Originally posted by turin
and how about two teammates finally passing each other back and forth?
How many points Gilles and Rene would have got with that scheme in Dijon 79?
It was entertaining though. I think if overtaking benefited the players, the teams might just design the cars to overtake.
You might even modify the rules, so that qualifying gave you choice of where you'd start. You might take first place, but then you might instead take 8th, because you'd get more points that way. Kimi had some awesome drives from the back of the field a couple of years ago, and he over took cars doing so. With such a points system, overtaking would become the requirement for success, generated from the teams.
Of course overtaking a team mate may not not be fair - but there is already a rule against team work.
The first lap shouldn't count either IMO. If the drives could choose their grid positions, then I'd have a rolling start lead by the SC car. Then an overtake when the flag drops would score points.
Another benefit might be when a car gets damaged - the teams would fix it, and get it back racing. And if the car overtook cars, then it would get points.
Now what happens, is the cars from 10th backward just go into cruise control, and save their engines for the next race. Or just give up and sit there. If there were overtaking points, they'd be fighting all the race long.
In Melbourne, lots of cars could have finished I reckon - but they retired them and saved their engines. Let them be brought back to the pits, and put back onto the track, and get them driving flat out to overtake other cars that have been put back. Why not - its better than watching 6 cars tooling around in a procession.
Currently, both McLaren and Ferrari appear - depending on the track - to have clearly faster cars. With such a system, the pole setter might say - I am going for 32 points here - with the pole (achieved with empty tanks by a whole hour of pole runs left to make your time) the pole getter would start from the very back of the grid. Even if he got up to 6th place (which is easy for a McLaren that's the fastest car or a Ferrari), then the driver would get 6 points for sixth plus 16 for the overtakings he made, less the pitstop gains which were made off the track. But with this system, the driver might not want to overtake in the pits - he might even plan to overtake a bunch of cars with himself on empty tanks, and then pit and fuel, and then defiantly defend.
Its a lot more interesting than what is going on at the moment. At the moment its mostly the fastest car that wins, and place changes happen via pitstop openings. And we don't know about how the car compare, because its all top secret. The most interesting thing is the cars now, but yet we are not allowed to know what the teams are doing with the cars. So the most interesting thing that going on is now top secret. And if someone from one team talks to another, you could get fined for that. Ask a team member what is going on with their car, and get get a marketing PR bullshit reply that tells you meaningless platitudes. We learn bugger all - its all secret, and none of our bloody business. Christ that's used to be fascinating comparing the cars - now its forbidden to know anything. And its illegal to tell anyone.
Its a bazaar system, and very boring. Its marketing driven to absurdity. Drivers have to spend time talking to the media, and the public is told that the driver is one of the elite, which is why he is reported as earning over 10 million dollars a year.
So the petrol headed think he must be great, because he's getting all that money. He wouldn't know from watching the race though - the guy just sits there, you don't see him overtake, you just rely on the marketing PR. The teams need all that to draw up heros out of their hats, which all fit the PR goals of brand recognition. The teams can't talk about why there cars a different, because that would give away their competitive advantage. Wow that's boring again.
Why not have some driver placed challenge, that pits the racing man against what he thinks he could possibly achieve. Let the drivers with the fastest cars throw down the gauntlet, and go for it. Put their ability on the line, and start further back - and go for it.
The fans now think that driver, he must be terrific, geeh he has a personal trainer, he has a charity, he has a nice smile and he won in carts, he has a personal jet too, because he is so very very busy. He's also a major linch pin in the development of car we're told. Such a driver has been essentially turned by the PR bods into a pop star, based on bulldust PR. Execpt that unlike a '60s popstar, he's actually totally boring - because we never meet the real person. We just get the PR spin and bulldust. And we sure as heck don't see anything worth noting on the track. For almost all the time, they just sit there.
With this changed system, if you've the driver of a slower car, you might just get points for overtaking as well - maybe you'll also gather some team points.
Such a system would pit the driver against what he thought he could achieve. These days the driver just wants a good first corner, and then to stay in touch and hope that he has more fuel than the guys in front. That's no driving challenge at all.
