Well, this comes as something of a surprise!  The FIA, with the support of the teams, is expected to approve a change to the points scheme for the 2010 season.  The first change is that that the first 10 finishers will now score points, as opposed to the first eight.  The reason for that is simple: there's going to be a lot more cars on the grid: 26 as opposed to 20.  The percentage of cars scoring points will essentially remain the same: 40%.

The other change is the number of points everybody will score.  Under the old system, 1st place netted 10 points, 2nd was 8, 3rd was 6, then 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for 4th thru 8th.  For the new system, though, the points layout will be as follows:

1st: 25 points
2nd: 20 points
3rd: 15 points
4th: 10 points
5th: 8 points
6th: 6 points
7th: 5 points
8th: 3 points
9th: 2 points
10th: 1 point.

Suddenly there's a substantially larger incentive to win.  That five point differential, proportionally, is much more valuable than the two point differential we used to have.  The same goes for 2nd to 3rd.  The jump from 3rd to 4th, however, is even bigger than the others.  This is obviously a response to the call to give race wins more weight, though it's extended over the entire podium.

Hopefully, this will stick a four-tined fork in Darth Bernie's stupid "medals" idea in which the driver's championship would be decided solely on race wins. 

I think I actually like this.  Who knew the FIA could actually do something right once in a while?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 271 words, total size 2 kb.