Are you part of FGP? The you must read this!

[N. Jones]

Starting with Canada I am going to change the points for engines to the following:

1st place - 10pts
2nd place - 6pts
3rd place - 4pts
4th place - 3pts
5th place - 2pts
6th place - 1pt

Why? For one there are only six engines in F1 so why should we use a point system designed for eight? If we still had Cosworth around I probably wouldn't make this change but using an eight place point system for six engine mfgs makes no sense to me.

Also - This change will break the "Hamilton" logjam by giving more points to the top three engines and less points to the bottom three. I think this will go a long way toward getting rid of the parity we see after the bonus gp people take the top 5 spots.

None of the current points will be altered. Every point you have up to and including Monaco will stay the same. ONLY the points from Canada onward to the last race in Brazil will be affected.

You have until Saturday morning to debate the merits/demerits of this change. If most are in favor or I do not hear many complaints (at least 20% of the teams - that's 16 of you - must state that you do not want this change to take place) then the change will go through.
Conversely, if enough people hate it (e.g. - 16 people or more) then the point system will not be changed.

[aryan]

N. Jones (http://www.motorsportforums.com/forums/member.php?u=86642) I think the way you are doing this is incorrect. First of all, instead of issuing a decree and telling everyone they have until this time to discuss it, why not have an open discussion on what needs to be changed overall in FGP to have better competition and solve the current system's problems?

Furthermore, I think changing the rules mid season is dead wrong. I really think rules should be placed by the start of the season, announced and agreed upon, and should be left alone during the season. I think it is unfair to change the rules in the middle of ANY game.

Your 20% rule of complain has one serious problems. Many users who created these teams do not visit this forum that often, I personaly know of one other team owner (a friend of mine) who perhaps visits the forum once a week. To give until Saturday to voice complaints, will mean that you are depriving these people on having a say on what is going to essentially affect their teams.

Please consider at least postponing your decision regarding the new points system, and instead open a discussion on what needs to be done to make FGP better and more competitive. We can then decide (and to make it democratic, we can even use polls) to see whether those changes should be applied in the middle of the season, or from next season. Thank you.

[aryan]

One more problem with this solution:

If this system gives less overall points than the system already in place, it will be advantegous to the people who have already have their bonus GP; conversely, if it allocates more overall points than the system already in place, then it would be unfair to those people who have already used their bonus GP and advantegous to those who haven't.

Again, please consider having an open discussion about this change, and its consequences, instead of rushing a new points system in the middle of the season.

[Firstgear]

I don't think a change is necessary. The logjam will eventaully be broken as teams get their bonus GP's. But if you do make the change, I think the points should be adjusted for the whole season, not just from Canada on, for the reasons aryan has already stated.

[veeten]

... it's just like the FIA. :p :

[johnny shell]

what's the "hamilton logjam"?

[N. Jones]

@aryan: If I say "I want to do this - what do you think?" I am afraid that noone will speak up. I have seen too many times where people leave things open ended and the idea never get a definitive yes or no vote. I don't want to discuss this forever, :) , I want to know where everyone stands soon, as in by Saturday. This way people know that if they do not speak up then the change will be made. If they do speak up then we can truly find out where everyone stands.

[N. Jones]

what's the "hamilton logjam"?

the many teams who score the same number of points due to having LH on the team.

[andreag]

Apart of all the points aryan mentioned (I agree 100%), there's another one which would make unfair results:

When we were selecting our team components, the cost of a McLaren chassis and a Ferrari engine, it was exactly the same than the cost of a Ferrari chassis and a Mercedes engine. Having the same cost, it makes no difference to choose one combination or the other; but if the points system suddenly changes, choosing one combination or the other, would make differences.

Unfair.

To be fair, points should change for both engine and chassis, but in this case, the result would be the same than now.

I think it should remain like now, planning changes for next season.

[AJP]

I think it should remain like now, planning changes for next season.

I agree !

[harsha]

Changing Rules in the Middle is not ON,the best thing to do is to wait and implement better rules next year :)

[aryan]

When we were selecting our team components, the cost of a McLaren chassis and a Ferrari engine, it was exactly the same than the cost of a Ferrari chassis and a Mercedes engine. Having the same cost, it makes no difference to choose one combination or the other; but if the points system suddenly changes, choosing one combination or the other, would make differences.



:up: I didn't spot this :)

[meph]

Changing rules after the entry deadline of a competition is always a bad idea. The teams were created with the current rules in mind; and as was pointed out, the supposed rule changes would give an unfair advantage to teams with a bonus Grand-Prix before Montreal.

[scaliwag]

AJP
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Australia, Sydney
Posts: 2,490



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by andreag
I think it should remain like now, planning changes for next season.

I agree ! Me too
__________________
R.I.P.

Peter Brock

[N. Jones]

Jeez, 8-1 against. Things are not looking well for my resolution. :)

[Firstgear]

In life (& this competition) there are big things, and little things. Be thankful for the big, and don't sweat the little.

Little - Engine scoring system isn't quite perfect.

Little - LH logjam.

Big - N. Jones stepped up to make FGP possible this year.



Whatever you decide, thanks for stepping up to the plate.

[N. Jones]

Thanks. :)

9-1 against.

I

[truefan72]

Yes, agree with the general sentiment. Keep things the same N. Jones.

I am sure it will all sort itself out at the end of the season. We are only 5 races into the season. Just like real life, unexpected things occur, drivers are better/worse than advertised, engines perform better/worse than expected etc. The only change should occur, if and when a driver is replaced.

[truefan72]

Just a suggestion for next year

designate engines as such and offer their own price scale

Honda 1 - constructor
Honda 2 - client

Toyota 1 - Constructor
Toyota 2- Client

Ferrari 1- Constructor
Ferrari 2- Client

Renault 1 - Constructor
Renault 2 - Client

In that way, there will be more choices and variables to choose from. Allowing teams to choose higher paid drivers and slightly weaker engines etc.
Also might allow you to reduce the budget by about 5mil

[aryan]

In life (& this competition) there are big things, and little things. Be thankful for the big, and don't sweat the little.

Little - Engine scoring system isn't quite perfect.

Little - LH logjam.

Big - N. Jones stepped up to make FGP possible this year.



Whatever you decide, thanks for stepping up to the plate.

Absoloutley, there is no denying that. Let me, the first person who criticised the current proposal, again thank N Jones for the wonderful job he started to do this year. Mate, I am sure you thought of this only to break the deadlock and make a more interesting competition. Even if your proposition doesn't pass (which seems likely at this point) don't let this dishearten you for a moment. We all appreciate what you have done for us this year in keeping FGP alive. Thanks again.

[N. Jones]

Human Interaction will always fascinate me.

aryan - I am not mad at you at all - we just have a difference of opinion on how something should be decided.

You all have been so kind and that I am grateful for. I am just afraid that, if the decision was made to change it, we would be changing it for the Brazilian GP! :)
I guess I need to remember that when people are doing something like this that the level of commitment is different for everyone involved.

Ok, I'll stop pussyfooting around - I concede. :) we'll leave it as is BUT we will use this thread to discuss changes for next year.

We definitely need to rearrange the engine points since there will only be 6 total. I think trufan72 has a good idea - give points for the customers and modify the prices accordingly. I won't get into budgets until next season.
If we treat the 12 teams in 08 as separate we could keep the 10-8 point system for everything. I would not only give people more choices gut eight engines scoring points would make things a little more competitive.
If we also dropped the budget we might be able to still prevent anyone from being able to say, choose Alonso & the McLaren chassis (which is how it is now - you don't have enough of a budget to do so).

We will see. We still have half a season to go!!

[PSfan]

Well I guess I don't need to voice my opinion on this :cheese:

Anyway, since it looks like no changes are going to be implemented, I suppose we should also discuss tie-breaks should it become necessary. I thought Arrows had a detailed tie-break in place before, but with the Ferrari/McLeran/Hamilton/Kovolainen teams, I can only imagine a tie-break thats determined by who picked the combination first would actually detemine an outcome (easy for me to say... I was the first with that combination... however should I be involved in a 2 way tie, I'll concede because I'm the one pushing for this tie-break in the first place :p : )

As for changes for next year, I agree there should be a distinction between factory and customer engines (however this may get all muddied up thanks to the possible customer chassis' as well... Pro-drive if they get the right drivers might be able to outperform their suppliers from time to time, just as an example...)

I would also like to see actual points scored for engine/chassis as oppose to this promoting thing we do now. For example, imagine Scott Speed has a super USA GP, and the final results are something like Massa, Alonso, Kimi, Hamilton, Speed, Heidfeld, Kubica, Sato. That would mean people who picked Hamilton would get 4th place points for his finish, while people who picked BMW engines would earn 3rd place points for their 5th place finish, just seems wrong to me.

And the root of our current log-jam I believe is coming up with a rookie driver value. I think Figuring a price for the rookies should be determined by the team they will be driving for, I'm thinking something along the lines of calculating it as if they had earned 1/3 of their teams points from the previous year, or something along those lines.

[N. Jones]

Ties are broken in this manner:

# or race wins (i.e. - did you finished first for a given GP)

or

Whomever submitted their list first.


I think adding - # of time team #1 finished higher than team #2, but would be a change implemented next season.

I don't agree with people getting points for both cars crossing the line. I believe that giving out more points to people doesn't do anything but give me more to compute and cause the scores to look bigger than they normally are. I can't see an advantage to doing that; especially with the way the budgeting is setup. You have to either have a balanced team or you have to go heavy with driver or cars (chassis+engine). I think it is a great setup.


Yes, I will admit I screwed up the Hamilton situation. I think I should have switch him and Kovalainen with Schumacher & Trulli. It would have put the former at 14 & 12 while the latter would have dropped to 6 & 6. This might have persuaded more people not to pick Lewis. Or it would have meant these people would of had to choose the mid-to-back markers instead of grabbing Ferrari, McLaren, and BMW. Also - maybe more people would have choose the Toyota guys than they did? They have scored points... not a lot but they have scored...

With that said Lewis is a rookie. I do not believe he is going to score in the top four for every single race this season. He will bottom out.

[PSfan]

Ties are broken in this manner:

# or race wins (i.e. - did you finished first for a given GP)

or

Whomever submitted their list first.


I think adding - # of time team #1 finished higher than team #2, but would be a change implemented next season.

Well I wasn't sure how many tie-breaks Arrows had, but the whomever submitted their list first should be the final one.

If we have 2 members or more in a tie at the end, the odds are they will have similar records so it may come to a the final tie break, though another one to consider maybe average finish (odds are each member only has the chance one event (( their home GP )) so wins may not determine much, but the average finish position could easily be figured out at the end of the season should it come to that.



I don't agree with people getting points for both cars crossing the line. I believe that giving out more points to people doesn't do anything but give me more to compute and cause the scores to look bigger than they normally are. I can't see an advantage to doing that; especially with the way the budgeting is setup. You have to either have a balanced team or you have to go heavy with driver or cars (chassis+engine). I think it is a great setup.

I wasn't suggesting scoring for both cars, that would just be way to much... As the rules are, only the first chassis and engine score, but don't promote the engines. for example should Mcleran score a 1-2 followed by Ferrari in 3rd and 4th, then a Torro Rosso, followed by BMWs in 6th and 7th with Sato in the Super aguri in 8th, I think the engine points should be tallied as 10 points for Mercedes, 6 points for Ferrari and 3 for having a BMW and finally 1 point for those Honda guys, As opposed to 10 for the Macs, 8 for Ferrari, 6 for BMW, 5 for Honda, and I guess 4 for Toyota In my little scenario Ralf, Trulli, Rosberg and Wurz where all involved in a first corner get together and no Toyota's finished, but current rules still have them earning 4 points cause thats all the engine manufacturers there are...


Yes, I will admit I screwed up the Hamilton situation. I think I should have switch him and Kovalainen with Schumacher & Trulli. It would have put the former at 14 & 12 while the latter would have dropped to 6 & 6. This might have persuaded more people not to pick Lewis. Or it would have meant these people would of had to choose the mid-to-back markers instead of grabbing Ferrari, McLaren, and BMW. Also - maybe more people would have choose the Toyota guys than they did? They have scored points... not a lot but they have scored...

I really don't think it was a big screw up... I believe even Arrows had a set "rookie" starting value. But if I recall, Davidson/Hamilton/Kovolainen where all at the same value, and I think some consideration should be given to the cars they are driving. Its just a matter of coming up with a formula for figuring out that value.



With that said Lewis is a rookie. I do not believe he is going to score in the top four for every single race this season. He will bottom out.

Well here hoping that he saves any rookie mistakes for after Montreal!!! I'm hoping for a Hamilton win, Massa 2nd, and Heikki 3rd!!! :cheese:

Oh and whomever I choose as my third driver, he can come in 4th :p :

[andreag]

I've been playing with the program I did to calculate the results and the standings after every GP, as it's quick to simulate any scenery, I checked what would happen if points were assigned as they're on the GP; drivers points will remain the same, but engine and chassis points would be different.

Under the current system, points for engines in Monaco were:

Mercedes: 10
Ferrari: 8
Renault: 6
BMW: 5
Toyota: 4
Honda: 3

And for chassis:

McLaren: 10
Ferrari: 8
Renault: 6
BMW: 5
Williams: 4
Toro Rosso: 3
Honda: 2
Red Bull: 1

Under the supossed system, engine points would be:

Mercedes: 10
Ferrari: 6
Renault: 5
BMW: 4
Toyota: 2

And for chassis:

McLaren: 10
Ferrari: 6
Renault: 5
BMW: 4
Williams: 2

And so, the overall standings after 5 races, would be:

http://www.profacil.net/F1/Standings.gif

Compare this to the current standings after 5 races:

http://fgp.profacil.net/standings.html

and there are some interesting differences. Maybe this could be a good idea for next season.

[aryan]

I like what PSfan is advocating. Instead of assigning more points, I think the solution should be to stop this promotion of teams. Each chassis scores the same as that car scored in the real championship, and each engine scores the same as that car scored in the real championsip. The only difference is that instead of 2 drivers and 2 cars (as in the real world) we will have 2 drivers, one engine and one chassis.

I quite like this idea.

I don't think treating customer engines differently is a good idea. After all, it's the same engine and the whole point of FGP is to enable us to mix and match chassis and engines to make our own car.

I think a formula should be made for valueing rookies. It can simply be a small set value + something based on the car he is going to drvie.

[Mark]

I agree that no changes should be made to a game midseason. In 2006 the pickems scoring system was widely derided and there were numerous calls to make changes to it, but we stuck with it for the whole year because you just can't keep messing with things which are already set.

[andreag]

Each chassis scores the same as that car scored in the real championship, and each engine scores the same as that car scored in the real championsip.
That is exactly what I did to calculate the standings in my last post; each chassis and engine receive the same points scored by the first chassis and engine in the real world.

About the drivers scores, the current system is OK.

But the cost of every driver should be clearly changed. Now driver prices depends on how they finished last season(s), that's why Hamilton was so cheap, and that's why it worths to pick up the best chassis/engine combination, even if it's expensive, and then choose a driver to score some points.

In my FGP team I have a McLaren/Ferrari combination, which guarantee 18 points every GP with the current scoring system (as far as those both teams continue at this level). No driver could overscore those points, but the cost of drivers keeps no proportion with the points they can score (five/six of the drivers are more expensive than the best chassis/engine, and two of the six haven't score after 5 races).

On the other hand, the cheaper drivers can be a good deal if they drive a good car, or a bad deal if they're not in a top team (Kubica, Rosberg and Liuzzi were more expensive than Hamilton).

The best balance will come of applying a double variable to the cost of a driver; a coeficient for the driver itself, according to their past results, and a value for every team, based on the same. The cost of any driver will be given by the product of both values, and this would be more accurate than now it is.

Doing this, nobody could pay a McLaren chassis and a Ferrari engine, to be driven by Hamilton (as I have in my team), as Lewis would be more expensive than now, for being in a top team.

Imagine (under the current system) if next season Kimi drives for Toyota; the cost of the driver would be high, but the chances to score (apart from miracles) would be close to none. Or if, at the same time, Senna gets a seat in Ferrari (replacing Kimi :p : ); he would be really cheap, and his scoring chances would be higher (I bet he would finish the season with more points than Kimi in that scenery).

Using the double variable system, this will never happen, and the price of drivers would proportional to their chances to score.

And this is what we want, isn't it?

[CarlMetro]

Like others have said already, I don't think that the system should be changed mid-season.

However I do apreciate N.Jones's efforts , not just to keep FGP alive this year, but also to try and make it a little more competitive with clear winners at the end of the year :up:

[N. Jones]

I wasn't suggesting scoring for both cars, that would just be way to much... As the rules are, only the first chassis and engine score, but don't promote the engines. for example should Mcleran score a 1-2 followed by Ferrari in 3rd and 4th, then a Torro Rosso, followed by BMWs in 6th and 7th with Sato in the Super aguri in 8th, I think the engine points should be tallied as 10 points for Mercedes, 6 points for Ferrari and 3 for having a BMW and finally 1 point for those Honda guys, As opposed to 10 for the Macs, 8 for Ferrari, 6 for BMW, 5 for Honda, and I guess 4 for Toyota In my little scenario Ralf, Trulli, Rosberg and Wurz where all involved in a first corner get together and no Toyota's finished, but current rules still have them earning 4 points cause thats all the engine manufacturers there are...


Ah, I see - if BMW is the fourth engine to cross in your scenario don't reward them by giving them 3rd place points. Hmmm.... Interesting. I must say I do like Truefan's idea of giving points for the customer cars. That would probably take the scoring confusion out of it. It would just make applying a price to them more difficult because Williams is going to outscore its supplier this year so we couldn't have a rule that stated the manufactures must be worth more than the teams they supply.

We'll have to think it over. We have lots of time. :)

[N. Jones]

I've been playing with the program I did to calculate the results and the standings after every GP, as it's quick to simulate any scenery, I checked what would happen if points were assigned as they're on the GP; drivers points will remain the same, but engine and chassis points would be different.

Under the current system, points for engines in Monaco were:

Mercedes: 10
Ferrari: 8
Renault: 6
BMW: 5
Toyota: 4
Honda: 3

And for chassis:

McLaren: 10
Ferrari: 8
Renault: 6
BMW: 5
Williams: 4
Toro Rosso: 3
Honda: 2
Red Bull: 1

Under the supossed system, engine points would be:

Mercedes: 10
Ferrari: 6
Renault: 5
BMW: 4
Toyota: 2

And for chassis:

McLaren: 10
Ferrari: 6
Renault: 5
BMW: 4
Williams: 2



See! I'm not crazy after all! :laugh:

I think we need to find a way to balance the points for engines since chassis are all different...for now. Isn't the rule for customer chassis' going into effect in 2008? If so we might as well either have all twelve teams represented for chassis & engine or we find a way to have six chassis' and engines.

Thoughts?