I disagree that the current system gives odd results. The best drivers/teams score the most points. The balance between speed and consistency in terms of points reward can always be discussed, as I will demonstrate below, but you can't say that one distribution is more odd than another.beelsebob wrote:Stradivarius, you are absolutely 100% factually correct.
However - you are missing the point of this thread. The point of this thread is not "wha wha wha, Hamilton isn't winning, he should be". It's "what do people think is a reasonable way to define a points system, because the current points system seems to give some odd results".
As I said before, if Hamilton continues to perform better than Rosberg, I have no doubt he will winn. In other words, it isn't a fact that Hamilton is not winning. However, if Hamilton continues to retire in 25% of the races, so that he ends up with less points, he and/or his team is simply not doing a good enough job. However, I find it highly unlikely that Hamilton will have 4 or 5 enigne failures during the season while Rosberg has none. And if so happens, I don't think it is realistic to blame it purely on bad luck. Bad luck is not systematic. If you find systematic bad luck (or luck for that sake) you should start looking for other explainations. (Of course, you could say it is bad luck for Hamilton, if his mechanics are doing something wrong that causes engine failures, but then it is ultimately a team error and not bad luck.) I would also like to add that the points system can never eliminate the impact of bad luck anyway, although the concept of eliminating the best and the worst results in many cases may reduce the impact of luck.The fact that Hamilton is not winning is merely being presented by some people as an example of where they think the current points system ascribes more value to reliability than it should, and less value to winning repeatedly than it should.
I think that some of the arguments presented here are based on a very odd assumption, that a DNF is never the driver's fault. Then you will of course reach the conclusion that the current points system gives odd results, because the best driver has less points. But as long as the points system is only maping a finish position to an amount of points, there is no way to distinguish between poor luck (the engine blew up) or poor driving (the driver crashed or spun off) when it comes to DNF. If Hamilton had retired from Australia as a result of an obvious mistake from himself, by simply crashing out of the race, then maybe some people would find it easier to accept that he was not ahead of Rosberg at this point, as Rosberg has taken the car home to 1st or 2nd in all races. The fact that Hamilton's retirement wasn't his own fault shouldn't matter for the points system.It brings up an interesting point though. I wonder - should the points systems be different for the WDC and WCC. That is, clearly the WCC should reward reliability. You need to build a car that can finish consistently high up to be the best constructor in my mind. Meanwhile, to be WDC, you (in my mind) need to win lots, and I don't overly care about whether your car blows up, as it has no bearing on you as a driver. With that in mind, does it make sense to use Bernie's medals system for the drivers championship only, while retaining points (possibly tweaked to be more linear) for the constructors?
The points system rewards the package which consists of both driver, car and team, as said before. If you look at the 2005 season, you see that although McLaren and Raikkonen were quickest, Renault and Alonso were best because they were more consistent/reliable. But if you look at the 1988 season, Prost was by far the most consistent driver, but Senna beat him because he was quicker. One race victory more was enough to beat Prost who had 4 second places more. If you apply any of the modern points systems to the 1988 season, Prost would have beaten Senna with quite a margin because consistency is now rewarded higher. I don't know why they left the points system used back then, but it seems reasonable to assume that it was a result of a desire to put more emphasis on consistency. At least that is what happened when the system was changed in 1991. Then it changed again in 2003, further increasing the emphasis on consistency. When it changed again in 2010, the emphasis on consistency didn't change much, but in most cases it was reduced slightly, but it's still higher than it was from 1991 to 2002.
In my opinion, the points system is always fair, as long as it is the same for everyone. The aim, when deciding on the points system, should be to encourage the type of racing that is most entertaining to watch. This could be to motivate the drivers to try and overtake, without being too afraid of retiring. But at the same time, there is obviously also a desire to reward consistency. I suppose f1 would be regarded less entertaining if half the cars/drivers retired each race. Fans of specific drivers/teams would loose interest as soon as their favourite was out. Also we often see many interesting battles for position between drivers who are not in a position to win the race, so there are definitely good reasons to reward consistency from an entertaining perspective. The problem with the medal system is that anything happening behind the first few drivers would be of little or no interest. I like very much the idea that all races count and that for example Hamilton needed the 5th place in the final race to be champion both in 2007 and 2008 and Alonso needed a 4th place in the final race to beat Vettel in 2010. Both in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012, the title was decided in the final race and depended on results further back in the field, which wouldn't have mattered with the pre 1991 system. This is not only true for the final race, but for all races. In 2012, Vettel scored 8 points in Spain, while Webber wasn't able to score any points at all. These 8 points proved important at the end of the season. This adds something, as the drivers all the time need to think about maximizing their points.
