More points equals more prizes or at least more incentives for sponsors. That’s one of many debates being held in Formula 1 at the present moment (there are too many to count in 2024).
The proposal of extending points down to 12th place in a Grand Prix was first brought up in Shanghai, China and discussed a week later by the F1 Commission. If approved, the changes would come in 2025, but instead, the Commission elected to delay deciding until later this year.
But why is this an issue in the first place?
F1 purists, gatekeepers or perhaps just the nostalgic among the GP global fandom will fondly look back to the days when eight, or even just six finishers were awarded points. Go back further and there were even drop scoring rounds. Wrap your head around that one Netflix fans (although, I, a fan of 20 or so years now can’t wrap my head around it).
The reason for these narrow margins for scoring points or peculiar inclusions of drop scores was largely down to the poor reliability of the cars in decades gone by. Now, in F1’s ultra-competitive, ultra-reliable landscape, technical retirements aren’t so common, especially amongst the top teams.
This means that anytime the top five of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin (in no particular order behind Red Bull) finish the race without issue, there is no reason why they won’t lock out the top-10 points-paying positions. No fun for anyone else.
Six rounds in and after Miami there are two teams yet to taste the sweet nectar of a top-10 result, Williams and Sauber. Alpine went on a diet and Esteban Ocon defended track position well to cling onto a point at Miami after a mid-race Safety Car to get the Anglo-French outfit off the mark. As many as five drivers are also yet to score with Pierre Gasly joining the luckless Williams and Sauber pairings in the barren stakes.
There’s a case to be had that with the field being so close, closing off points to 10 competitors isn’t fair, or relevant to the performance that is being put on display. This comes back to sponsors, and new commercial partners who may not understand the relevance of fighting for 11th through 20th if there is nothing to play for.
To that end, Motorsport Week’s Editor in Chief, Graham Harris sought to get some answers from Team Principals who sat in the bunker of the Miami Hard Rock Stadium last Friday, to gain their thoughts on the matter of points expansion. Luckily for him, there was a decent spread of team bosses that covered the field. McLaren CEO Zak Brown, ready to answer a few days ahead of Lando Norris’ maiden GP win, Aston Martin’s Mike Krack, RB’s Laurent Mekies (whose team is doing a fine job of picking up the scraps) and James Vowles, whose Williams team is yet to get going in 2024.
“Look, we think it’s a good idea to increase the points distribution, mainly because there are no back markers anymore,” said Mekies. “We have 10 very strong teams. This year is a good example. We have a fantastic fight also in the second part of the grid, with 10 cars fighting within one-tenth and two-tenths. And, you know, our pole position is P11 currently. Our win is P11. If nothing happened at the front, and the reliability of the guys at the front has been… extraordinary.
“So we think it’s a fantastic fight. We want to explain it to the fans. We want to explain it to our partners and we think that points will help to give value to P11, which today for us is a victory. So for sure, we are supportive of an extension of the point system. Then know whether you go to P12, to P14, to whatever, we can discuss, but I think where the level of competitiveness of the teams is so high nowadays that the fight in the midfield, the fight at the back will also deserve some points.”
Krack agreed, “I think the system needs to be looked at,” he said. “We have a new fan base also. We are not anymore the purists that we were for these many years. Personally, I think there always needs to be something to fight for, wherever you are. A bit like Laurent mentioned, we should obviously not be too much influenced by how it is this year, because next year can be different than the year after. But I think it was a good consensus in the F1 Commission to say we want to make an adjustment, but we should not rush it, because we don’t want to change it again later. So I think it’s important that we have a good thought about it, and then we discuss some different proposals next time.”
Krack noted how the F1 Commission, comprised of FIA, F1 and team representatives, wanted an appropriate time to come to the right solution on a new points system.
“There were just questions over where do we go,” said Vowles. “Is it P12, P14, P16? All cars, fundamentally. It was a very good conversation at the F1 Commission around this where the room was pretty much united in let’s do something that’s good for the sport. However, let’s take our time to get it right and do it once.”
“I think increasing that will just create more excitement throughout the whole field,” added Brown. “So we’re supportive of more teams getting more points.”
Maybe points could even be awarded to all finishers, as Brown is accustomed to with his Arrow McLaren IndyCar team. I jokingly put that idea to a member of the F1 travelling circus, who shall remain nameless, who responded, “F*** that!”
That settles that then.
In truth, the fan in me is torn – if anything the points need to be narrowed between first and second regardless of whatever other changes are made. The realist in me sees the merit in expanding points, given how tight the field has become in recent years, but the question remains. How far is too far?
