Howdy! It’s VY. There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding the F1 scoring system recently, and it has changed a lot before. So I thought, why not take a look at the system and see what possible alternatives we could have!
This year hasn’t been the most exciting in terms of the battle for 1st in the championship, with Max Verstappen barnstorming towards an inevitable 3rd title, taking 8 wins in a row just recently, and only being even slightly matched by his teammate Sergio Pérez on two occasions. But the battles for every other position are pretty spicy! We have the battle for 3rd in the title between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, the battle for 5th between the two Ferrari drivers and George Russell, and then you have the midfield scraps between the McLarens, Alpines, Lance Stroll, and Alexander Albon. Then, of course, you have the backmarkers scrabbling for a single point or two every so often.
So, at the moment, F1’s scoring system is as follows:
No points for pole.
1 point for the fastest lap for top-10 finishers.
8 points for the win at a sprint race, then 7 to 1 until 8th place, and no points for the rest.
25 points for the win at a normal race, then 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and finally 1 point for the driver in 10th – with no points for anyone lower than 10th.
Discounting the sprint points for the moment, the point of this system as opposed to the previous system of 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 was to reward podiums and especially wins much more than any other kind of finish. So, 1 first position and then a DNF was better than a 2nd and a 7th, or a 3rd and a 6th, or two 4ths, etc. The gap between 1st and 2nd, 7 points, is much larger than the gap between any of the other positions, so it highly rewards battling for the lead rather than settling for a 2nd place. Or at least, that’s the idea. But with only 3 of the 14 years with this system being closely fought between teams for the lead of the championship due to incredible dominance from Mercedes and Red Bull, it’s hard to say. But, as obvious as it might seem, having a large gap between 1st and 2nd, and the podium and the rest of the grid means that there becomes a large gap in the championship between those in 1st and 2nd and those in the rest of the field.
Consider this:
Let’s say MV and SP are in the first round of the championship. MV retires, and SP wins. That puts MV on 0 and SP on 25. If MV then wins each following round, with SP second, the gap will initially be 25, then 18, then 11, then 4, then -3. It takes 4 races for MV to re-overtake SP. In the old system, the gap will initially be 10. Then 8, then 6, then 4, then 2, then 0. It takes 5 races to match SP and another one on top of that to overtake. The recovery period is greater. In order to win the championship as a whole, then, a mistake will cost you dearer in the old system than the new one. The new system, then, is one that rewards flash-in-the-pan results more than it rewards consistency.
Whether that’s good or bad is, well, subjective. But there is one aspect to the current system that I do dislike. At the moment, with a greater focus on the midfield and rear end of the grid than ever before, it feels like they are fighting over nothing. Back before, probably the hybrid era in 2014, backmarker and lower midfield teams were rarely given any coverage, aside from when being given a blue flag. But now, with F1 reporters and journalists interviewing and covering every team, Drive to Survive highlighting the underdogs’ performances, and each team’s bigger social media influence, we are looking at them more than we ever have before. But every position from 10th to 20th gives an equal number of points: zero.
In a recent interview with The Race, Jake Dennis stated: “You might finish 12th instead of 14th and you could be a minute ahead of your teammate but no-one knows… It’s really difficult to prove yourself in F1 unless you’ve got a car which is in the top 10”. And that is one of those issues with the current points system, only the top 10 drivers get a ‘performance review’. Of course, the team themselves with all the data know how well each driver is doing, but we can’t tell the difference so easily.
So, before we really start, why not graph the current season so far out in a spreadsheet? We have a tally count for every position and every driver, and then a column which applies the points system, and then a final table totalling up the points. This is an easily expandable sheet just in case I would want to look at past seasons which had more drivers. And I do love that negative correlation band we have showing on the left. And from the graph, we can see that there is a similarity between the shape of the line joining the top of each bar to the curve of points distribution. For simplicity’s sake, this chart goes up to the Summer Break.(insert fig1 and fig2)
If we were to apply the old points system we would see fewer points of course, but actually a greater ratio between Max and Sergio, of about 1.74 instead of 1.66.(insert fig3 and fig4)
And of course, with the even older system, we would see an even greater ration between the two. That is to be expected. What we didn’t expect was that Carlos Sainz loses out to Lando Norris, due to those two second place finishes versus the consistently 4th-8th Sainz.(insert fig5 and fig6)
One proposed system that we have seen is to increase the number of points scorers from 10 to 12, altering the points gained for 8th, 9th and 10th from 4, 2, and 1 to 5, 4, and 3, with 2 and 1 handed out to 11th and 12th. Of course, this wouldn’t affect the front of the championship very much as the front runners don’t often finish 11th or 12th. Mostly, the graph is affected at the bottom end of the grid, smoothing out the curve so the only non-points scorer becomes Daniel Ricciardo (in two races). Notably, Nico Hulkenberg’s flash-in-the-pan 7th place finish one time doesn’t distract as much from a really poor season by Haas as it does normally. Yuki Tsunoda and Valtteri Bottas’ consistency at getting 11th and 12th often rewards them by putting them above Nico, arguably showing a better reflection of their true performance. So why don’t we go further? If we want to see the true performance of the drivers and cars in last place why not measure all of them?(insert fig7 and fig8)
The first option is to keep everything the same up to P12 and then go into decimals for the final 8 spots. Not gonna lie, decimal spaces in points is a little odd but it is what we see for rain-shortened races regardless, so I suppose it isn’t too far out. Once again, the front doesn’t change much, but the rear end has a few more cumulative points than before. Instead of 3 points, Alpha Tauri has 25, which only marginally puts it behind Haas at 25.2, with Williams at 28.1, and Alfa Romeo doing much better at 31.2, all a long way off the next team of Alpine. Is this a truer representation of their pace? The Alfa’s consistent just-outside-the-top-10 scores give it a large boon in points that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.(insert fig9 and fig10)
For ease of reading, we could multiply every points tally by 10, with 250 for a win instead of 25 for example. This keeps the ratios the same but the scores much higher. Now, this would wreak havoc on some of the records we have, such as ‘most consecutive points finishes’, ‘most points scored overall’, and ‘most races without a point’, arguably, but I would put it to you that these records have already been made weird by the changing points systems of the past and the increase in races per year over time. If we looked at drivers such as Prost and Fangio, and either applied our current points system retroactively or took the mean of their results and created a ranking of drivers by that average, we would see much better how these historic drivers stand against current records.(insert fig11 and fig12)
Now that we aren’t worrying about that specific argument, we can ponder some truly wild propositions at changing the points system, seeing how they affect the score distribution. This is where it gets interesting. Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not saying that these are objectively better or worse scoring systems, they simply reflect a different rewards attitude to different positions. Now, the ratio between a 1st at 25 and a 2nd at 18 points is about 1.39. So, what if we wanted something similar, say, 1.33? For neatness, we could consider a win to be 100 points and 2nd to be 75, 3rd to be 60, and so on down to 20th being 1. This does lead to some large numbers with Max having over 1000 points already – but interestingly, the ratio between him and Sergio is only 1.59, which is lower than with the current points system. This means that they are closer, which makes sense if you consider the maths. The only change in the standings would be a swappage of Yuki and Nico, as that 6th position is now just a larger haul of points rather than a single points-scoring position outside of the norm.
So we can move on to the second counterpoint, which is that a system which grants points to every driver that finishes (DNFs get no points) devalues a points finish. And of course, this is true in an objective sense. The value of a points finish is now the same as the value of a finish at all. That means it won’t be worth it ever to simply retire the car if you are outside the top 10 without a chance of getting in. But the value of a top-10 is now equal to its value in points rather than being valuable due to the fact it grants points unlike positions outside of the top 10. So it could be said that they become less of an achievement. But we could, on the other hand, also say that teams celebrate making it to Q2 or Q3 with quite some vigour despite the fact that no points are given for doing so. We could also mention that NASCAR simply keeps track of top-10 finishes as its own stat, something that has value due to being kept track of in this way. So while it is a bit of a shame to see that value go, it can still live on, and thus I see it as, not not a problem, more a problem resolved.(insert fig13 and fig14)
While we’re at it, some might say, why don’t we simply award n points to the winner, in which n is the number of cars in the race, and then go down by 1 for each position? Wouldn’t that be the most fair? So in this case, a win would award 20, a 2nd 19, a 3rd 18, a 4th 17, and so on, all the way down to a 20th with 1 point. Again, I have to stress, this is not an objectively better or worse system than any other, it simply reflects a different attitude. But how interesting this would be as a system. We can immediately see that the spread of points is a lot more even, with Max only having 1.22 times more points than Sergio, and the line connecting the top of each bar being almost a straight line (Aside from Max, who has had an exceptionally good season, and Danny Ric, who has only been in two races). If we divided the points tally by the number of races this season, and then did twenty minus that, we would easily reach the average position of each driver – so that is really what is being measured here. In such a scoring system, consistency is key more than anything. Pierre Gasly’s narrow spread of results rewards him significantly, jumping up to 10th in the standings, and Yuki Tsunoda benefits massively too, being 13th. Sergio’s poor result in Monaco doesn’t help his case as he is in a much closer battle for third with Lewis and Fernando, while Carlos’ impressive consistency puts him ahead of both George and Charles Leclerc.
But now a win is just another position. I know we said that a top-10 still has value when everyone who finishes gets points but shouldn’t a win or even a podium be something special? After all, we do have a podium celebration with trophies. A season isn’t all about your average result, filling up a trophy cupboard helps too!(insert fig15 and fig16)
So here are a couple of different scenarios: The first one grants 5 bonus points to the winner, and 1 to second place; the second grants 1 to third, 2 to second, and 3 to first; and the third grants 1 to third, 3 to second, and 5 to first. And no, not much does change in the championship order. Max comes out a little further ahead than in our last example, but not as far ahead as in reality, and those with a podium get a little boost in points. An issue with that last one is that if you are sitting behind first, it seems like you would have more to lose – losing 19 points – than you would have to gain – 1 point – and so, why bother taking that risk? At least, that’s the theory. But you know racing drivers, they will go for it no matter what. But there is a legitimate worry that the races may become less exciting and risky. That’s why giving more to the ones in the podium places makes sense – it may be less ‘fair’, but for the show it is supposedly better. And I think I prefer bonus points being given to podium finishers in some form. But I honestly haven’t decided whether I prefer a linear points distribution, such as the counting down from 20, or a more exponential points distribution, such as the 100 or decimal ones we saw earlier. On the one hand the standings as a whole are closer and reflect their position on the grid better – but on the other hand we want to encourage risk taking and reward those that finish better with more.(insert fig17 - fig22)
So, what are other series doing with their points systems? What would happen if we applied them directly to F1? Indycar gives 50 points to the winner, 40 to 2nd, 35 to 3rd, 32 to 4th, going down in twos until P10 with 20 points, then down in ones until 25th at which point 5 points are awarded to everyone 25th and lower. I like this system. It gives F1 a bit of leeway if more teams do indeed decide to enter, and it has a little bit of that curve we like to see, since going up a position at 10th gives more than at 11th, but not so much curve that the driver up front is miles away from everyone else. The ratio between Max and Sergio goes down to 1.4, but still emphasises just how good of a season Max has had this year, while at the same time, consistent finishers such as Yuki and Valtteri are given the positions they deserve.
Though, the huge gap between even P20 (10 points) and a DNF or DNS (0 points) is a huge penalty to those that either don’t finish or started the season late such as Daniel Ricciardo. It is so much ground to make up, with a huge recovery period to compensate for even one DNF – 5 races to be equal and 6 to overtake for 1sts and 2nds with an even higher recovery period if you’re fighting in the midfield. This very much feels more like the ‘participation trophy’ idea that people who hate giving points to every driver like to espouse than a more linear system at the bottom. It seems, then, that both to placate these people and as a better system in my opinion, the gap between 19th and 20th should be the same as or very similar to the gap between 20th and a DNF. That way you aren’t overcompensated just for finishing a race but you are given something.(insert fig23 and fig24)
NASCAR gives 40 points to the winner and 35 points to 2nd, going down by 1 all the way to 36th at which point anything lower gives a single point. Now, there are definitely not going to be 36 cars in an F1 race any time soon, so it just means that 20th gets the weirdly arbitrary-looking 17 points. In a world in which the F1 pack was as close as NASCAR, and ten positions were separated by a few seconds, then maybe this style of points would make sense, but I’m not sure about this one to be honest. It has the same issue as the previous one. American series just seem to have more cars than F1.(insert fig25 and fig26)
So, as a final little fun experiment, what if it was opposite day? In which 1st gains 0, 11th gains 1, 12th 2, 13th 4, and so on until 20th receives 25. Logan Sargeant takes the cake and winner’s trophy here, of course, but I’m not so sure that this gives the best drivers a chance to win the championship. Will have to send this one back for revision, probably.(insert fig27 and fig28)
So that’s a little look at our current points system, its flaws, and some potential solutions all applied to the current F1 season as of the summer break. If you want me to make a quick video looking at other seasons with these alternative points systems, then let me know in the comments, though I’m hesitant to do 2021. This is VY, signing off.