WRC weight is ridiculously low, European F3 & and F3000/F2 should also get a much heavier weight: drivers that reach F1 pass through it anyway but their junior carreer should be weighed in just as well
At the moment winning F3000/F2 is equivalent to finishing 5th in Formula One, and winning F3 is equivalent to finishing 6th in F1. Do you really think it should be higher than that? I don't think Felipe Drugovich 'wins more prestige' this year than George Russell finishing 5th in F1... Or Victor Martins more than Hamilton finishing 6th in F1...
I love 10-6-4-3-2-1, but some say it puts too much emphasis on winning (!).
Regarding the series weightings, it's difficult to judge. Obviously some racing series vary in strength quite considerably over time, eg the late 70s Can't Am fields had the likes of Rosberg, Ickx, Jones and Tambay whereas by the mid 1980s it was a dying swan - but it would be too arbitrary to vary the weightings accordingly and anyway if my "trophy cabinet" analogy is close to what you are trying to achieve then the strength of competition over time within a series is arguably irrelevant.
I think a ranking like this should emphasize winning more than anything else. Of course a solid, long career as eg. Barrichello's should be rewarded but honestly I think a guy like him is ranked a little too high compared to other drivers who won more and bigger things but maybe not for a very long time. It's a tough balance to find, but I thought the 10-6-4 points system was the best basis to achieve the right balance.
It does however make it difficult adjusting the multipliers for series like WRC, Indycar and NASCAR which awards points to more than 6 drivers each season. A multiplier of 35 for example would result in points with decimals for drivers finishing 7th to 10th and I would like to avoid that. So it's either multiplier 30 or 40 - or changing the basis points from 10-6-4 to 25-18-15 and so on. Or indeed just not award points for finishing 7th to 10th in those series. But then again I think it should be rewarded compared to winning a junior formula or less prestigious sportscar series...
I agree with you on the Can-Am example. There are only a few championships which have different multipliers at different stages of their history. Eg. the BTCC, where the supertouring era of the 90's awards more points. Other examples are Supercars and Super Formula.
Actually the Can-Am is split in two as well. The original Can-Am of the 60s-70s awards more points than the revival with the drivers you mentioned. Maybe that shouldn't be the case??
I also don't award points for the very final years of Can-Am as the competition had evolved into nothing more than a club series as I understand it...
I don't think FE deserve same points as F2. With F4(gen1) and slightly slower than FRegional(gen2) level of speed even with good drivers. And DTM to.
As William Hunt very well pointed out it's not only about performance and FE and DTM have much better (professional!) drivers, manufacturers involved and higher prestige than F4 or F Regional. Those series are stepping stones whereas FE and DTM are more like career destinations for some drivers.
Excellent point.
I've been thinking a bit more, and I think my feedback was a bit misplaced. If we are simply looking to categorize how much success drivers are having over the duration of their driving careers, then I would expect the formula drivers will be more heavily rewarded because they've simply had much longer careers in formally recognized junior and adult motorsports series. In that sense it makes sense why the rally drivers are scoring a bit lower. Whether or not there should now be a bias for rally drivers? I have no idea but it seems it would make sense to do such. I guess that would have the implication of basically inventing junior careers in formally recognized junior rally categories and basically giving them points to compensate for the lack of such opportunity that any run of the mill Formula track driver would have gone through.
With my points system Sébastien Loeb scored his first points in 2002 and he has scored points every year since then. 21 seasons and counting. In comparison Michael Schumacher scored points for 24 straight seasons. Without checking everyone I think Mario Andretti holds the record with 33 seasons (also consecutively..). Carlos Sainz has also gone 33 years from first to latest scored points, but with some gaps inbetween. He could score more Dakar or Extreme E points in the coming years.
I could add the old Junior-WRC series that Loeb won, but what else?
I'm not sure I'd even include junior formulas like F2, let alone put it on the same level as NASCAR. There's no real prestige to winning as such - it's just something to propel you somewhere else.
I understand it maybe shouldn't be on the same level as NASCAR, but in no way should F2 not award points at all. Maybe I have taken too many junior formulas into account, but they play a major role in shaping the career paths of a lot of drivers. That's why they are included with small points to fewer drivers per season. You could argue it's the prestige gained from winning or performing well in a junior formula that propels a driver to the next step.
Also you could put in something like diminishing returns. It might be better to win an F1 championship than an Indycar one, but arguably better to win 5 F1 championships and 1 Indycar than 6 F1, for example. So each extra championship in the same category is worth less.
I think that would be quite hard to implement. Also on the contrary do you think Hamilton or Schumacher would say their 4th title were worth less than their 1st? Or their 7th less than their 4th?
I was thinking about this and that I see this list as more about prestige than performance. Indycar and the Indy 500 are still a bigger deal than the relatively new Formula E and I would have that reflected in an all-time ranking list based on success or prestige.
Exactly. Currently winning the Indy 500 AND Indycar in the same season (which obviously rarely happens) would award 630 points while winning the FE title awards 200 points.
This year Marcus Ericsson scored 360 from his Indy 500 win and 6th in the championship while Stoffel Vandoorne scored 200 becoming FE champion. Doesn't that sound about right? Maybe the 500 should award a little more?
Respect for the work you put in!
I do think however f1 is overrated as is just sheer longevity.
Apart from that: its impossible to define a non disputed system in any way. Mission impossible. But you put in a great effort and with some tuning.....
Thank you! Indeed, it's a very difficult if not impossible mission. But with some tuning it could be even better.
I guess you would boost the points awarded to other major championships than F1 then?
In my opinion longevity does create legends. It's about finding the right balance of course, so 10 seasons at the back of F1 doesn't award more points than eg. finishing in the top a few times in other major series...
Even though he's never had an F1 start Robby Gordon should win.
Jp
Let me know, how the points system could be tweaked to make sure of that...