Michael Schumacher has shared his opinion on the new ruling by the FIA to institute a ‘winner-takes-all’ format for determining the World Drivers Champion. Color me reactionary but a 7-time winner may have a decent insight to the system. Irrespective of what you think of Michael, I think he makes a valid point.
I doubt the same goes for the new rules given out on such a late moment prior to the season – something which to me is really, well, astonishing, as in all the years, when the majority wanted to have a rule change for a good reason, they always said that would not be possible in a short term or so late before a season. I cannot imagine those changes to help F1, especially regarding the new system to find the champion. I cannot see how it makes sense to eventually have a world champion who has less points than the driver coming in second, even if I also think it is a good move to try to strengthen the winner’s position. In general we should also make sure that F1 remains the top series of motorsport, displaying its competition also on the highest technology level.
Mark Webber is usually good for a down-to-earth summation of F1 and he also was concerned about the new format. While stopping short of being critical, he did raise some concern over the impact:
“I can see why they’re trying to do it like that so there could be some guys who might not sit in so much and to start going for wins, especially when it’s down to two or three guys,” the 32-year-old told the BBC.
“Everyone’s trying to win, that’s clear, but the difference between a win and second now is huge, much bigger than in the past.
“There could be a fraction more aggression shown towards victories in the future because second places won’t mean as much, and winning will mean a lot more,” he added.
“Robert Kubica would have been nowhere near the championship last year, and do you want that?
“(Also) you could have the world champion making more mistakes than the guy who is second,” he added.
And what does the Elder statesman of F1 think of the ‘budget cap’ concept proffered by the FIA this week?
“It’s like saying Coventry can play with 30 players against Manchester United with 11,” Webber told the BBC.
“Or in tennis, we’ll lower the net for you because you don’t have as good a racket, and we’ll put it back up again for the other guy”. “Sometimes it’s hard to see where we are going (in F1),” he said, speaking of the direction F1 is taking.
“Rewarding yourself for doing well is about knowing other people have had the same opportunity to do well and you’ve done a better job than them.”
“I’m not too bothered about it because I think it will change,” Webber admitted as he thinks it will change before becoming writ.
