Pole Trophy

[Faustus]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/111837

Utterly pointless.

[FMecha]

Hermann95 did something like this in his early 90s Alternate F1, IIRC.

[Wallio]

Why not just give 1 point for pole? They claim it will devalue points, but by making the last race the title, they obviously don't care about that.

[DanielPT]

Indeed. FIA and the group are on a roll here. Let's see what more gems do we get next year. Perhaps change the name to Formula gimmicks.

[DemocalypseNow]

Dear Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile,



Yours Sincerely,

Stramala.

[UncreativeUsername37]

It's not like adding a pole trophy will change anything. This is a lot like the car numbers; it affects nothing at all, so I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.

[dr-baker]

Why all this stupid rule introductions ALL AT ONCE??? If you want to know which work and which don't, you don't chuck everything at it at once. Where's the random controlled trial? Is it a double-blind trial? What about allowing for a placebo effect? This is extremely flawed.

[Salamander]

It's not like adding a pole trophy will change anything. This is a lot like the car numbers; it affects nothing at all, so I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.

This. Why is everyone complaining about this? What is there to even complain about?

[Gerudo Dragon]

They already award a trophy for fastest laps, so I'm fine with this.

[Backmarker]

It's not like adding a pole trophy will change anything. This is a lot like the car numbers; it affects nothing at all, so I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.

This. Why is everyone complaining about this? What is there to even complain about?

Ditto. Unlike giving points for pole it doesn't affect the world championship (thank goodness). A nice way to recognise the J. Trulli's of this world who perform better in qualifying than in races. About as relevant to the actual season as the Colin Chapman trophy was in 1987.

[tommykl]

It's not like adding a pole trophy will change anything. This is a lot like the car numbers; it affects nothing at all, so I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.

This. Why is everyone complaining about this? What is there to even complain about?

Ditto. Unlike giving points for pole it doesn't affect the world championship (thank goodness). A nice way to recognise the J. Trulli's of this world who perform better in qualifying than in races. About as relevant to the actual season as the Colin Chapman trophy was in 1987.

Exactly. The only change is an extra trophy that gets handed out at the end-of-season gala.

[DemocalypseNow]

What concerns me is not the rule itself, but how the FIA is seemingly spending most of its time formulating irrelevant regulations when other parts of the sport are still broken. They're demonstrating incompetence on completely new levels in the last 12 months. The entire tyre-testing-gate was their fault, but they didn't wish to admit it. They are idiots. I don't know what is happening for them to f*** up in this manner, but something somewhere is awry. Maybe this spate of new pointless regulations could explain why their focus is being drawn away from the more crucial issues at hand.

[DanielPT]

What concerns me is not the rule itself, but how the FIA is seemingly spending most of its time formulating irrelevant regulations when other parts of the sport are still broken. They're demonstrating incompetence on completely new levels in the last 12 months. The entire tyre-testing-gate was their fault, but they didn't wish to admit it. They are idiots. I don't know what is happening for them to f*** up in this manner, but something somewhere is awry. Maybe this spate of new pointless regulations could explain why their focus is being drawn away from the more crucial issues at hand.

This. And I am pretty sure it explains many of other reactions besides mine.

[Shizuka]

Hah, they should go for cumulative time altogether instead.

...or not
But MotoGP has this kind of thing as well.

[Salamander]

What concerns me is not the rule itself, but how the FIA is seemingly spending most of its time formulating irrelevant regulations when other parts of the sport are still broken. They're demonstrating incompetence on completely new levels in the last 12 months. The entire tyre-testing-gate was their fault, but they didn't wish to admit it. They are idiots. I don't know what is happening for them to f*** up in this manner, but something somewhere is awry. Maybe this spate of new pointless regulations could explain why their focus is being drawn away from the more crucial issues at hand.

... I highly doubt they spent a large amount of time coming up with this...

[mario]

What concerns me is not the rule itself, but how the FIA is seemingly spending most of its time formulating irrelevant regulations when other parts of the sport are still broken. They're demonstrating incompetence on completely new levels in the last 12 months. The entire tyre-testing-gate was their fault, but they didn't wish to admit it. They are idiots. I don't know what is happening for them to f*** up in this manner, but something somewhere is awry. Maybe this spate of new pointless regulations could explain why their focus is being drawn away from the more crucial issues at hand.

... I highly doubt they spent a large amount of time coming up with this...

Probably one long lunch and two bottles of wine worth, I suspect...

Looking at the proposal, if we're honest they might as well have titled it the "Vettel-Hamilton trophy" given that those two drivers seem to have had the lions share of pole positions in recent years. There's also the caveat that, in the event of a tie, the FIA has said that they'll award that trophy "according to such criteria as it thinks fit" - in other words, if we have a season like 2009 (where Button, Hamilton and Vettel were all tied on four poles each), the FIA can basically decide on a whim which driver it likes the most and give him the trophy.

Does anybody half wonder if the slew of measures that have suddenly come into force in recent weeks might be because Todt has been rather stung by the continued criticism during his election campaign that he had been rather ineffectual whilst in office? It's almost as if they want to be seen to be doing something, but lack the nerve to tackle more major concerns like cost controls (throughout all tiers of motorsport, not just F1) or reforming stewarding and medical practises.

[DanielPT]

Does anybody half wonder if the slew of measures that have suddenly come into force in recent weeks might be because Todt has been rather stung by the continued criticism during his election campaign that he had been rather ineffectual whilst in office? It's almost as if they want to be seen to be doing something, but lack the nerve to tackle more major concerns like cost controls (throughout all tiers of motorsport, not just F1) or reforming stewarding and medical practises.

Well, they at least introduced the new penalty points system which is something needed as previously it seemed to work based on pure common sense which didn't really go with the image of professional sport .

[UncreativeUsername37]

There's also the caveat that, in the event of a tie, the FIA has said that they'll award that trophy "according to such criteria as it thinks fit" - in other words, if we have a season like 2009 (where Button, Hamilton and Vettel were all tied on four poles each), the FIA can basically decide on a whim which driver it likes the most and give him the trophy.

The article says "In the event of a tie, it will be decided on countback starting with the highest number of second places." in the fourth line. So that's nothing to worry about.

[mario]

There's also the caveat that, in the event of a tie, the FIA has said that they'll award that trophy "according to such criteria as it thinks fit" - in other words, if we have a season like 2009 (where Button, Hamilton and Vettel were all tied on four poles each), the FIA can basically decide on a whim which driver it likes the most and give him the trophy.

The article says "In the event of a tie, it will be decided on countback starting with the highest number of second places." in the fourth line. So that's nothing to worry about.

I guess that the version that I had seen must have cut that quote short and skipped to the comment about deciding to award the trophy "according to such criteria as it thinks fit" - that does seem more consistent with the FIA's procedures for other eventualities (i.e. deciding on countback).

[AndreaModa]

The whole plethora of new rules, regulations and the like in the last week or so are all gimmicks. Some don't really matter that much, as people have pointed out, a pole trophy, car numbers, that's superficial stuff that most casual fans won't care about. I won't go into the double points trainwreck or any of the other proposals that didn't make the cut - they are anything but superficial, but are still gimmicks.

As Stramala points out, none of them address any of the fundamental issues with modern day F1 - dominance of aerodynamics, cost control, etc. They have been created seemingly for the sake of grabbing a few headlines and worrying about the consequences later.

My worry is that, the more gimmicks there are, the more the whole "show" which seems so vitally important these days, God knows why, will become devalued. The sport itself will turn into something akin to what IndyCar/CART became - pointless, irrelevant and sustaining very little interest from the general public. In successive years you had the American authorities coming up with new ideas in an attempt to spice things up, to attract more viewers, and in reality they just succeeded in driving more away. A motor race is just that, a motor race. It's about cars going round a track as quickly as they can in the circumstances (and by that I make no reference to fuel/tyre restrictions, because believe it or not they've always been there contrary to what many modern drivers and fans think). We don't need double points, a fastest lap trophy, mandatory pit stops or assigned numbers, just like the idea of trackside sprinklers which was considered absurd.

I can see the double points idea getting dropped, either this season, or if as is suspected, the hypocritical, corrupt and completely untrustworthy Sheiks paid for it to make boring old Abu Dhabi slightly less boring, then for 2015. There is not an ounce of support for the idea anywhere, and it makes the FIA look like amateur hour, and gimmicks like the rest that have been announced have only succeeded in re-enforcing this ideal.

To be honest, I'm more excited about the BTCC and WEC this year than I am about F1, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Vettel or Red Bull. The sport itself is becoming irrelevant, and I'm just not interested.

[go_Rubens]

What concerns me is not the rule itself, but how the FIA is seemingly spending most of its time formulating irrelevant regulations when other parts of the sport are still broken. They're demonstrating incompetence on completely new levels in the last 12 months. The entire tyre-testing-gate was their fault, but they didn't wish to admit it. They are idiots. I don't know what is happening for them to f*** up in this manner, but something somewhere is awry. Maybe this spate of new pointless regulations could explain why their focus is being drawn away from the more crucial issues at hand.

I'm starting to get the idea that the FIA is going to eventually reach thr climax, let the tension run loose, and corrupt the sport beyond repair. The FIA have done themselves no favors at all to keep people interested. I've lost most of my respect for the FIA after the tyre fiasco, which in my opinion just beats out McLaren for Reject of the Year, and I've just lost the rest of that respect for the FIA. For what you've said there Stramala, it's an automatic This for me. I know of an article in Road & Track on how F1 was broken and needed fixing (although that was about 2 months ago). I think they'll write another article similar to that. In fact, for anyone who follows Road & Track, I'm willing to bet an avatar challenge against them for the reason of writing ANOTHER article on F1's broken rules...

What concerns me is that this plentiful amount of rule changes are seemingly very knee-jerk to on-track action and other things relating to that and thr casual fan. The pole trophy isn't going to do anything, as it won't make drivers push harder for pole. Double points is messed up and should get the swift kick in the arse out before the season starts or ends. Permanent numbers for drivers is not cool, why not give the teams assigned numbers, and go back to the same way in the 80s and 90s to make a difference to say, a larger majority of the fans? It will only confuse them to hell. Penalty points actually uses logic, and I'll stop there. The big question about these rule changes it that why are they implemented when they don't need or never should be implemented, when there are much, much bigger issues at hand? The budget cap is about the only thing that's been applied (for 2015) that will help the sport in any way. I won't get started on the rest. For next year, I may ask right now whether the FIA should be profiled here, as they will atart every race, but score no points...

Does anybody half wonder if the slew of measures that have suddenly come into force in recent weeks might be because Todt has been rather stung by the continued criticism during his election campaign that he had been rather ineffectual whilst in office? It's almost as if they want to be seen to be doing something, but lack the nerve to tackle more major concerns like cost controls (throughout all tiers of motorsport, not just F1) or reforming stewarding and medical practises.

I do wonder about this. And to say that David Ward, Todt's main contender for FIA presidency, was not given or able to get the support he needed to realistically challenge Todt (which I believe was partly on the FIA), shows that the FIA believes Todt can get a job done well, prize him as their God, having Jean showing them the way, just because of his leadership role was really good at Ferrari regarding the team orders? It makes me wonder what the FIA has been doing since the offseason and during the 2013 season, as they've made many decisions that are not getting many hits (or none). Plus, they successfully covered their rear in the tyre fiasco when it was preety bleeding obvious shows that something isn't what it's supposed to be. If the FIA think Todt is the one for the job, when all he's done the past 4 or so years is mostly attend the races and sit on his own pride, then this goes to prove my point that something isn't right. And the fact that Todt is now even more clearly NOT the one for the job when he can make decisions on what the FIA can do with regulations to the sport. This is a disgrace, and I think that the FIA under Todt's rule could bring the sport to some very dark days ahead...

Probably one long lunch and two bottles of wine worth, I suspect...

Well, there might be one of the problems.

[Londoner]

To be honest, I'm more excited about the BTCC and WEC this year than I am about F1, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Vettel or Red Bull. The sport itself is becoming irrelevant, and I'm just not interested.

Very true. This is genuinely the first season of F1 where I'm not excited for it, and that is a really sad state of affairs when considering just a year earlier, 2012 was just the most enthralling season I've watched bar 2003. In contrast, I'm hyped for the new BTCC and V8 Supercar seasons.

I can see this being a very political season, with arguments over the budget cap, TV money, and the various gimmicks, distracting from the action on track.

[Alextrax52]

To be honest, I'm more excited about the BTCC and WEC this year than I am about F1, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Vettel or Red Bull. The sport itself is becoming irrelevant, and I'm just not interested.

Very true. This is genuinely the first season of F1 where I'm not excited for it, and that is a really sad state of affairs when considering just a year earlier, 2012 was just the most enthralling season I've watched bar 2003. In contrast, I'm hyped for the new BTCC and V8 Supercar seasons.

I can see this being a very political season, with arguments over the budget cap, TV money, and the various gimmicks, distracting from the action on track.

Yeah I've been shifting away from F1 a little bit and gone more to Wintersports for the off season. In motorsport terms the BTCC is generally looking like it will capture my attention in 2014. If this had been 2 years ago I wouldn't have understood all this but now i do

[go_Rubens]

To be honest, I'm more excited about the BTCC and WEC this year than I am about F1, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Vettel or Red Bull. The sport itself is becoming irrelevant, and I'm just not interested.

Very true. This is genuinely the first season of F1 where I'm not excited for it, and that is a really sad state of affairs when considering just a year earlier, 2012 was just the most enthralling season I've watched bar 2003. In contrast, I'm hyped for the new BTCC and V8 Supercar seasons.

I can see this being a very political season, with arguments over the budget cap, TV money, and the various gimmicks, distracting from the action on track.

Another race similar to Canada '03 on the cards?

[pi314159]

To be honest, I'm more excited about the BTCC and WEC this year than I am about F1, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Vettel or Red Bull. The sport itself is becoming irrelevant, and I'm just not interested.

Very true. This is genuinely the first season of F1 where I'm not excited for it, and that is a really sad state of affairs when considering just a year earlier, 2012 was just the most enthralling season I've watched bar 2003. In contrast, I'm hyped for the new BTCC and V8 Supercar seasons.

I can see this being a very political season, with arguments over the budget cap, TV money, and the various gimmicks, distracting from the action on track.

I feel similar about F1 at the moment. For me it is mostly WEC/other sportscar series, because I like the multiclass racing, and WEC has the most intresting technical regulations at the moment. Another series I like to watch are the IndyCars. Usually not a fan of spec-series, but the racing is really interesting.

I'm still interested in Formula 1, it's not so easy to stop caring after following this sport for 13 years, since I was five years old. The current state of Formula 1 is just sad. Half of the grid in financial trouble, and the more and more gimmicky nature of the series make it more and more difficult for me to enjoy the series. I never turned off the TV during an F1 race since I was scared of Burti's accident as a six-year-old. In Abu Dhabi I turned off because I was bored. And that from someone who grew up with the Schumacher domination.

[good_Ralf]

To be honest most virtual races I've seen, including the AI races I produce on my PS3 have been more exciting for me than the real-life races this year. But I will be watching the majority of F1 next year (unless the new rules spoil it too much). Otherwise I'll be tuning into IndyCar (via radio) and MotoGP.

[Gerudo Dragon]

Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to next year.....until they announced double points.

[go_Rubens]

To be honest most virtual races I've seen, including the AI races I produce on my PS3 have been more exciting for me than the real-life races this year. But I will be watching the majority of F1 next year (unless the new rules spoil it too much). Otherwise I'll be tuning into IndyCar (via radio) and MotoGP.

Yeah, my last resorts for next year are WEC, IndyCar, and MotoGP. And if I can, I WILL watch Formula E because of the reject and former F1 teams with e.dams (Alain Prost), Super Aguri, Venturi, Virgin, and Dragon Racing of IndyCar rejectdom!

[pi314159]

Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to next year.....until they announced double points.

I am still looking forward to the start of next year, and to see what the teams come up with. But the racing itself has become too gimmicky for my taste. The double points thing is not a good idea, but there are much worse rules, most notably DRS.

[go_Rubens]

Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to next year.....until they announced double points.

I am still looking forward to the start of next year, and to see what the teams come up with. But the racing itself has become too gimmicky for my taste. The double points thing is not a good idea, but there are much worse rules, most notably DRS.

Yeah, I'm going to have to get better Internet connection. I'll watch F1's first few rounds next year, and if the races are any good, I'll keep watching. But if not, I'll have dad record 'em, but I may not watch them. Maybe I'll watch Monaco, Spa, Monza, and Silverstone after that, and possibly Suzuka and São Paulo, tracks with good racing I actually care about. I'll pay more attention to IndyCar and WEC next year for sure...

[aliefbielefeld]

Vettel will love this new rule, isn't he. Well, i bet he's gonna build a new goddamn trophy cabinet for this.

[UncreativeUsername37]

Vettel will love this new rule, isn't he. Well, i bet he's gonna build a new goddamn trophy cabinet for this.

Dude, hating Vettel isn't in anymore. Let's wait for him to say something before saying minor swears about it.