F1 | When giving more… points becomes just a mending

It is no coincidence that over the weekend in Shanghai there was discussion of the possibility of extending the assignment of valid points for the world rankings from the current ten to twelve positions. After the first five seasonal Grands Prix, a scenario emerges that apparently contradicts some of the objectives of the budget cap regulation.

Of the 546 points awarded so far, 514 have been won by the top five teams, 12 by the second five, a group that sees three teams still at zero. Comparing the data with the two previous seasons, it emerges that in 2023 the balance between the two groups was 514 to 31 and in 2022 it was 480 to 66. Furthermore, in the first two seasons of the regulation currently in force, all the teams at the end of the first five races they had scored points.

The scenario that took shape in the first five races of the season highlights a clear divide between the first and second groups. There is a gap in terms of performance which for some teams (like Haas and Racing Bulls) is not that big, but the almost total reliability achieved by the top teams makes everything very stable.

To hope to enter the coveted top-10, the teams in the second group must hope for a 'bad' weekend for Lance Stroll (scoring points in two out of five races so far) or unforeseen events, such as the Hamilton-Verstappen double retirement in Australia, vice versa the ranking remains unchanged.

After the first 5 GPs of the season

This all comes as a bit of a surprise, given that in absolute terms the gap seen in qualifying between first and tenth position has narrowed, but when it comes to race pace, things change.

The teams have increasingly perfected their operations, the strategies are almost always uniform, the pit stop times of the top teams differ by a few tenths, and above all the mechanical reliability (also thanks to the freezing of the power units) has reached levels that are unprecedented in the entire history of Formula 1.

In the paddock there are also those who maintain that the financial regulation still has some cracks that allow the top teams to be able to afford something more, and that the regulation on the use of the wind tunnel (which guarantees more hours to the teams in the last positions ) has now been surpassed by simulation systems. Assumptions that seem like ad hoc excuses to justify something else.

Muretto Racing Bulls F1 Team

Photo by: Shameem Fahath

The proposal to expand the points zone to the top twelve positions is a reaction to the discontent of the teams who see their chances of finishing in the top-10 reduced. From this perspective, that proposal is anything but a solution, at most an anesthetic to better sell a scenario that in fact remains unchanged. In reality, the problem put forward by the teams in the second part of the grid has a solution within their headquarters.

The comparison between the situations of Aston Martin and Alpine is the most striking example: in 2021 the French team scored double the points of the other, but at the Silverstone headquarters the plan planned by Lawrence Stroll drastically reversed course.

A question of choices (given that financial possibilities increasingly tend to converge), of competence and the desire to do something more than the ordinary. Expanding the points zone is of little use, except for the FIA, which at the end of the season would see an extra 3 million euros arrive in its coffers thanks to the entry fee calculated on those conquered in the general classification.