AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bernie Ecclestone has revealed there will be three new teams joining Formula 1 next season. The F1 supremo said 26 cars will be on the starting grid for the 2010 campaign and that a medals-system will determine the championship. "We'll have 26 cars on the grid next year - we've got a lot of people confirmed," said Ecclestone. "It won't be necessary to discuss it (the medals). If the rules are out before they enter that's how it is." Last Sunday, Ecclestone was asked if he was disappointed by the decision to ditch the system for this year. "Absolutely - if you go to the athletics and look at the 100m you're not looking at the guy that's second, you're looking at the winner," he told BBC Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme last Sunday. "To make any changes when the entries have closed, you have to get a unanimous agreement between all the people that have entered, and it would appear that some of the teams didn't like the idea. "The whole idea is nothing to do with winning the world championship, the idea was to make sure people raced in every race to win, not to be second or third and collect points." The new system means that a driver could wrap up the title well before the end of the year, but Ecclestone brushed off suggestions it could potentially kill off interest in the sport. "That's too bad. Maybe they'd be watching the other races where the people are racing to win rather than be second," said Ecclestone. And he referred to a couple of races from the 2008 championship as examples of how the present scoring system discouraged attacking driving. "Lewis (Hamilton) last year was second in a couple of races he could easily have won, and he was quite right in being second," said Ecclestone. "If I'd have been his team manager I'd have been complaining if he'd been racing to win, in case there was a problem in the car or he fell off the road." Defending champion Hamilton has been off the pace in pre-season testing but Ecclestone said he "absolutely" believed Hamilton remained the man to beat, adding "certainly if we had that other scoring system he would be". Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7957788.stm
Unless the Jerks in the FIA decide to take race wins away like they did in SPA last season, it should be fine. That SPA incident still really sits as one of the lowest moments in F1. All this talk about winner takes all would have not even come up, if the FIA had not robbed Hamilton last season at SPA to give the race win to Massa, who never figured in that race as a Winner. What a joke.
I think that was the one race I missed watching last season, and after hearing all the complaining never made an attempt to watch it.
idiotic. in "athletics" the "winner" is determined from the result of a single event. in the F1 championship which is (nearly) year-long series of events which are decidedly NOT qualifiers, semi-finals, finals, ie elimination rounds, most wins is clearly not the best judge of the WDC. this is clearly evidenced by the fact that the WCC would still be determined by points. i'd love to hear him explain why there are two different systems. bernie is simply trying to justify their ill informed decision. well, we at f-chat can easily maintain our own points-scoring system and who cares how the FIA determines the "winner", we can determine our own winner. unfortunately, f-chat doesn't have enough popularity to matter, but at least it will be interesting. anyway it's a year away. i eagerly await the 2009 season.
26 teams? I really doubt that will happen. For some reason, i just don't trust Bernie on this one. The medals thing is also crap, i would sincerely prefer FOTA's proposal.
I'd LOVE TO SEE 26 TEAMS. (I know the title meant 26 cars). Think how insane that would be. You get some very unqualified drivers in the last 20 cars or so who paid their way in. First corner would be disastrous and the leaders would be passing backmarkers every couple of seconds. The pitlane would be like 3 miles long, so everybody would load up on fuel. Instead of q1,q2, and q3 qualifying, try Q10.
Imagine the logistics needed to move all those teams around! You would need a "small" airforce to accomplish this.
The race was amazing and the drama on those last two laps was one of the high points of the season. The decision after the race was completely rubbish IMHO....
+1000. The aroma permeated the entire season and the critters responsible remain. Since 2008 was ultimately successful in its manufactured drama, difficult to believe 'Create - a - Chase II' is further away than a nod in 2009.
