Who needs "medals" with racing like this, Bernie?

[Dave B]

I hope that this weekend's Australian GP finally convinces Bernie that winners-take-all is a dumb idea.

He says that "medals" would encourage drivers to go for the win. Well what the hell does he think Kubica and Vettel were doing? Organising a boot fair? They were racing as hard as any pair of drivers we've seen.

Barrichello, Trulli, Glock and Hamilton worked their nuts off to come up through the field. Could they have worked any harder? I doubt it. If winning was all that really mattered then their hard work would have been largely unrewarded - they may have even been encouraged to take less risks and preserve their precious engines and gearboxes for Malaysia.

Bernie, please for the love of our sport, take note that nobody WANTS medals; and yesterday's race proved that we don't NEED them.

Now go away.

[MrJan]

Bernie never seems to look at the bigger picture, okay so medals would encourage the person in second to challenge but it leaves the rest of the field doing nothing. How many bits of great racing have we seen between drivers battling for that extra championship point?

[Mark]

Exactly what I was thinking. Hamilton's third place was a magnificent achievement and those 6 points may well be very important at the end of the year.

Under Bernie's system it would have counted for very little, in fact all teams who were 'in the points' this time had reason to celebrate. With medals all that is taken away.

[christophulus]

Bernie, please for the love of our sport, take note that nobody WANTS medals; and yesterday's race proved that we don't NEED them.

Now go away.

Couldn't agree more :up: . Hopefully a few more races like that will convince him to dump this stupid idea

[inimitablestoo]

We just need to take a leaf out of Clarkson's book and put the rules regarding points on a very high shelf where Bernie can't reach them ;)

[UltimateDanGTR]

I hope that this weekend's Australian GP finally convinces Bernie that winners-take-all is a dumb idea.

He says that "medals" would encourage drivers to go for the win. Well what the hell does he think Kubica and Vettel were doing? Organising a boot fair? They were racing as hard as any pair of drivers we've seen.

Barrichello, Trulli, Glock and Hamilton worked their nuts off to come up through the field. Could they have worked any harder? I doubt it. If winning was all that really mattered then their hard work would have been largely unrewarded - they may have even been encouraged to take less risks and preserve their precious engines and gearboxes for Malaysia.

Bernie, please for the love of our sport, take note that nobody WANTS medals; and yesterday's race proved that we don't NEED them.

Now go away.

You've hit th nail right on the head with a perfect angle and speed and its gone into the wall perfectly straight and perpendicular. :D

No but seriously, you are perfectly right. who needs medals when we have races like that?

[jens]

I have never really understood the theories about "the amount of passes are dependant on points system" and IMO the Vettel-Kubica battle was a perfect example of this theory being unjustified. They could have taken it easy and collected decent 6-8 points for the championship fight, but no! If it is possible to successfully fight for position on track, drivers will just try to do that.

[emporer_k]

Yesterdays race was a brilliant example of why the points system does not need meddaling :rolleyes: with.

[Sonic]

On a slightly different note when Mr self proclaimed demi-god ecclestone has demanded more racing and wheel to wheel battles, why is it that as soon as we have one (Seb and Kubica) there has to be finger pointing when it goes a bit wrong.

I'm sorry but when you race close accidents will happen once in a while....FACT. Demoting a driver 10 places in the next GP will do F all to improve quality racing DOUBLE FACT.

[V12]

I was going to reply to this thread but to be honest everyone has already said everything I was going to say anyway. So just make this a +1 :)

[BDunnell]

I was going to reply to this thread but to be honest everyone has already said everything I was going to say anyway. So just make this a +1 :)

Moi aussi.

[christophulus]

I have never really understood the theories about "the amount of passes are dependant on points system"

If it is possible to successfully fight for position on track, drivers will just try to do that.

Absolutely, hence them being racers Bernie! Seriously though, the only time they settle for the points for 2nd or whatever is right at the end of the championship.

I'd rather have Hamilton (for example) battling hard to get 5th and that crucial point in the final race/corner than having the last three races being somewhat pointless because a driver got a handful of wins at the start of the season!

[Zico]

et moi, +1.

[Easy Drifter]

Unfortunately Dave is wrong. There is at least one person who wants medals and the problem is that it is the 'Demented Midget.'
To his mind everyone is out of step but him. He may be small but he has a huge ego. He also drove race cars (note drove, not raced) so he probably doesn't really understand that real racers almost always go for it.
Look at Seb trying to keep going on 3 wheels. Shades of GV. By the way that is what the penalty was for, not the accident.
I also noted that the wheel tethers did not work too well!

[woody2goody]

To this I produce another angle. Look at Sebastien Buemi and Sebastien Bourdais. Under the demented midget's proposals, a young lad would not have scored points in his first ever race after, I might add, driving beautifully and mixing it with the 2008 championship contenders. Also, French Seb got a point which would have meant diddly squat with that crappy system.

Pretending that Trulli didn't get a penalty, Hamilton would have been fourth, and thus, under the medal system, got nothing. He overtook at least 8 cars during the race. Is that not good racing Bernie? Glock, who actually got fourth, came from the vey back of the grid, in fact, the pit lane. He got 4 points which would have been worth bugger all. If Toyota are legit title contenders, which I think they will be, those points could be all the difference for Glock (and Hamilton) at the end of the season.

You might argue that Vettel and Kubica crashed while fighting over second. Really, they raced as hard as they did, because at the time, they both still had a chance to win. Kubica didn't care that he was risking his race over 2 more points, because he was going for the victory.

I hope, no, I pray that someone puts a stop to Ecclestone's plans before 2010.

I'll put this question to everyone: Will he really be able to justify his system if this year goes down to one point like the last two years? And let's be honest, 05 and 06 weren't exactly s**t either.

[F1boat]

And also, Vettel and Kubica showed that even now drivers are fighting for the win like madmen.

[ArrowsFA1]

So we don't need medals :s mokin: but does F1 still need to alter the points awarded to reward wins more?

[woody2goody]

So we don't need medals :s mokin: but does F1 still need to alter the points awarded to reward wins more?

Not sure. partly because I think once you go past 10 points for a win, you really distort the history of F1 points, and in terms of career totals they wouldn't mean much.

I think the weekend proves that the drivers will still fight for the extra points, so it's not in desperate need of changes IMO.

[emporer_k]

So we don't need medals :s mokin: but does F1 still need to alter the points awarded to reward wins more?


My vote goes for leaving it as it is.

[BDunnell]

So we don't need medals :s mokin: but does F1 still need to alter the points awarded to reward wins more?

As mentioned before, I'd like a return to the old system of points down to sixth only and that bit of extra reward for the winner.

[woody2goody]

As mentioned before, I'd like a return to the old system of points down to sixth only and that bit of extra reward for the winner.

To me 10-6-4-3-2-1 doesn't reward enough drivers. The current system gives out enough reward while still not making points scoring easy.

With the field as close as it is 8 drivers scoring is just right.

[BDunnell]

Fair point.

[jens]

To me 10-6-4-3-2-1 doesn't reward enough drivers. The current system gives out enough reward while still not making points scoring easy.

With the field as close as it is 8 drivers scoring is just right.

Exactly. With Top6 system Buemi would have got nothing for his great drive.
As most of the teams in current F1 have very competitive cars, it sounds unfair to reward only a couple of them, while clearly more manage to put in a great performance on a race day.

Rewarding Top6 would be a decent solution for current WRC, where there is hardly any competition, but not for F1, which has almost as tight competition as it can possibly be.

[BDunnell]

Exactly. With Top6 system Buemi would have got nothing for his great drive.

But a great drive could end up in only 12th place, and I don't think anyone would be in favour of awarding points down to 12th. Sixth has always struck me as a reasonable final point-scoring position for F1, just as 10th has for world rallying.

[jens]

Sixth has always struck me as a reasonable final point-scoring position for F1, just as 10th has for world rallying.

Why so? Because especially taking into account the competition of either series the opposite seems reasonable to me. In WRC P10 hardly marks a decent or competitive performance, while it takes quite a lot of effort to reach that kind of position in F1.

[BDunnell]

Why so? Because especially taking into account the competition of either series the opposite seems reasonable to me. In WRC P10 hardly marks a decent or competitive performance, while it takes quite a lot of effort to reach that kind of position in F1.

Numbers of entries? Also, there used to be WRC events in the 'golden era' that were far less competitive than anything we see today, and points were still awarded down to 10th.

[jens]

Numbers of entries? Also, there used to be WRC events in the 'golden era' that were far less competitive than anything we see today, and points were still awarded down to 10th.

Number of entries? But in a WRC event there different car categories and each are awarded points separately. Recently we have often had less WRC-cars on the start lists than we have F1 cars at the start of a Grand Prix.

[BDunnell]

Number of entries? But in a WRC event there different car categories and each are awarded points separately. Recently we have often had less WRC-cars on the start lists than we have F1 cars at the start of a Grand Prix.

Yes, you are right. But 10th was fine in the WRC for years and hopefully will be so again when the rules change. Sixth was also fine in F1 for years. F1 wasn't too far in the doldrums at that time, either!

[DazzlaF1]

Exactly what I was thinking. Hamilton's third place was a magnificent achievement and those 6 points may well be very important at the end of the year.

Under Bernie's system it would have counted for very little, in fact all teams who were 'in the points' this time had reason to celebrate. With medals all that is taken away.

And its those sort of super efforts that would be rendered worthless under Bernie's gold-silver-bronze idea, its those sort of drives that make world champions and legends, remember Jim Clark, he was stone dead last and a lap down in Italy 1967 yet fought back heroically and nearly won the race

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8xTaiN7k5Q

[BDunnell]

And its those sort of super efforts that would be rendered worthless under Bernie's gold-silver-bronze idea, its those sort of drives that make world champions and legends, remember Jim Clark, he was stone dead last and a lap down in Italy 1967 yet fought back heroically and nearly won the race

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8xTaiN7k5Q

Off-topic, I know, but this video of that is better, as it has Raymond Baxter's original commentary rather than something Murray Walker dubbed on years later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0-ht3uaZFM

[DazzlaF1]

Off-topic, I know, but this video of that is better, as it has Raymond Baxter's original commentary rather than something Murray Walker dubbed on years later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0-ht3uaZFM

Thanks, i think Murray dubbed that race for one of his videos in the late 90's

[jens]

Yes, you are right. But 10th was fine in the WRC for years and hopefully will be so again when the rules change. Sixth was also fine in F1 for years. F1 wasn't too far in the doldrums at that time, either!

Sure enough in the past it was different, but in my view a sport should be adaptable to changes in time. WRC might get better, who knows. In the past Top6 was fine for F1, because there were often races, where we didn't get much more finishers than six and the performance differences between teams were far greater too. Not the case any more. I simply feel that relatively speaking P8 in F1 deserves more credit and appreciation than P8 in WRC. ;)

[V12]

The points question isn't an easy one.

While yes, giving more than 10 for a win may distort the all time records a bit, to be honest they are already a bit that way, before 1991 you only got 9 points for a win, and from 1950-59 you only got eight points for a win (with a point for fastest lap 1950-58, I believe). In fact when the Drivers Championship started only the top five scored: 8-6-4-3-2, with the point for FL.

While 10-6-4-3-2-1 was a great system, logical, and the one I grew up with, ever increasing reliability since the turn of the millennium meant I agreed with proposals to award the top eight points, of course that had the side effect, with keeping it at 10, of bunching it up and making a win comparitively worth less than what it was 1991-2002.

So what to do? Personally I would keep 2nd to 8th as it is, then give 12 points for a win (not giving 9 for 2nd as under the current FOTA proposal).

But to be honest I think if you asked 10 different fans you'd probably get 10 different answers to what it should be, 12-8-6, 12-9-6, 10-8-6, 10-6-4, etc. etc.

BUT - and here's the point, I'm pretty sure none of them would give "medals" as an answer :)

[aryan]

Yes, you are right. But 10th was fine in the WRC for years and hopefully will be so again when the rules change. Sixth was also fine in F1 for years. F1 wasn't too far in the doldrums at that time, either!

The issue is not only how close teams are together, it's also reliability.

Reliability has improved hugely in F1. Going back 15 years ago, most races would end with half the field retiring before the finish. These days that is rather rare, most DNFs are caused by avoidable accidents. Engines don't go bust anymore, because they are rev limited. With the engine freeze, the engine torque is also rather stabilised, which means gearboxes don't have to deal with ever increasing levels of torques, that's why they break less often as well.

WIth today's reliability, rewarding only the top 6 is not fair in my opinion. The sport has changed and so should its pointing system. I don't understand why you'd like to go back to the old system, other than nostalgic reasons.

[Knock-on]

I have always said the points system needs a tweak to reward the top 3 places more and the 12 points suggested by FOTA looks pretty good to me.

The current system is not definitive enough IMHO but infinatly more preferable to this stupid medal system

[MrJan]

Go top 8 but have it 12-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. Gives the winner a bit more than they get now but also rewards drivers further down the field.

[Dave B]

The only other way of keeping 10 points for the win but increasing the gap would be the rather messy and complicated use of fractions, eg 10, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1 :\

[Knock-on]

The only other way of keeping 10 points for the win but increasing the gap would be the rather messy and complicated use of fractions, eg 10, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1 :\

How about 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25, 0.625, 0.3125, etc.

:D

[Dave B]

Or how about:


Winner: Feigenbaum constant delta (~4.66920160910...)
2nd: pi (~3.141592654...)
3rd: Euler's number (~2.7182818284...)
4th: Feigenbaum constant alpha (~2.50290787509...)
5th: the square root of 5 (~2.2360679774...)
6th: the square root of 3 (~1.7320508075...)
7th: the golden ratio (~1.6180339887...)
8th: the Euler–Mascheroni constant (~0.5772156649...)

Or would that be irrational? ;)

[Sonic]

Or how about:


Winner: Feigenbaum constant delta (~4.66920160910...)
2nd: pi (~3.141592654...)
3rd: Euler's number (~2.7182818284...)
4th: Feigenbaum constant alpha (~2.50290787509...)
5th: the square root of 5 (~2.2360679774...)
6th: the square root of 3 (~1.7320508075...)
7th: the golden ratio (~1.6180339887...)
8th: the Euler–Mascheroni constant (~0.5772156649...)

Or would that be irrational? ;)

BOSH! Thats it! Problem solved!

[BDunnell]

I would absolutely love that. Stephen Hawking could be the new FIA permanent steward, too.

[woody2goody]

Yes, you are right. But 10th was fine in the WRC for years and hopefully will be so again when the rules change. Sixth was also fine in F1 for years. F1 wasn't too far in the doldrums at that time, either!

About 2003 when there were around/over 20 manufacturer cars in WRC, top 8 points worked perfectly. For example when there was:

Citroen
Peugeot
Ford
Skoda
Hyundai
Subaru
Mitsubishi

[DexDexter]

Apparently the ****** medals are back for 2010!!!!!! I hate it.


http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=108405&newlang=&topic=8&catid=0

[woody2goody]

Apparently the ****** medals are back for 2010!!!!!! I hate it.


http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=108405&newlang=&topic=8&catid=0

It's a **** (insert applicable curse or swear word(s) here) idea, it's got no credibility or logic, and it defeats the point of the entire championship.

I don't think it will ever see the light of day as people will see sense, especially if this season carries on in the same exciting vein.

[UltimateDanGTR]

my centiments exactly Woody! couldnt agree more

[F1boat]

I hope that still this will be rejected again...

[aryan]

I hope that still this will be rejected again...

I can't be rejected again. The teams and the FOTA don't have the power to reject it for 2010 cause it has been approved long before the start of the season.

It's in. It's rubber stamped. We can't do much, unless...

I suggest we do what most political movements do: write a one-page letter to FOM and FIA, expressing your opinion of this medal system. They will pay attention if they receive enough letters.

[Dave B]

Are we sure that medals are back? James Allen is reporting that the rules have been republished with the original system reinstated:


After the World Council Meeting on 29th April, the rules were published with the winner takes all system in place.

Now it’s gone again.

Two days ago, May 6th, the sporting regulations for 2010 were published again, but with the original system back in place, instead of winner takes all, it says the following,

“The Formula One World Championship driver’s title will be awarded to the driver who has scored the highest number of points, taking into consideration all the results obtained during the Events which have actually taken place. “

In other words back to the way it has been in recent years.

Full story: http://allenonf1.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/winner-will-not-take-all-in-f1-championship/

Let's hope this is true! :D

[555-04Q2]

Are we sure that medals are back? James Allen is reporting that the rules have been republished with the original system reinstated:



Full story: http://allenonf1.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/winner-will-not-take-all-in-f1-championship/

Let's hope this is true! :D

Sanity prevails :up:

[christophulus]

I hope that's finalised now. There's no way they "accidentally" put the most-wins system back in! Good news though :up:

[woody2goody]

Thank goodness for that :)

[F1boat]

Great news!!!