1 Million Place Grid Penalty

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

My solution would be a secondary points structure.

Firstly lets start with a reasonable number of bits to begin with for the season...lets face it 10 or 12 are built per car as spares for the 4 that are allowed, plus any new development bits as the season goes on.

Each race where a constructor uses 1 additional part they are racing for a revised constructors points list of 2 points less than normal scored and have to finish in the top 9 to score points.

1st: 23pts, 2nd: 16pts, 3rd: 13pts, 4th: 10pts, 5th: 8pts, 6th: 6pts, 7th: 4pts, 8th: 2pts and 9th 1pt.

If 2 or more parts are used then a points list of 4 points less than normal and have to finish in the top 8

1st: 21pts, 2nd: 16pts, 3rd: 11pts, 4th: 8pts, 5th: 6pts, 6th: 4pts 7th: 2pts and 8th 1pt.

Drivers points would remain the same.

Yeah, that seems simple enough.

[JABWOA]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Forget qualifying. Line them up in Echelon in reverse points order and have the drivers sprint from a line at the exit of the last corner to get in their cars.....

Vandorne would win!
(Interesting stat from Monza - Vandorne has taken 1 kilometer of grid penalties this year (based on the 8m per grid spots)

[F J Nedos]

Make every car in the grid change everything after qualifying. They all get the same grid penalty therefore their qualifying positions stand!

[marcel82]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

It has already changed again, 25 place penalty for Vandoorne

which basically meant that Sainz, who got a 10 place penalty, started where he qualified.
But I do believe the situation is being caused by suppliers s****ing all over the rules, and not delivering on the mileage required.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

My solution would be a secondary points structure.

I have put some thought into this over the past few days and I have an idea that is somewhat similar to what ScotsBrutesFan proposes.

I believe some type of system that limits the number of power unit components used over the course of the season needs to remain. We should not return to the era of qualifying specials and engines that only last one session or race weekend. With restrictions comes a penalty system, with the current penalty system being the problem.

I would do three things...

1. Increase the allocation of components for the span of the remainder of this engine formula. This specification is complex and while somewhat mature, clearly is still a problem for multiple manufactures. Increased allocation should help push problems like this until later in the season. Right now we are seeing a large number of penalties just a bit past half way.

2. Change the balance for component allocations. Roughly speaking it seems that the ICE is relatively stable while the ERS-H components have lower reliability. So I would allow for a larger allocation for those that are failing left and right now. This allocation may change (reduction) year by year as we approach the end of this specification and manufactures technology matures. (To be honest, I haven't looked into the current allocations and this suggestion may already be in place.)

3. Move from a grid penalty to reduction of points scored system. Similar to what ScotsBrutesFan proposes above, I would reduce any points scored during the race in which extra components are used. However my solution is both simpler and more drastic. If at least one component is used beyond allocation, then points would be cut in half. I think this will be simpler for fans to understand and with less outrage as there are no penalties to stack up to large numbers as component swaps are added up. There is no formula to define the size of the penalty, but rather a simple trigger for the single penalty. Which points would be cut? Constructor, driver or both? Most conversations here talk to it being constructor points only and leaving driver points as is. At the moment, I am leaning toward the cut happening for both (see below on why). But I am open to it just being constructor points and leaving driver points alone. Just to be clear... this impact points "scored" in the race in which components are changed. So no removing if prior won points and no team ending up with negative points.

What are the problems with this proposal? First, the team will take a full hit as soon as the first component needs to be swapped. So they will clearly take advantage and replace all components in the engine (i.e. a completely new power unit). That is fine. My concept is to focus on both delaying when the penalty happens, and for a simple solution when/if it does happen.

Second, if both constructor and driver points are not cut, I am concerned about teams gaming the system and it having unexpected impacts on (or rather manipulation of) the driver championship. If unintended strategic loophole come in to play which alter the shape of the drivers championship, then fans will be very upset. It would be some type of scenario in which a team may take the hit on the constructor championship just to ensure a better result in the driver championship. This will be seen as unfair to drivers.

If analysis showed that these scenarios don't exists, or are rare edge cases, then maybe only the constructor points is cut in half and the driver points is left alone.

Third, we will see half points being awarded. But that is not without precedent.

Lastly, not a problem with the proposal above, but... existing rules that impose grid penalties for changes between race and qualifying, etc. or rules to prevent "banking" of power units by swapping multiple within a race weekend would remain unchanged.

Richard

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Richard, my reason for going with a two stage option was that, and I should perhaps have given more prominence to rather than just the final line, I would be looking to find a way to include most technical "infringements" including extra gear boxes into the points penalty system.

---

I had thought of just going with half points with the possibility of teams ending up with a season total that included a half point at the end. I have no issue with that, it has happened in the past but those have come about from the rare situation whether has been a race stoppage after the first 2 laps and before reaching 75% distance, that extends beyond the maximum 4 hour event window.

As half points are already awarded and if there are are half constructors points on top of that, do we want teams fighting for constructors places and the large financial returns that one place can bring over another in quarter points. ... It's bad enough when it's just a single point and a half point would be worse even worse.

Having said all that, if it was just a single stage points reduction I'd offer something similar to the second of my points lists, so the penalty is not just reduced points but having to get into the top 8 to receive them.

[Mike Harte]

Richard, wouldn't your first point be rather unfair on those teams that have PUs that are far more reliable. I would suggest that Mercedes and Ferrari have invested huge sums to produce more durable elements, and they and the teams that they supply benefit from that.

To change the rules to allow more components is, in reality, a retrospective punishment for spending money on their PUs. And especially in the case of Mercedes for having damn good engineers in their road vehicle divisions who brought their talents to bear on the project years ahead of all the other engine providers.

[S griffin]

I'd rather have a limited of number of parts per race, than one part for x number of races. That way it's easier for everyone, the teams and the fans to understand

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Richard, wouldn't your first point be rather unfair on those teams that have PUs that are far more reliable. I would suggest that Mercedes and Ferrari have invested huge sums to produce more durable elements, and they and the teams that they supply benefit from that.

To change the rules to allow more components is, in reality, a retrospective punishment for spending money on their PUs. And especially in the case of Mercedes for having damn good engineers in their road vehicle divisions who brought their talents to bear on the project years ahead of all the other engine providers.

Is it unfair? Yes. But the situation is what it is and everyone says the status quo is unacceptable. If you adjust rules, there will be winners and losers.

Regardless, I think my third component is the foundation. The first two can be negotiated to acceptable levels, or just not implemented if adjustments are deemed untenable by someone like a Mercedes.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

Richard, my reason for going with a two stage option was that, and I should perhaps have given more prominence to rather than just the final line, I would be looking to find a way to include most technical "infringements" including extra gear boxes into the points penalty system.

---

I had thought of just going with half points with the possibility of teams ending up with a season total that included a half point at the end. I have no issue with that, it has happened in the past but those have come about from the rare situation whether has been a race stoppage after the first 2 laps and before reaching 75% distance, that extends beyond the maximum 4 hour event window.

As half points are already awarded and if there are are half constructors points on top of that, do we want teams fighting for constructors places and the large financial returns that one place can bring over another in quarter points. ... It's bad enough when it's just a single point and a half point would be worse even worse.

Having said all that, if it was just a single stage points reduction I'd offer something similar to the second of my points lists, so the penalty is not just reduced points but having to get into the top 8 to receive them.

Kudos to you for suggesting a solution. Even in the mainstream media, it seems to be mostly complaints and little in the way of suggested solutions. If the solution was obvious, they would have implemented it by now.

Your solution has merit. I was just trying to focus on simplicity because the media and the fans already get wound up and misrepresent the current solution. Just look at the thread title.

Regarding half, or even quart point. Yes people will complain if someone gets beat by a quarter point. They are all arbitrary numbers anyhow. But I guess getting beat 1125 vs 1100 feels better than 11.25 vs 11.

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I'd rather have a limited of number of parts per race, than one part for x number of races. That way it's easier for everyone, the teams and the fans to understand

To be honest, I can see a slight difference between your two scenarios, but not much? And that assumes I understand your intent, which I doubt I do. Can you clarify?

Richard

[275 GTB-4]

I'd rather see no artificial tinkering with the race equipment! (and don't raise the spectre of scrutineering...all that can be controlled)

A time penalty ON THE DAY or a financial penalty/exclusion from results/exclusion from next meeting post race...blown an engine? Stick another in during the race and get back out there for some fan and advertising exposure and "team practice laps"!

[JABWOA]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

To be honest, I can see a slight difference between your two scenarios, but not much? And that assumes I understand your intent, which I doubt I do. Can you clarify?

Richard

I read this as each car should have limited amount of items each race - ie, 4 wheels, 1 cockpit, 1 front wing, 1 back wing and 1 power unit. Damage it, day is done or fight on as is.

Kudos to those in the graphics department for designing the spider web that shows each of the 5 components of the current Power supply system and how many each driver has used. But it's not friendly to the casuals.

Costs needs to be controlled and short of being a completely spec series with Ferrari chassis, williams gearbox, McLaren ECU and Merc motor..., a fairer system needs to be designed while not penalising those who are better too much. (Is was mooted last year to freeze the Merc engine to allow other to catch up - if that did happen then this year would have been a Ferrari walk over.)

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by JABWOA

I read this as each car should have limited amount of items each race - ie, 4 wheels, 1 cockpit, 1 front wing, 1 back wing and 1 power unit. Damage it, day is done or fight on as is.

I think I read somewhere that this is how NASCAR does it with their engines. Not to downplay NASCAR technology, that can working in a series that effectively has tightly controlled technology that generates solutions that are generally reliable, well understood and in the grand scheme of things... cheap (lets say ~$80k per engine). I have read this works out to ~$3M per season (30+ races). Which is clearly doable. And some smaller teams will run the same engine for more than one or two races.

Lets look at current F1 numbers...

Some quick Google help says teams may be spending ~$8 million to lease what is supposed to be four engines per season. That comes to $2M per engine. With 20 races per F1 season, that is ~$40M just in engines alone.

I know these numbers are not accurate. First, who knows how accurate my Google searches are, but also because part of the larger lease fee is support costs and other overhead, etc. which means the actual per engine cost is lower. Also in both NASCAR and F1, there are additional engines that would be used for testing, etc. So with a fixed per season cost, that also drives down the per engine costs.

But in general it should illustrate that F1 can't scale up the current engines to be "one race" engines because the engines are so expensive. Now, maybe they can be made to cost less if the longevity is not built in. But frankly the manufactures have already engineered in the longevity and it would take new R&D to try to make them cheaper and you know that what would happen is it would be a race to extract performance at the cost of reliability and not a race to drive down the cost by keeping the same performance. So would the cost drop much? For the current spec, I suspect not.

What can potentially happen is that lets say the rules do allow for one engine per weekend. I expect the manufacturers would want cost reductions baked into a revised engine spec because not only could their customers not afford the engines, they also wouldn't want to be spending that much money themselves.

Basically the above could work if there was a drastic rework of the engine spec to create VERY simple engines. And that is not a bad thing. Question is... would current manufactures continue to be interested in providing low tech simple engines? They may complain, but in reality, they probably would be OK with it.

Richard

[chillibowl]

is the problem really the penalty format or function of modern F1?

rather, havent we seen this in the past few seasons now (more so as the calendar increases in size)?

obviously Honda get a lot of penalties and frankly they deserve them but the deeper problem, imo, is that we are approaching the part of the season where the constructors table is pretty much set so teams have shifted focus and resources over to next year.

so now you have a case where RB, for example, will take strategic penalties in the hopes of squeezing out a lucky win somewhere else (a morale and PR boost) and Renault overall my start trying some new things and/or push the envelope to get a lead on next year.

anyways, maybe im being weird but i would say more penalties are needed....mid to late season strategic engine changes and a points structure that tends to reward resource allocation to the next season does a disservice to those who have devoted money and time to watch these races and is the bigger problem imo.

i get that resources are limited and these are smart and necessary strategic and financial moves and in the past they made sense but now as the calendar is growing (they want what 25 races?)...its just that i can live with the penalties more then i can live with the last third of the season looking more and more like a glorified test.

teams need to be compelled to put their best foot forward for each event...like others though, i dont have the foggiest on how to accomplish that.

[JABWOA]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

teams need to be compelled to put their best foot forward for each event...like others though, i dont have the foggiest on how to accomplish that.

Good point -which is why I believe points for fastest lap needs to come back.
(Remember all the times Webber would go hotlapping (to take stats away from Seb ) when he wasn't able to get a decent result.

[Aysedasi]

I've always been a firm believer in points for fastest lap.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I've always been a firm believer in points for fastest lap.

During the commentary for Monza, it was referred to when Alonso asked what the fastest lap was.
It was suggested that all that would happen is two/three laps from home all drivers outside the points would just pit for a fresh set of boots.

Not sure how this could be prevented?

[ASCII Man]

I doubt all drivers outside the points would be able to get the fastest lap even with a fresh set, unless its one of the usual front runners on a very bad day.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

During the commentary for Monza, it was referred to when Alonso asked what the fastest lap was.
It was suggested that all that would happen is two/three laps from home all drivers outside the points would just pit for a fresh set of boots.

Not sure how this could be prevented?

I'm not convinced it ought to be!

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I'm not convinced it ought to be!

I suppose some of the votes for rating the race might bump up a little if we saw 7-8 drivers pit with 5 laps to go and chase a point.

It must be better than watching one driver have a slim chance of overtaking to take the last point.

My understanding is that blue flags are used because a faster car is behind? Would be interesting to see Vettel or Hamilton blue flagged because Palmer or Grosjean is on a flyer!

[Aysedasi]

Now that could well be fun!

[djinvicta]

I have said this so many times in the past. Championship point for fastest lap during the race. Wake up F1..

[JABWOA]

Blues are still only for lapping (regardless of speed of the lapped) so a fastest lap seeking driver would need to navigate around those still racing for champ points.

Hence the race enjoyment factor would be watching these missiles maneuvering around the leaders (or picking the right spot to time their run.)

3/4 of the field could have a decent stab at fastest lap with low fuel and super duper soft tyre and a full KERS supply. (compare race laps with qual laps)

Or make fastest lap worth team prize money instead of points - that's what the minnows really want.

[VIVA GT]

I really like this ides, as others have said it would add excitement to the end of every race. There would also be additional strategy (or at least strategic thinking) for the teams; Picking the optimal moment to bring the car in to change to new tyres, get the car out in time to get them up to perfect temperature, and get the car into sufficient free air on the track to run unimpeded and get the fast lap time. Brilliant!
Can we have this introduced in time for Singapore please?