Formula One is now in its 75th season since the inaugural Silverstone race back in 1950. Many things have changed over the years in the sport with the current crop of cars more akin to spaceships than the machines of yesteryear which battled on the streets of Monaco.
One of the non car design changes made several times over the years is how the points are awarded during an F1 Grand Prix weekend. Up to the 1990 season, drivers could only score points in a maximum number of races, which was less than the number of events scheduled each year on the calendar.
F1 historic points awards
Indeed until 1979, only the best placed driver within a team would score points that were included in the drivers’ championship. From 1950-1959 only the top five finishers scored points in the Grand Prix while a single point was awarded to the holder of the fastest lap.
The format was expanded to include the first six finishers of each event between 1960 and 2002 but with no point for fastest lap. In 2003, the FIA revised the structure to include points for the the top eight finishers of each race.
This was again extended to the top ten finishers in 2010 though the tally for winning a race was increased that year from 10 to 25 points. Yet still half of the field fails to collect any points reward in the current set of F1 regulations.
In other motorsports the range of scoring positions is usually a much higher percentage and in IndyCar with fields often approaching 30 cars, the points are awarded down to 22nd place.
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In the World Endurance Championships points are awarded for a regular race just as they are in Formula One. However, the field contains a number of categories and so the points for first are scored by the winner of each of these.
If the race is 8 hours or longer, the points allocation improves and if it is the 24 hours of Le Mans then the points awarded are double that of a standard WEC event.
It is strange in fact that Formula One has continued for 15 seasons without changing its points allocation significantly and given the current groupings amongst the field, the topic is likely to become the subject of paddock chatter following the intervention of Haas F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg.
This year the F1 teams fall into two groups. The first is the ‘big five’ including Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin. The second group we can call F1.5 ill;cudes the rest of the field including Haas F1, the Racing Bulls, Sauber, Williams and Alpine.
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When reliability is high, such is the gap between the two groups that F1.5 teams are often battling for the scraps of a single point.
In fact in the opening round in Bahrain, each of the top the drivers finishing the race were part of a big five team. Then in Jeddah, Lance Stroll put his Aston Martin into the wall allowing Haas F1 Nico Hulkenberg to sneak in and claim the final point on offer.
The pattern continued in Australia, where mechanical failures for Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen opened the door for F1.5 drivers to claim points. This was extended when George Russell crashed out with one lap to go meaning Tsunoda and both Haas F1drivers managed to finish inside the top ten in Melbourne.
Yet had misfortune not come the way of Russell, Hamilton and Verstappen in Australia, then over the opening rounds of the 2024 season, only Nico Hulkebrg from the F1.5 grouping would have a single point.
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The impact of the FIA financial restrictions now in their third year has indeed closed up the field in terms of oe lap pace and in Bahrain Q1 the entire 20 cars were covered by just 1 second. However, where the budget restraints have yet to work is how a team fares during the length of a Grand Prix – commonly called race pace.
In each of the 2024 opening events, around half the field has been lapped by the leader giving +93s, 105s and 104s the deficit between the leader and the last car on the lead lap at the chequered flag.
Nico Hulkenberg now articulates the problem for the F1.5 teams. “It is tricky as there are 20 cars and only 10 get points and it has been like that for a very long time,” Hulkenberg told assembled media.
”It feels right but obviously [the gap] on Sundays is enormous and maybe it is a bit too early to say [change the points], but if it keeps being like this for more time, then maybe it is something to consider.”
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The F1 points system when modified significantly in 2010 stretched the advantage for the race winner from 1 point over second place to seven. This in itself makes it easier for a driver to close out the season long before the last Grand Prix of the year is in sight.
With qualifying a closer affair these days, as evidenced by Lewis Hamilton who failed to make Q3 in Australia – and was a whisker away from missing out in Jeddah, one solution the German suggests would be to give points for qualifying.
“Even for qualifying, [there could be] points or something, but it is interesting to see with the budget caps how on Saturday everyone is so compact, sitting on top of each other with hundredths or thousandths making a big difference.
“Then on Sunday, it is just worlds apart – it is extreme and needs to be looked at.
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“At the end of the day, the big teams still have more budget and resources. There is a difference for sure, and we can see that quite clearly on Sundays.”
There is a shadow system in place which ranks all the non-points scoring F1 drivers on the basis of their highest non-scoring points finishing position. Yet for the likes of Sauber at present scoring a single point would feel like wining a race.
Fan surveys throughout the years show there is support for awarding points beyond the first ten finishing spots and it surely a matter of time before this becomes a topic for discussion in the F1 commission.
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The often unrecognised challenge is keeping a relative differences between the higher points places sufficiently large.
When the points gaps close up at the top, the points themselves no longer proportionally represent the significance of the places.
For example, ask any driver if they think it’s more difficult to achieve 4 wins and a dnf, or 5x2nd places… The 4 wins is undoubtedly a much greater achievement.
This merit is barely represented with the current points distribution, and it gets much worse if you start adding even more placings.
If they award something like 100 or more points for first place then I guess that solves the problem. But not many other series have had the sense to do that…
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