Hur type blades on the wheels. That would certainly give a show

By: seisteve

seisteve — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:25:25 +0000

I agree with MATT2743 that some magic has gone for large numbers of people who truly see and understand this sport as more than the cars on a track.

We all enjoy the racing, overtaking etc. and the closer the better. But this is all supported by the technology and race strategy that supports it.

The jury is still out, but the business will have less to talk about, the teams will have less technology to find the important 100th with and I believe the sport wil loose it’s edge against other motorsports.

And don’t even get me on the medals, I hated the seasons where Michael had won the championship so early… why bother with the other 4+ races left in the season??

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:09:03 +0000

regarding the medals thing, why not just change the scoring system?

have, for example:

1st: 100points
2nd: 60points
3rd: 30points
4th: 20points
5th: 16points
6th: 15points

down to 1 point for 20th (excluding retirements)

Fastest lap gets 15 points

each lap led gets 1 point.

this way, the second place guy has a clear incentive to get past 1st place asap (points per lap led), and also spreads the points out more.

There is enough of a gap at the top to ensure drivers push for every position, and the lower points are both low enough to incentivise the drivers to get past others, and close enough to ensure that the lower championship battles are close fought.

With points for every position excluding retirements, retirement would be punished by 0 points (except for FL or if leading), with every other driver scoring points.

under this system, the 2008 championship would have looked like this:

Massa 1253
Hamilton 1109
Raikkonen 873
Kubica 571
Alonso 510
Heidfeld 475
Kovalainen 425
Vettel 298
Glock 226
Rosberg 224
Trulli 223
Webber 192
Piquet 172
Nakajima 142
Coulthard 141
Barrichello 136
Button 121
Bourdais 120
Fisichella 68
Sutil 30
Sato 17
Davidson 11

but the point is that it wouldn’t have looked like that, as people would have taken more chances, not been content to sit behind the leader for lap after lap etc.

reversing the belgian stewards decision would still leave Massa champion, and would have meant that even with losing 100 points for a win in Hungary, Massa would still have scored more points there than Hamilton.

Just a thought, but it’s better than the silly medal idea…

By: Ace Best

Ace Best — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 07:46:47 +0000

It’s a good thing that they did not approve the single engine draft.I still don’t like the refueling ban from 2010 onwards,though.And I think a lot of the members of the teams would lost their job this winter…Talk about a very lousy christmas,eh?

By: Mike Ellison

Mike Ellison — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:45:01 +0000

I think the drivers are only upset about the tyre-warmer issue because it will make their life a bit harder. I think the safety issue is over-stated. I don’t remember there being any noticeable reduction in accidents when tyre-warmers were introduced!

By: rpaco

rpaco — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:59:10 +0000

So lots of good stuff, BUT they have been stupid and banned tyre warmers, something which all the drivers were dreading because they know there will be many accidents on cold tyres. It also means that the time penalty effect of a tyre change will be enormous since the power will not be able to be used for almost a full lap after changing tyres. Still I suppose we (they) did without them before and they will have to learn again. But in those days they were allowed qualifier super sticky tyres and quali engines and quali was best lap of 3 days.

One point I didn’t understand JA, (from the official statements) what is “mechanical purging” of tyres. (I have a vision of a Michelin man character crushing all the air (gas) out of a tyre.)

Medals would kill the sport stone dead.

By: matt2745

matt2745 — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:04:32 +0000

Sad, sad times for me, the golden age of F1 seems to be over While I totally understand the need to cut costs, the list of changes goes against a lot of what I believe F1 should be about.