What do you guys think...? Pros - 1. With the variable nature of tyres and the understanding of them suiting different teams in certain conditions, it's perhaps harsh that some teams who have developed a faster car are actually punished... Getting a points haul for qualifying rewards true F1 pace. 2. Provided Newey didn't invent another supreme supercar capable of traversing all aerodynamic and tyre issues with immense rapidity, it would allow for greater competition for points. Teams at the back could build one lap pace-sters which could make qualifying better than the pointless chore it's become. 3. It would be genuine reward for all the effort... In truth, starting a couple of metres ahead means sweet f-all... just means you probably used your tyres a bit more and so will be screwed for the race. 4. Greater inter-team competition between drivers leads to more fractures and drama! 5. More strategy beyond using all rubber available. Some would go hell for leather for qualifying points, others for race win (and thus more points). Cons - 1. Messing with F1 tradition 2. In the event of an aforementioned Newey master-piece could win the world championship even easier, making things MORE boring. 3. The back-markers might be very unreliable if they built a car for one lap pace... so nobody will get lapped... not sure that's a bad thing, but some of you like that sort of thing. 4. More unworthy drivers breaking legendary records 5. Impossible permutations. It might end up difficult to calculate all the various ways to win a world championship if it came down to a few drivers.
In my opinion pole position is more than enough reward, in fact I remember suggesting the idea somewhere (as well as one for fastest lap) and it was very successfully shot down, hopefully someone on this forum can reflect my opinion more fluently.
Why is it enough reward? There's no prize money, or points. If you blow up on the first lap, BOOM, what a waste of time being the BEST at qualifying was. F1 is supposed to be about being the best.
It's also an waste of time being the BEST in the race if you blow up on the final lap. That element of luck will always be there. Being on pole gives you the best chance to win the race, which is the main event and always should be. F1 has also only ever been about making it to the finish line first, and about finding the best compromise between a massive number of aspects to achieve that. Qualifying is a big part of that, but still only one part.
There used to be a point for pole once upon a time... but if we go back to that, we should also introduce points for fastest laps and such. Not sure if it's a good idea though... It's basically just a reward for having the quickest car 9 times outta 10. I think I lean towards sticking with points for finishing positions alone.... especially if there were points for multiple positions in qualifying, as that would make alternate strategy even more unlikely than it already is.
The teams at the back are incapable of building a car that could challenge for pole. Ferrari and Lotus have been incapable of putting the car on pole. They don't design their cars to be slow on purpose, every team tries to make their car as fast possible. Qualifying is used to determine the race order for a grand prix. It's not some little side show to see who has the fastest car. Grid position is important and it is enough of a reward. As for blowing up on the first lap, if you can't build a car capable of completing two laps you're certainly not the best.
Don't want to see that happen. What if someone needed 1 point to win the Championship? If they got pole the title would be decided before the race began!
And yet clearly the fastest car in pure pace has diminished capabilities in the race because it's so fast. Should the "pinnacle of motorsport" really be stressing reliability over pure pace?
Well would that not be more dramatic than someone finishing an easily managed 7th in the penultimate race to take the title? There's always going to be room for dominant and unwatchable championship wins because that's the nature of points tallies, so it's unfair to say that's just true if qualifying had some points thrown in.
That's one way to see it, or we have one driver in 18th place needing the fastest lap to win the world title with having traffic ahead, his rival in first place (a win behind) needs that extra point to win the world title while also being under pressure from 2nd place. Not keen on the idea but it could produce some unique endings.
Given that cars should be designed to race over a long period of time reliability has always been key to F1. (Note: I do think that this year's tyres are excessive, but that's another issue). In fact, in the early days, before teams could mass-produce parts, it was even more of a factor. So yes, F1 should stress reliability as well as pace. Re: qualifying - I have always been against points for pole and fastest lap for the simple reason that they aren't part of the race and would lead to scenarios where someone in 15th would just end up bolting on a set of super-softs on the last lap to have a shot at a couple of points they don't really deserve. I have however been in favour of F1 moving to a two-race format like GP2 (sprint and feature). Probably not featuring a reversed grid (which I find a bit silly) but perhaps the sprint race could act as qualifying for the feature race, with half points awarded to those in the sprint, and full points to the top 10 in the feature race. If that's not going to happen, one simple rule change: stop drivers having to start the race on the tyres they qualified on. It doesn't make the racing closer or more strategic, it just makes qualifying less important to the point of being almost useless at times (Perez in Monza last year springs to mind).
But a lot happens in a race. Reliability problems, changeable conditions, racing other drivers. If you needed 1 point from a weekend you'd just rag the tyres in quali, then you could sit out the race with a nice glass of Pimms! Plus, Grand Prix racing is not just about driving as fast as the car can possibly go. What about the skill of finding a balance between quali and race set up? Managing your car for 60 odd laps? All that would be redundant in this scenario. Then all that would happen is the driver in 18th would cruise around for the race and then do a pit stop on the penultimate lap and then rag his tyres. He'd be about 3 seconds a lap faster than the poor guy in 1st who's actually battled and raced other drivers to earn his points.
That was the mentality 30-40 years ago, nowadays it will never work. In a time where teams need to save money where they can, thanks to the worlds economy, reliability is a must. From what I've heard teams would completely burn out several engines over a single race weekend, imagine how much that would cost nowadays considering how expensive materials are and payments for the workers. Also a lot of the technology used in F1 is also used on road cars, it wont look good on the sport if a piece of technology from F1 that is used on road cars packs up after a few weeks. Formula 1 is the pinnacle of car racing, where the fastest drivers, the fastest cars and the biggest brains take part, therefore all aspects of the racing have to be top notch.
Some good points being raised here, I reckon; especially by those who don't like the idea. In case you can't tell, I'm also against it! Although there can be a tendency to romanticise the past, for the most part, it really wasn't better. Also, my understanding is that the ideas of a point for pole and fastest lap were raised during discussions to the run-up to the revised points system which we now have; but I think the current system is a very good compromise â so no need to mess about with it. F1 has moved onâ¦
I thought about it for a while and decided no, not really, but what you could do is give a seasonal one at the end, say ten points to the person with the most fastest laps and most lead laps over the course of a season
Again, I think the downside of that would be that it would just reward the driver that happened to be strongest that season anyway. (Merc being a bit of an anomaly this year). So I'm not sure it would add very much to the spectacle. Not given this much thought, but what about if there were points (5pts maybe) for pole then points for gaining positions over staring position (capped at 5pts). That might at least give other drivers chance to gain extra points over the race even when not capable of pole.
Nope! Just leave it as it is. Another thing we should always remain conscious of is that there is a pureness in simplicity. Increasing the complication of something which F1 should take pride in – the simplicity of its scoring system – by making it less so, will produce no benefit. At the same time, doing so increases the possibility of confusion. Pardon the obvious pun but changing what we have is pointless. I see absolutely no need for it. And, in the long run, neither do I see any benefit. Leave it alone. It's fine just as it is.
