Formula One Points Scoring System Flip Flop
Posted by Chan Kelwin in Thoughts, tags: formula oneI must admit that my interest towards Formula One (F1) has somewhat deteriorated over the years. I no longer feel the urge and willingness to stay up all night to see 20 over cars circle a race track like I used to. In fact, I have only watched one or two live races on the television this year alone.
I never really understood why at first. I thought it was because of the bad reception I have in my rented room due to a weak/bad antenna. It is also troublesome to move and set up the television just for a couple of hours of use. Maybe I was just too busy with my work the past few months. I don’t know.
Bernie Ecclestone
After reading this article on Bernie Ecclestone’s attempt to justify his proposed “medals” scoring system, I realized why Formula One has become what it is today.
I never really understood his proposed “medals” scoring system. The whole idea of his system seems to only concentrate on rewarding the race winner. I understand that he is just trying to fix a problem — when a driver leading the drivers’ championship by a huge margin settling for lowers positions instead of risking and pushing for a win.
However, that attempt to change the points scoring system (AGAIN) is causing another problem to the already troubled sport. Forget the politics, the underperformed drivers, the sex scandal, and whatnots. Formula One has lost its groove the day they started changing the regulations when Ferrari dominated the grid a few years ago.
Despite the Ferrari’s race attics in several races that caused ruckus amongst the fans, the red cars are not to be blamed for this high speed downhill ride Formula One is heading to.
In my opinion, it is the constant change in the sport’s regulations that is to blame. Some of those changes might have been for the better but others, especially the change in the points scoring system has to be the worst decision ever made. I won’t go into how pathetic it feels to read them commenting on how this or that driver would have won/lost the driver’s championship if only the old/new points scoring system was retained/introduced.
According to this Wikipedia entry, the old 10-6-4-3-2-1 points scoring system (PSS) rewarding the first six finishers worked like a charm for over a decade since it was introduced in 1991. In fact, the previous PSS used for three decades (1961 to 1990) was similar except that the winner gets 9 points (a three point margin from the second placed driver instead of four). These PSS was meant to reward and push a driver to go for the win.
The current PSS (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1) was adopted to reward drivers for consistency.
And now Bernie Ecclestone wants to have a new points scoring system that reward and push a driver to go for the win.
I did not know that flip flop is contagious.
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