There were concerns early this season that Formula One was in fact splitting into two divisions with the top five teams in Red all, McLaren, Mercedes Ferrari and Aston Martin locking out the rest from scoring points by finishing in the top ten.

The teams were told at the F1 commission meeting in April to go away and consider an expanded points system awarding a score to drivers finishing in the top twelve race classification positions. Following the most recent meeting in London this week, the F1 commission has announced it was decided to scrap the new proposals “unanimously.”

Other motor racing series award points to more than half the field and it has been a bone of contention for some time the lack of opportunity for the lesser teams to score in F1. Stake Sauber are the only team yet to get off the mark this year but the constructors’ table now looks less like two separate divisions of competitors with Haas F1 and RB often out qualifying and out scoring Aston Martin more frequently.

 

 

Extended F1 points system scrapped

“Shortly before the summer break, the balance of power has changed so much that all of the teams except Sauber were able to score points,” claims Sky Deutschland reporter Malte Gottlinger.

“The original justification for the proposal therefore lost its impact.”

Tobias Gruner, influential F1 writer for Auto Motor und Sport, agrees: “The situation has now eased somewhat. RB and Haas have been able to beat Aston Martin time and again recently,” he added. 

“In the world championship standings, the gap between the two halves of the table has narrowed significantly compared to the first five races. Alpine has managed to score points five times in the last eight weekends.

“The standings therefore reflect the balance of power relatively well,” says Gruner. “The team bosses have realised that a change to the points system is not necessary.”

Red Bull simulations predict SHOCK for Verstappen in Spa

 

 

 

Motorsport wild car entries

There is in fact a shadow table which exists for teams all scoring zero or for teams/drivers which are level on points and this is based on the best race finishing position of a driver or team. Which is why some commentators believe the points system should be expanded anyway, it just makes the lower ranking positions more transparent.

It has now emerged that F1 team bosses have been chewing over the idea of introducing a wild card system to promote young drivers trying to break into the sport. It was discussed at the F1 commission meeting in London although little progress has been apparently made.

Wild card systems exists in other forms of motorsport where in certain races an extra car or bike is entered by teams and the driver/rider is considered to be a rookie.

Of course due to the F1 cost cap era, an extra car is not possible due to financial restrictions but just as each current full time driver on the grid has to give up at least one FP1 session to a junior, maybe this could happen for F1 racing too?

Bottas admits he’s “nervous” over F1 future

 

 

 

Rookie F1 drivers in the Sprint

For now the idea of forcing a driver to sit out for one entire F1 weekend of the season has been shelved with the possibilities of teams ‘gaming the system’ by letting the young drivers take huge grid drop penalties as a new engine – for example – is introduced to the pool.

Yet if we consider the Sprint events, there’s surely an opportunity there for young drivers to take part, particularly now the shortened for of F1 racing has its own qualifying session.

To prevent teams gaming the system a separate power unit could be assigned for just Sprint races and qualifying. Then the decision would need to be whether, the Sprint itself becomes a junior racing series across the year, or whether participation includes the full time F1 drivers too.

This would give Stefano Domenicali power to his arm to increase the number of Sprint weekends to at least eight, giving the rookies four races and the full time drivers an equal number.

Verstappen calls for “respect” from engineer

 

 

 

Bearman proves “right time, right place”

The problem of young drivers finding their way into F1 is compounded by the fact that just ten teams are competing in the sport with 20 cars. The historic Indy500 event held in the month of May each year has a field of 33 cars registered often with even more entries who fail to make it through qualifying.

Oliver Bearman is a case in point. He was drafted in on Saturday morning to substitute for the injured Carlos Sainz at the second race of this year. The young Brit qualified P11 and came home P7 in the Saudi held race and received significant plaudits from across the paddock.

The result? Bearman now has a drive for Haas F1 next season, yet had he been judged solely on his F2 results, its unlikely Oliver would be a full time F1 driver next season. Bearman is 14th in the F2 standings at present and eclipsed by his Prema team mate Kimi Antonelli in sixth.

Dr. Helmut Marko recently commented on this very fact stating:“With Oliver Bearman, he was in the right place at the right time and will move up to Formula 1 next year. His race in the Ferrari has shown him his F1 future, but if you were to look at his Formula 2 results, things would look a lot worse for him. But it’s good that young people are coming into Formula 1, I’m absolutely in favour of that.”

New agreement: Verstappen banned

 

 

 

More testing not the answer

The Italian has more than double the points of Bearman and having won the feature race last time out, would surely be ahead in line for a drive in F1. Of course Kimi is under the watchful eye of Toto Wolff who is still debating whether to bring him in next season as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement.

More testing is not the answer because again of the cost cap constraints and most of the young driver tests are difficult to benchmark given they are only allowed to race in F1 cars from two years previous.

Of course giving young drivers three or four Sprint outings a year has its difficulties. With just two and a three hours between the Sprint race and Grand Prix qualifying, any major crash by a rookie would impact on the full time drivers capabilities in there Grand Prix.

Yet this is the jeopardy of racing but something more must be done to showcase the talents of the driers in the junior formula.

Official: Haas presents Magnussen sucessor

 

 

 

F1 team “on the brink of collapse

Michael Andretti will be reading today’s news with a wry smile on his face. He and his proposed F1 team have been listening to propaganda from the paddock claiming that the current line up of competitors are in rude health.

Guenther Steiner claimed at last season’s pre-season testing: “Five years ago, you could get teams for nothing, you could pick it up. Nobody wanted them and they went out of business.

“Now, all of a sudden, everybody wants a team. But it’s a lot of people that want to come in and the 10 teams which are here are all financially stable, all well set up. It’s a very good environment at the moment, no one is struggling.”  READ MORE