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With the 10 8 6 4 2 1 points system, Alonso would be the Champion by 2 points (106 to 104).
Being a fan of the new points system, I can see how the old system favours consistency over victories or attack or risk.

Interesting that in 2007 Raikkonen, Hamilton and Alonso got 110, 109, 109 respectively, in 17 races!

Yes, but the new points system was introduced intentionally to reward wins over consistency. It would be unfair if Alonso won the championship with 3 race wins over Vettel's 5 wins.

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Sebastian Vettel: "I don't praise myself". I am not Fernando Alonso.

Exactly right

Yeap. The new points system was brought in after 2008 where Hamilton won the Title, even though technically, Massa had more wins. I say technically because Hamilton lost a win and Massa gained a win over the whole Spa incident. That didn't seem right so they decided to change it to a system which increases the difference between first and second place, to reward winning, to "get drivers to fight for the win more". This happened around about the same Idea as Bernie's medal system.

At the end of the day you play to whatever points system is being used. Whether that be the post 2010, or the pre 2010 system. It wouldn't be unfair if Alonso won the title with 2 less wins, because it shows Alonso would have had more consistent results Instead of having 2 more max point hauls, which can easily make up for 2 not so good hauls.

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Forza Fernando !

I think Alonso is saying "Where's the qualifying pace in my reliable old Ferrari?"

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I just did some quick calculations and the result surprised me:

2008 WDC

Hamilton - 243
Massa - 240

This was mainly due to Hamilton finishing 15 races in the points compared to Massa's 13 points finishes.

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"Just leave me alone, I know what I'm doing." - KR

"Perhaps me and Twitter don't go together too well." - LH

Alonso didn't win since Germany, back in July. Well, I am a fan of Keke Rosberg and he won that title in 1982 with only one victory, but seems that Alonso didn't have advantage by the lack of reliability and misfortune of his competitors like Rosberg once.

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The end is near

Old system was 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 not 10-8-6-4-2-1. I think Vettel still takes the WDC with the old system by the way.

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''What use are poets in times of need?'' --Friedrich Hölderlin

He's talking about the pre-2003 system.

Which has no 8-point reward in it...

I haven't done the calculation (nor wish to worry about it), but it seems either the first post is a "typo" or calculated incorrectly.

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[ Kimi Raikkonen ]
2007 Formula 1 World Drivers Champion

The pre 2003 system was the 10-6-4-3-2-1. With this system Vettel has 91 points and Alonso 86.

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''What use are poets in times of need?'' --Friedrich Hölderlin

Also the newer system is better for mid field teams and back markers in their aid for points.

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Driver Instructor & Test Driver

The most recent point systems were 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 and 10-6-4-3-2-1. Either of those systems, or any other ones from the past would have resulted in a Vettel win:

http://f1-facts.com/statistics/regulations-comparison

I personally hate the new points system. Pre-2003 is better.

The recent championships whose results would have changed with another points system are 1994, 1999 and 2008. Going further back, it looks like the 1984 and 1988 championships would have ended up with Alain Prost under the present points system where all races count towards the title.

No, there would be nothing UNFAIR about it. Wins are great, but consistency over the season is also important. How fair would it be if one driver won 5 races and did not finish any of the others yet was named WDC?

Some of you don't realize that the old point system was modified because of Schumacher's domination. They decided that too many points were given for wins, so they modified the points to lessen the chance of the WDC chase being over well before the end of the season. As Schumi was so totally dominate in both 2002 & 2004, it was one way to "slow" him down.

Now it has been changed to once again reward the wins to a greater degree. In other words, shock of shock, the FIA has done it's share of manipulation in this area as well.

That said, I was and am in favor of rewarding the wins greater, just as I was opposed to penalizing Schumi & Ferrari several years ago. Still, it is important to both win and be consistent.... Personally, I have no problem though if someone with less wins becomes WDC because they outscored the opposition. Nor should you.

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Forza Ferrari
WCCs = 16
WDCs = 15

Not this old chestnut again.

I don't think it's unfair one way or the other, the drivers and teams know the rules before the season starts and race according to those rules. If a win was worth 10 times as much as 2nd place and 2nd place was worth 10 times as much as 3rd place and so on, we would see a different kind of racing...if any cars got to the finish!

Of course, we can look back and calculate different championship totals, but drivers and teams sometimes race harder or more conservatively based on the points rules at the time. Simply looking back at the results and doing a calculation can't account for that.

lol every thread on the forum turns into one of 5 topics: who had the best car, lewis vs jenson, mclaren vs lewis, #2 drivers, or the old point systems vs. new.

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Don't forget "Vettel can only win in the best car"

Fair enough but there was already mention of giving points to the top 10 finishers in the early nineties. I remember they wanted to introduce it in 1993 after Mansell's dominating WDC in 1992 with a huge points gap over the rest. That never materialized though. It would take more than 10 years before top 8 would get points.

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F1 fan since 1989

Not just that - the 10, 8, 6 system never looked right because P2 & P3 were too close to P1. IMO, 10, 7, 5, 3, 2, 1 would have been fairer and closer to the current points by calculation.

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Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

What about discarding your worst result for each half of the year?

That isn't a topic, that's a truism

I like points systems that reward consistency as I believe a win is already enough of a reward and an incentive in its own right. Any driver in second place who has the pace to win isn't going to back off just because the points difference between first and second is small.

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The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights

Excellent post and I agree entirely.

I would give more points and to more cars.

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PF1 Pick 10 Competition
2012 Championship finish: 6th place

I like it. It certainly must have crossed his mind

But as Blake said, this current point system was brought in for a particular reason, fair or not, & I was peed off at the time but I also agree that winning a race should be rewarded & have always thought so. Otherwise drivers would be just play the percentages rather than going for the win which would make the races that much more boring. The one thing no one can say is that this season was boring

This season was boring. Yeah, I said it.

PS - I lied.

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"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

Ah, my mistake, obviously didn't read it carefully enough.


My input on the whole thing is it has nothing to do with the points system, the fact of the matter is Alonso shouldn't have even been the guy trying to stop Vettel at the end of the season. Looking at the table you may think how close Alonso came to winning but if Hamilton got the results he should of out of what was the fastest car for a lot of the season he would have walked away with it, Alonso probably would be 3rd at best and Vettel wouldn't have got a lot of the points he did from Hamilton's misfortune.

Of course What ifs are all a bit pointless, especially in F1, but my point is that if you're going down that route then Alonso was very lucky to be in 2nd any way. Yes he drove fantastically but he only finished so high in the WDC because other drivers failed to perform or had a lot of bad luck.

I reckon what Alonso is really saying.

"Weathers nice, do you want to go outside for a walk or will I open another Johnny so we can go again dear?"

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

But what we have to rememeber is that in a given season, leading teams and drivers make fine adjustments to car set-up, driving style, team orders etc in close-run championships depending on the points system in force. If RBR, Ferrari and the other teams were racing under a different points system in 2012, their adjustments would have been slightly different and so it is not as straightforward as it might appear.

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Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

How did you get those numbers?
First of all, the points were 10-8-6-4-3-2-1.
Do the math again and you'll get Vettel 126, Alonso 114, and Vettel would've clinched the title before Brazil.

Using the older system with 10-6-4-3-2-1, you'll get Vettel 102, Alonso 86, and Vettel would've led by 19 points going to Austin, even an easier way to clinch the tiltle.

For your surprise, if you do the math properly, actually this current point system is the most advantageous for Alonso.

The points system was 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 so top eight finishes were being awarded points. Before that top 6 finishes with 10-6-4-3-2-1 were being used...

For what it's worth, I think the introduction of the motorcycling points system* wouldn't be a bad idea. With the cars being so much more reliable these days there isn't a need to provide the cut off that used to exist. It will also stop the ridiculous Caterham/Marussia scenario where it was being calculated on who didn't score points but had the highest finish.

*
1st - 25
2nd - 20 points
3rd - 16 points
4th - 13 points
5th - 11 points
6th - 10 points
...
15th - 1 point

I didn't see it as ridiculous. It was long the case under 10-6-4-3-2-1 that you may finish another non-scoring team and have better funding, but scrape a point and travel is paid by Bernie. If that's still the case, I believe it is, finishing higher in a race, and thus the WCC, has some rewards but not others. Remember under payments to the FIA next year, a single point would have cost more for Caterham than it might have saved/received.

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"We can not drive slower, just to make the races more exciting." Alain Prost

Couldn't find an Alonso thread specially for him but have a translation to share so the next best thing I thought of was to put it here...

Alonso Urges Ferrari to Explore Loopholes

Translated by Nicole
13.12.2012 – 12:49:25
In an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport, Fernando Alonso thinks that he lost the WDC to Sebastian Vettel because Red Bull’s car was clearly more competitive than Ferrari’s. Alonso also critisized the rules. According to him, Red Bull took advantage of the unclear rule interpretations better than Ferrari and that’s why he felt that “fair play” in F1 doesn’t pay off... continue reading by clicking on the linkhttp://www.racingnerds.com/?p=1191

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FORZA FERNANDO * FORZA FERRARI * FORZA FELIPE

Yes, I meant 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1, sorry a typo.
That "126 vs 114" was based on this system.
But really, this current point system worked best for Alonso, using the old system he could only bite his finger after Austin.

The forum will have a field day with that. Alonso's got some grief coming his way, as has Red Bull's legality again. Brace yourselves!

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"You are the universe expressing itself as a Human for a little while..."

Apparently AS has also written about this... but seems people are ignoring it.. there is another article where Adrian Newey says he is sick and tired of the legality questions etc.

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FORZA FERNANDO * FORZA FERRARI * FORZA FELIPE