Changing the World Championship

Throughout the world there are many different ways to measure and reward success in sport. In Formula One, success is gauged by the World Championship and at the end of every year a single driver is crowned champion. Other sports use a similar idea, but some prefer to use rankings instead of a set season. Tennis, Cricket and Golf are three prime examples, and FIFA also uses a ranking system to determine the best football team in the world.

The concept of an annual championship works very well for Formula One, but it’s interesting to consider how the sport would function if it used a ranking system instead.

Rather than tally a driver’s points at the end of each year, the championship would be a moving target where only a driver’s most recent results counted towards his score. The driver with the highest number of points at any one time would be the World Champion.

Changing the way the F1 championship is structured would have a monumental impact on the sport.

To adopt a ranking system in Formula One you would tally a driver’s points from the last ten or fifteen races, and reset the championship table at every round. For example, using a system that measures success over a ten race period, Mark Webber would be the current F1 World Champion after scoring the best results over the last ten rounds. Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton would have been Champion at earlier times this season.

It’s not an idea that I support or am in favour of, but it is an interesting concept to discuss. There would be numerous advantages and disadvantages to a 10-race ranking system.

PROS

* There would be a lot more races where ‘Driver X has to beat Driver Y to become World Champion’. Title deciders at the end of the season are always exciting and this increases the frequency of those. They would also take place throughout the whole year instead of in just October or November.

* Every Grand Prix would carry equal significance. At the end of the season there are usually a few races that don’t have much impact on the World Championship, but a ranking system would make every race is just as important as the next. It would also make the development battle more exciting because teams would be constantly evolving their cars rather than stopping development to focus on the following year.

* It reduces the chances of one driver or team completely dominating the sport. If this system was currently in place, no driver would have held the World Championship for a full season since Michael Schumacher in 2004.

* It brings the title within reach of more drivers, and offers hope to those who might be struggling, because everyone is just ten races away from being champion. For example, Felipe Massa is not in contention for the title at the moment, but if it was decided on rankings he could feasibly be number one as early as next year’s Malaysian Grand Prix. If someone had a bad start to the season they could still recover to be champion by the end.

* Drivers would not be World Champion for a full year if they did not complete a full season worth of decent results. In theory, this would reward drivers and teams who consistently perform stronger over longer periods of time.

CONS

* A ranking system would be confusing. The current championship is very easy to follow and very easy to explain to casual fans. It’s much harder to make sense of a moving championship where only the last ten races count, and it would be difficult for fans to keep up with exactly who was in what position at any one time. The FIFA world rankings are near impossible to calculate and Formula One would become similarly difficult to understand.

* The system devalues the significance of the World Championship and renders all historical comparisons meaningless. It is incredibly difficult to scale the heights of Formula One since the title is awarded to just one of the greatest drivers in the world every year. It would be much easier to become champion if only ten consecutive races counted and that would lessen the achievement.

* The World Championship would also be devalued by the fact that it could change several times during a single season. If a ranking system was in place at the moment, the World Champion would have changed six times already in 2010. The title would be less significant if it changed hands so frequently.

* It would be harder to define a driver as a World Champion since drivers would only hold the title at a particular moment in time. For example, you could no longer say “Lewis Hamilton was the 2008 F1 World Champion” and would instead have to say “Lewis Hamilton was the World Champion at a point in time during 2008”, a claim that Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen would also be able to make.

* There is an increased chance of a championship victory being tainted by an odd or confusing result. For example, with a ranking system Mark Webber would have taken the world title away from Sebastian Vettel at this year’s Canadian Grand Prix, despite finishing behind Vettel in the race. This is because the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix would no longer have counted towards their points from the previous ten races. Vettel won that race (whilst Webber failed to score) so would have lost the title in Canada almost regardless of his finishing position.

Changing the structure of the championship would be an unpopular move, and whilst it does have some advantages, it’s not suited to Formula One.

That doesn’t mean it’s not an intriguing idea.

It’s interesting to note how the last five years would have played out had this system been in place. At the bottom of this page is a list of who would have been World Champion at every Grand Prix since the start of 2005 if their most recent ten races were all that counted.

There are some particularly interesting points to note.

* Despite Schumacher’s dominance in 2004, Alonso would have gained the title very quickly in 2005. Renault’s strong finish to the ’04 season, combined with Ferrari’s disastrous start to their ’05 campaign, would have seen Alonso crowned champion as early as the Bahrain Grand Prix where Michael Schumacher did not finish.

* Rubens Barrichello would have come close to taking the title early in 2005. He finished the previous year strongly and was ahead of Michael early in the season, but missed out on the number pne spot due to Alonso’s victories in Malaysia and Bahrain.

* Kimi Raikkonen would have won the World Championship for the first time in 2005 after going very close in 2003. He would have held onto that title into the start of 2006 giving McLaren some glory in an otherwise terrible season.

* Although Jenson Button scored more points than anyone else during the last six races of the 2006 season, he was unable to score enough points earlier in the year, or at the start of 2007, to get the consistency over ten races that he would’ve required to become champion at the time.

* Michael Schumacher would have been World Champion after the 2007 Australian Grand Prix despite being retired.

* Felipe Massa would have gone very close to the championship at the start of 2007 thanks to his late season performances in 2006.

* Lewis Hamilton would have won the World championship in just his ninth Grand Prix, a remarkable achievement.

* Kimi Raikkonen would have retained the World Championship throughout most of 2008 despite a relatively poor year with Ferrari.

* Lewis Hamilton would have had a significant points gap over Felipe Massa at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix.

* Alonso would have held the championship for five races at the start of 2009 thanks to his late 2008 victories at Singapore and Japan.

* Rubens Barrichello would have gone very close to the title at the end of 2009 and was actually ahead of Button during the final races. He was narrowly pipped by Sebastian Vettel.

* Mark Webber would be almost certain to hold onto the title after the next Grand Prix at Monza because the results from this year’s Chinese Grand Prix (where Mark finished behind all of his main rivals) would no longer count.

You can easily tweak these results by changing the number of races that count towards the rankings. For example, if you increase the number to fifteen or twenty races you would see fewer changes in the championship table. However, this creates a ‘results lag’ that produces its own problems. If 20 races counted towards the championship, Kimi Raikkonen would have been very high in the standings at the start of 2009 thanks largely to the strength of his performances in late 2007. That certainly doesn’t reflect the fast pace of Formula One. Also, Sebastian Vettel would have become World Champion in 2009 before Jenson Button, and by the time Jenson claimed the title back from him, it would have been late in 2009 when Vettel was scoring much better results.

Whilst the idea is interesting, it isn’t feasible for F1. You might have a lot more races where ‘Driver X has to beat Driver Y to become World Champion’ but this would be devalued by the fact that it could change back again at the very next race. In fact, the title would change so often that it would be hard for casual fans to keep up with who the current champion actually was. You could get around that by ruling that a driver must be ranked number one for three consecutive races before becoming World Champion, but that just adds more confusion into the mix.

The biggest change that a ranking system would bring to Formula One is that it would be easier to win the championship. Massa, Vettel and Webber would all be World Champions by now under this system, which is actually an idea their fans might support. The purpose of a salary cap in many football codes around the world is to give more teams a chance of winning the whole competition, and therefore to keep more fans interested during the season. Making the Formula One World Championship easier to achieve is a step in that direction. It could attract more fans to the sport who want to see their hero become World Champion, but it would also diminish the significance of their achievement.

Using a ranking system in Formula One, similar to that used in other sports, may be an interesting idea but is not worth serious consideration. Anything that risks devaluing success in Grand Prix racing would be a disaster because the Formula One World Drivers Championship is currently the ultimate prize in motorsport.

Long may it be so.

Champions since 2005 using a ten-race ranking system