f1buzz.net

I’ve said before that awarding the Championship to the driver with the most wins won’t necessarily make for better racing; you just don’t get to be a Formula One driver unless you have the will to win.  There are too many good drivers and it takes too much hard work to get to F1 to be really happy with anything other than first place.  Second is just the first of the losers.  But could the FIA‘s new scoring system actually harm the racing spectacle rather than improve it?  It raises some interesting questions.

My biggest worry is that it won’t produce a championship that is as close run as we have had the last two years.  Thanks to the old points system, introduced to minimise the Schumacher effect of one driver running away with the Championship after a few races, we didn’t know until the last lap of the last race of 2008 who was going to be crowned Champion.  Will it be likely, or even possible, that we can have the same tension under the FIA’s new scheme?

Then there is the effect on those teams in the mid-field and those at the back of the grid.  Often the closest and most exciting battles in a race are for the lesser places.  Will drivers still race as hard for 5th and 6th position when they know it won’t really make a difference for them, especially in the later part of the season?  I know, this goes against what I said earlier about a driver’s innate aggression but it could be disheartening to know that under the old scheme a driver could still have a long shot at the Championship but under the new scheme they really have no chance.

It is also interesting to consider how the new engine rules could interact with this system.  Jenson Button pointed out the possibility of a team having a great start to the year and not having to work much for the rest of the season:

I think the public will struggle to understand why a driver with 60 points can become champion instead of the one who has 100. I understand the logic behind it and I find it interesting. For sure it’s an incentive to always go for the win, but it seems risky too – after nine races, we could find ourselves with a driver that has already won the title and can stand still eating ice cream, while the guy in second in the standings is just 18 points behind.

The new engine rules for 2009 state that a team may only use eight engines.  If a driver uses a ninth a penalty is applied.  It is conceivable that a team could use a fresh engine in each of the first 8 races of the season and if they won them all then the penalties the driver would receive in later races wouldn’t matter as he would have already sown up the Championship by the middle of the season.

A crazy idea?  I don’t know.  It is a fairly extreme interpretation of the rules and a big gamble but in theory it could work.

We won’t really know the full effect of the decision until the season gets underway but I still think FOTA’s points plan was a better solution.

Bernie Ecclestone thinks the new scoring system announced by the FIA on Tuesday could give Jenson Button a crack at the Championship in 2009.

Official Aussie bookmaker, IASbet.com currently has Jenson Button priced as favourite to win in Melbourne ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello and Lewis Hamilton.

When Bernie was asked by Autosport about his predictions for the championship at an Australian Grand Prix press conference he said:

I suppose an awful lot will depend on these regulations, but if Brawn has got it right, then there is a chance that for the first three races we could maybe see Jenson winning.

Now that it is not points that decides the championship, if he has three races in his pocket then it is not bad – although I suppose in the end you have to look at the old timers like Alonso, Kimi, Felipe and Mr Hamilton.

I think he’s right and I’d love to see Jenson challenging for the Championship this year.  God knows he’s been waiting a long time for a car that could give him a serious chance at it.  But my favorite Bernie comment from the press conference was this, when asked about the legality of the Williams, Toyota and Brawn diffusers:

I guarantee whoever wins the races in Melbourne will be told they are cheating, and it doesn’t matter who it is.

Unfortunately, I think he’s right there, too.

Well this is one way to generate some publicity before the start of the season.

In a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in Paris on Tuesday the FIA decided to ignore almost all the proposals of FOTA and introduce a new scoring system for 2009 where the World Drivers’ Championship will be decided by the number of wins rather than points.

In rejecting the new points system proposed by FOTA , the FIA have, in effect, decided to go with Bernie Ecclestone’s ‘medals‘ scheme, just without the actual medals.

Here is what the FIA press release says about the new scoring system:

The WMSC accepted the proposal from Formula One Management to award the drivers’ championship to the driver who has won the most races during the season. If two or more drivers finish the season with the same number of wins, the title will be awarded to the driver with the most points, the allocation of points being based on the current 10, 8, 6 etc. system.

The rest of the standings, from second to last place, will be decided by the current points system. There is no provision to award medals for first, second or third place. The Constructors’ Championship is unaffected.

The WMSC rejected the alternative proposal from the Formula One Teams’ Association to change the points awarded to drivers finishing in first, second and third place to 12, 9 and 7 points respectively.

This strikes me as a weird decision.  Personally, I don’t think the current points system needed changing at all.  It produced two of the closest, most exciting Formula One seasons we’ve seen over the last two years and I can’t see how changing it would have made them any better.  But apparently a large number of fans want to see drivers rewarded more for wins and I think FOTA’s proposed points system of 12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 would have achieved that without fundamentally changing the scoring system for the Drivers’ Championship.  If Bernie’s system produces more aggressive driving from second place then that can only be a good thing but I have my doubts.

Not content with one radical announcement the FIA have also introduced an optional budget cap of £30 million in 2010.  The cap is optional because while teams may continue to spend as much as they wish, those teams who choose to stay within the cap will be given much freer reign with the regulations.  Here is what the press release says:

As an alternative to running under the existing rules, which are to remain stable until 2012, all teams will have the option to compete with cars built and operated within a stringent cost cap.

The cost cap is £30m (currently approximately €33 or $42m). This figure will cover all expenditure of any kind. Anything subsidised or supplied free will be deemed to have cost its full commercial value and rigorous auditing procedures will apply.

To enable these cars to compete with those from teams which are not subject to cost constraints, the cost-capped cars will be allowed greater technical freedom.

The principal technical freedoms allowed are as follows:

1. A more aerodynamically efficient (but standard) under body.
2. Movable wings.
3. An engine which is not subject to a rev limit or a development freeze.

The FIA has the right to adjust elements of these freedoms to ensure that the cost-capped cars have neither an advantage nor a disadvantage when compared to cars running to the existing rules.

This is quite a radical move.  FIA president Max Mosley has wanted to introduce budget caps for a while now but in the past said they would be hard to enforce.  Supposedly giving teams a choice makes this easier although I’m not really sure how.  There is a Q & A with Mosley on the FIA site where he says:

We involved forensic accountants from Deloitte and Touche as well as financial experts from the current teams. The vast majority of payments are traceable and any benefits in kind can be valued. There were a number of meetings. It became clear we could do it. The problem was getting the current teams to agree a figure. Also, the majority wanted a lot of exclusions such as land and buildings, the team principal’s salary and the drivers. We would also need the right to carry out very intrusive audits and impose severe penalties for overspend. However these difficulties no longer arise because each team will now be able to choose whether or not to run under the cost cap.

On the face of it, this sounds like an interesting idea and could reward smaller, technologically innovative teams like Williams but it is also a major upheaval in the regulations and it could be confusing having effectively two different classes of cars competing.

Of course, the FIA’s decision to ignore practically all of FOTA’s suggestions didn’t go down too well with the teams:

With regard to the decisions taken today by the FIA World Council, FOTA would like to express its disappointment and concern at the fact that these have been taken in a unilateral manner.

The framework of the regulations as defined by the FIA, to be applicable as from 2010, runs the risk of turning on its head the very essence of Formula 1 and the principles that make it one of the most popular and appealing sports.

Given the timeframe and the way in which these modifications were decided upon, we feel it is necessary to study closely the new situation and to do everything, especially in these difficult times, to maintain a stable framework for the regulations without continuous upheaval, that can be perplexing and confusing for car manufacturers, teams, the public and sponsors.

FOTA are obviously unhappy that these new regulations have been voted through without consultation and it will be interesting to see the response from the newly united teams.

The Formula One Teams’ Association (FOTA) today outlined its roadmap for Formula One at a press conference in Geneva at which senior management figures from all 10 current Formula One teams shared the stage together.

The proposals are aimed at increasing the stability, sustainability, substance and show of Formula One, and have all been developed as a result of rigorous interrogation of a FOTA global audience survey carried out in 17 countries earlier this year.

The proposals cover both 2009 and 2010 and so include some already announced such as testing reductions and fixed price engines and gearboxes.

One of the key findings of the audience survey was that Formula One wasn’t fundamentally broken.  This is good news.  Both Ron Dennis and Sir Frank Williams have warned that any moves toward dumbing down Formula One or turning it into a spec series would risk driving away fans, drivers and engineers so the following statement from FOTA is encouraging:

There is no evidence to suggest that grand prix formats need ‘tricking up’ via, for
example, handicapping, sprint races, reversed grids or one-on-one pursuit races.  Formula One audiences appreciate the traditional gladiatorial, high-tech nature of the sport and would not respond favourably to a perceived ‘dumbing down’ of the current format.

A new points scoring system has been proposed to make winning grands prix count for more than it did last season.  Points would still be limited to the top 8 places but those drivers scoring a podium would earn more than they do currently.  This seems like a good compromise between Bernie Ecclestone’s radical medals scheme and the current points system.

Surprisingly, FOTA are suggesting further reductions in testing for 2010 (four four-day single-car pre-season tests plus one single-car pre-season shakedown.)  If anything I would have expected an increase in testing as between hailstorms in Europe and sandstorms in the Middle East the teams haven’t managed to get a lot of miles in this year.  They must not think it’s such a problem.

Felipe Massa must like the look of the suggestion to reduce the race distances to 250km or a maximum of one hour 40 minutes.  Earlier this week he told the Roman paper La Repubblica:

Nothing happens in the last 15 laps.

I’m not so sure.  Plenty happened in the last 15 laps in Brazil.  Perhaps if the race had finished 15 laps earlier then Glock could have held his position on dry tyres and Massa would be World Champion…

FOTA also recognises that F1’s media potential is not being fully exploited, in particular via the internet.  FIA president Max Mosley suggested earlier this year that Formula One was neglecting the power of the internet but the sport’s commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, is known for his reluctance to embrace the online world.

The key proposals are below:

Technical
2009:

• More than 100% increase in mileage per engine (eight engines per driver per season)
• Reduction in wind tunnel and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) usage
• Engine available at €8 million per team per season

2010:

• Engine available at €5 million per team per season
• Gearbox available at €1.5 million per team per season
• Standardised KERS (put out to tender, with a target price of €1-2 million per team per season)
• Target a further 50% reduction of the 2009 aerodynamic development spend
• Specified number of chassis, bodywork and aerodynamic development iterations (homologations) during the season
• Prohibition of a wide range of exotic, metallic and composite materials
• Standardised telemetry and radio systems

Sporting
2009:

• Testing reduction (50%)
• New points-scoring system (12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1), to give greater differentiation/reward to grand prix winners
• Race starting fuel loads, tyre specifications and refuelling data to be made public

2010:

• Commitment to recommend new qualifying format
• Radical new points-scoring opportunities (eg, one constructors’ championship point to be awarded for the fastest race pit stop)
• Further testing reductions (four four-day single-car pre-season tests plus one single-car pre-season shakedown)
• Reduction of grand prix duration (250km or a maximum of one hour 40 minutes) pending the approval of the commercial rights holder

Commercial
2009:

• Increased data provision for media
• Explore means by which the presentation of Formula One action can be more informatively and dynamically presented, common to other sports such as tennis and cricket, to dramatically improve engagement with the public
• Nominated senior team spokesman available for TV during grand prix
• Commitment to enhance consumer experience via team and FOTA websites
• Mandatory driver autograph sessions during grand prix weekends

2010:

• Commitment to enhance consumer experience via TV coverage

The new engine rules for 2009 are set to be refined by the FIA to make it so teams cannot change an engine after the start of Saturday morning practice.

The regulations aimed at cutting costs were announced in December last year and limit a driver to using no more than eight engines during a Championship season.  Since then there has been some confusion as to when new engines may be used.

This latest change seems to go against FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting’s comments in a technical briefing last month which seemed to indicate he expected teams to change engines during an event:

What the teams will do is to have a Friday engine that’ll probably do the first four races or something of that nature. They’ll then take the engine out and use another one for Saturday and Sunday.

The tweak to the regulations comes from a request from the teams.  Renault’s engineering director Pat Symonds told Autosport.com:

All the teams I’ve spoken to feel that that’s a little bit against the way we’re trying to do things, and it will mean that you will have to take more people to the races. If we blew an engine on Saturday morning, of course we have enough people to change it. But we don’t have enough people to systematically change two engines, so we don’t really want that to be the case.

I guess this makes sense.  There’s no point saving money on the number of engines used in a season if you just have to spend it again on engineers to replace two engines every weekend.  It should also make it easier for fans to keep track of the state of the engines being raced.  But it does go to show how every regulation will be exploited by the teams to the maximum extent.

I would like to see some kind of press release from the FIA that totally clarifies the 2009 engine regulations and the penalties that will be imposed.  Maybe I’ve missed something but I’m still not entirely sure what will happen when a team uses a ninth engine.  Surely they will only be penalised once and not for every race that they use the ninth engine.  Will a penalty be applied for every new engine used after engine number eight?

The engine use rules are reasonably clear now but I think the engine penalty rules could use some further clarification.