During the Chinese Grand Prix, a weekend where teams and drivers got an opportunity to score plenty more points then usual – with an extra eight on offer to the winner of the Sprint and a return for everyone down to eighth place on the Saturday – it emerged that there could be further changes on that front next season.
The F1 Commission meets on Thursday by video conference to discuss a number of topics relating to Formula 1 and its future, with different regulations usually among the talking points. This week the subject of point-scoring down to 12th place in a grand prix has been tabled.
F1’s point system used to be pretty sacred, with the top six drivers scoring from 1960 through to 2002. The only changes in that time were the return for the winner increasing from eight, to nine, and then to 10, plus the number of race results you could count towards your total evolving.
Then in 2003 it was opened up to the top eight drivers, and changes have been more frequent since then. That still saw 10 points for a win until 2010, when the current reward of 25 points to the winner was introduced, and points paid all the way down to 10th place.
The last change was the return of the point for fastest lap if you finish in the top ten, that came back in 2019.
F1’s latest idea – or at least the one raised by a team – is to retain the 25 points for a win system and not change the scoring for the top seven positions, but then adapt it as follows below that: P8 – five points (instead of four)
P9 – four points (instead of two)
P10 – three points (instead of one)
P11 – two points
P12 – one point
The thinking behind the proposal is straightforward. At a time when F1 has become increasingly competitive and cars more reliable, the top five of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin invariably account for all of the points if they finish a race. Yet the remaining five teams are extremely closely matched, and often fighting fiercely in the hope of something happening to one of the top five to offer up a point.
You only need to look at the example of Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen in China – admittedly this one involving an Aston Martin – to see how great the racing can be but for what are generally viewed as meaningless positions further down the field.
If you extend how far points go down, then there can be a clear, tangible reward for more of the battles that take place. And the knock-on impact of that is it is more likely that teams will be separated by actual points in the constructors’ championship at the end of the season, rather than count back of 11th, 12th and 13th-place finishes after scoreless years.
That said, scoreless years have become less frequent, with only two occasions in the past eight seasons where there’s been a team that hasn’t scored at some stage, and both of those years involved just one team missing out.
Which brings me to the counter argument, that scoring a point used to be a major achievement in F1, and something to be celebrated on its own. It was an extremely tough result to get, and led to moments such as Mark Webber standing on the Australian Grand Prix podium after securing a fifth place – and two points with it – for Minardi back in 2002.
That was the last year only the top six scored, and again all teams picked up at least two points that season, despite Arrows disappearing midway through the year.
But take a look back through the results and look at the huge rate of attrition that there used to be.
In the most reliable race – Hungary – there were 16 finishers, while the least number of cars reaching the checkered flag was eight out of 22 in Australia (that wasn’t a fluke either, with nine of 22 finishing in Spain and Germany).
With the way the sport has evolved and the regulations which now make reliability such a key component, the way results are rewarded should be revisited, too. 24 races will always mean more chance of every team scoring at some point, but they should all be encouraged to fight for every position and every finish at all times.
Using the Chinese Grand Prix example once again, Daniel Ricciardo’s car was retired due to the lack of performance he had after picking up damage in the race, but penalties for Lance Stroll, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant made being classified in 14th place a real possibility, had he continued.
Then you just need one collision between two cars fighting hard for points, and you’re in the top 12. Such a change will lead to more occasions where teams are incentivized to keep a car in the race just in case a point ends up being on offer, rather than it being so clearly out of reach as is often the situation now.
The bigger results still come with the biggest rewards as well, but consistency over a season is more likely to be rewarded under the new proposal. If the sixth-fastest team regularly finishes 11th but the one time a top-six result is on offer it’s taken by a rival, then currently that can influence the entire outcome of the year.
Of course that can still happen for a team finishing 13th most often, but it just extends how far down you are more likely to feel like you get what you deserve, and arguably those final constructors’ championship positions – and associated prize money – are more valuable to the smaller teams further back.
It’s not just the smaller teams that are backing the idea, either, as one boss from a top five team told me they support the proposal and think it will get the six votes from teams required for it to pass for 2025.
That’s despite entry fees based on points scored ensuring this will likely cost teams money in some scenarios, but meaning the FIA is never going to oppose it, either.
In an ideal world, F1 wants more teams fighting for podiums and victories, and the field spread is much closer than in the past, but reliability and consistency has meant that even small margins are enough to create dominance and predictability. Nobody’s miles adrift at the back, even if Red Bull is miles ahead at the front.
And while dominance has always been a factor in F1, the sport has changed so much from when it was only the top six scoring. Amid that closer field, let’s give more drivers more to fight for.
