Formula One 2013 Side Competition

[tubeguru]

Ted Kravitz gets his own back

Erm, what exactly did he get his own back over?

[hopeful traveller]

Ted Kravitz gets his own back

Erm, what exactly did he get his own back over?

The Chinese incident.

[tubeguru]

Ah yes, the incident that's been on my mind every day since it happened ...

[tubeguru]

I was thinking earlier about how F1 was when I started watching it back in the '80s.

Among the many differences to now was the points-scoring system. It was very difficult to score points, because only the top six were given any, and you only got nine at the most before 1991.

So out of interest I re-calculated this year's championship based on the points system as it was in 1990 (9-6-4-3-2-1), and this is how it would look now:

Vettel - 101
Alonso - 61
Raikkonen - 53
Hamilton - 41
Webber - 37
Rosberg - 31
Grosjean - 18
Massa - 15
Hulkenberg - 6
Button - 5
di Resta - 3
Sutil - 2
Perez - 1
Vergne - 1

With nine points for a win, and with four races remaining, Vettel would have become champion in Japan, as Alonso can now only score 97 (61 + 36).

Interestingly, I decided to run last year's much closer championship through this system, and plotted how things went from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards (where Grosjean ruined what chance Alonso had of hanging on in front of Vettel to the end):

After Hungary - Alonso: 49, Vettel: 34 (which in those days was a good championship lead)
After Belgium - Alonso: 49, Vettel: 40
After Italy- Alonso: 53, Vettel: 40 (Vettel retires)
After Singapore - Alonso: 57, Vettel: 49 (Vettel wins)
After Japan - Vettel: 58, Alonso: 57 (Vettel wins, Alonso retires)
After Korea - Vettel: 67, Alonso: 61 (Vettel wins)
After India - Vettel: 76, Alonso: 67 (Vettel wins)
After Abu Dhabi - Vettel: 80, Alonso: 73 (Alonso claws it back a bit)
After USA: Vettel: 86, Alonso: 77 (and one race remaining)

So with just the Brazilian GP to go, a win for Alonso and a non-points finish for Vettel would have seen them level on 86 points. Vettel would still have won the title on wins, so Alonso would have needed to win in Brazil at minimum. But as he didn't, and Vettel finished sixth, the final table would have been Vettel: 87, Alonso: 83.

I'm sure there are a few championships down the years which would have had a different outcome under a different scoring system, but I'm not working all the permutations out!

[hopeful traveller]

Wasn't it only best 11 scores to count though in 1990? So it would have been closer?

[tubeguru]

Wasn't it only best 11 scores to count though in 1990? So it would have been closer?

That is correct, but I conveniently ignored that for the sake of simplicity. I suppose I could go back and re-calculate based on only the eleven best scores counting.

[tubeguru]

OK, I've gone back to 2012, and implemented the "best 11 results" thing. And the result would have been ........

Vettel: 74
Alonso: 69

So no change.

[hopeful traveller]

I was talking about 2013, but that's still rather interesting in 2012, as they broke down and were taken out a lot of the time! In 2013, Vettel's only retired once, so he'd 'drop' scores.

[hopeful traveller]

Well, I got on the F1 special 'slicks-06' program on Radio 5. iPlayer link to follow....

[hopeful traveller]

IPLAYER LINK TO ME ON RADIO 5 LIVE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... licks0Six/ - 33 mins, 55 secs.

[tubeguru]

OK, so as you wanted to know, here is how 2013 would have panned out for the current top three in the championship if this were the 1990 season:

After Australia - Raikkonen: 9, Alonso: 6, Vettel: 4
After Malaysia - Vettel: 13, Raikkonen: 9, Alonso: 6
After China - Vettel: 16, Raikkonen: 15, Alonso: 15
After Bahrain - Vettel: 25, Raikkonen: 21, Alonso: 15
After Spain - Vettel: 28, Raikkonen: 27, Alonso: 24
After Monaco - Vettel: 34, Raikkonen: 27, Alonso: 24
After Canada - Vettel: 43, Alonso: 30, Raikkonen: 27
After Britain - Vettel: 43, Alonso: 34, Raikkonen: 29
After Germany - Vettel: 52, Alonso: 37, Raikkonen: 35
After Hungary - Vettel: 56, Raikkonen: 41, Alonso: 39
After Belgium - Vettel: 65, Alonso: 45, Raikkonen: 41

With eleven races gone, drivers now start discarding their worst results. The scores shown from now on are the total of the driver's eleven best results after that race.

After Italy - Vettel: 74, Alonso: 51, Raikkonen: 41 (No scores dropped)
After Singapore - Vettel: 80, Alonso: 57, Raikkonen: 45 (Vettel drops a 4th-place finish, Alonso and Raikkonen do not drop)
After Korea - Vettel: 86, Alonso: 58, Raikkonen: 51 (Vettel drops another 4th place finish, Alonso and Raikkonen do not drop)
After Japan - Vettel: 91, Alonso: 60, Raikkonen: 53 (Vettel drops a 3rd-place finish, Alonso drops a 6th place finish, Raikkonen does not drop)
After India - Vettel: 96, Alonso: 60, Raikkonen: 53 (Vettel drops a 3rd-place finish, Alonso and Raikkonen do not drop)

I'll keep this running for the rest of the season to see how it plays out, but if Alonso were to win the remaining three races, he would score 87 points and drop some scores. Vettel is approaching the point where he will have to drop wins from his score, as his best eleven results to date are ten wins and a second place.

[tubeguru]

One thing I should point out is that if the "best x results" system was in place this year, the number of best scores would probably be a higher than eleven.

[hopeful traveller]

This week's rambling:

If the BBC had a sports channel (which it practically does, it's called the Red Button), then people wouldn't be moaning. I doubt they'd be moaning if it weren't for the rather complicated F1 arrangements:

Sky Sports have all races live since 2012 - when they raided the BBC's F1 department and nabbed Martin Brundle, Ted Kravitz (both BAFTA-award winners for F1), David Croft, Natalie Pinkham, and Anthony Davidson. BBC have half (rounded down if odd number of races) of races live and the other half are highlights (cutting out the 'extended' PR speak). They have Ben Edwards, and my views on him I have expanded on in the past, and David Coulthard as their commentators. David Coulthard won a BAFTA for F1 coverage as a pundit and not as a commentator.

If the BBC coverage was on a par or better than Sky's, perhaps we wouldn't be so harsh. But as it is distinctly lacking behind Sky (BBC spending my license fee on hiring Indian dancers and karaoke machines!) - it's better that Sky get it all. The BBC should probably pull out of F1 at the end of the year - it's clear they don't care as much as Sky. Look at their sport websites and see which stories lead. When I checked, the Indian GP led the Sky website, even after the Manchester City/Chelsea football match this afternoon.

F1 can be exciting and for the hard nuts like me it is a brilliant sport, but BBC (Ben Edwards in particular) aren't doing it justice. Time for the BBC to give up altogether.

And I got on Radio 5 earlier in - wait for it - 'sicks-0-six'. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... licks0Six/ - 33 mins, 55 secs.

[tubeguru]

Where did the waffle you quoted come from?

[hopeful traveller]

Where did the waffle you quoted come from?

My rambling on the PoV messageboard this week.