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Gold Medals in F1 – Reality or Politicking?
by Stefan Bartholomaeus
Bernie Ecclestone shocked the Grand Prix racing community last week by announcing that the sport would undertake a bold move to a gold – silver – bronze medal system for the purpose of deciding the 2009 World Champion.
Under these rules, the driver with the most gold medals at the end of the season would become champion.
Speaking to the press at a sponsorship launch last Wednesday, the Formula One supremo said of the concept:
"It's going to happen. All the teams are happy. The whole reason for this was that I was fed up with people talking about no overtaking. The reason there's no overtaking is nothing to do with the circuit or the people involved, it's to do with the drivers not needing to overtake.
"This year, we saw on a number of occasions Lewis not overtaking Massa for that reason. If he'd driven for me, tried it and made a mistake, I would have complained. It's just not on that someone can win the world championship without winning a race."
Ecclestone went on to claim that he expects the medal system to be ratified by the FIA World Motor Sport Council at their next meeting in December.
However, contrary to Ecclestone’s statements, it is understood that the majority of the teams are heavily against the idea. This is not surprising considering that, under this system, only the top three from each Grand Prix will go home with something to show for their efforts. Other than McLaren and Ferrari, it’s hard to believe any teams would be truly supportive of this system.
Whilst the negative effects that this would have on the majority of teams isn’t hard to imagine, the effect it would have on the outcome of the world championship is far more interesting. Many media outlets have run with the story that Massa would have beaten Hamilton to the title by a single win if the medal system had been in place in 2008. It sounds like a dramatic change then.
But 2008 aside, when is the last time that the championship result would have been different had this radical medal system been applied?
Whilst both of Fernando Alonso’s titles (2005 and 2006) would have been won on a silver medal tie break, it is nearly 20 years ago that a driver managed to win more races in a season than the eventual World Champion.
Not since 1989 has the title been lost by a driver with a superior amount of race wins. And it should be pointed out, that to win the ’89 title, Alain Prost was involved in a highly questionable incident with arch rival Ayrton Senna during the penultimate round at Suzuka. The Brazilian’s subsequent disqualification for driving through the chicane where the incident took place was what eventually handed the title to Prost, who ended the season with four wins to Senna’s six.
Since then, the main effect of the medal system’s implementation would have been that the title was decided earlier in the season. Clearly, this is an undesirable result.
So why suggest it then? In the last twenty years, no one has been able to seriously threaten for the championship without winning races. Apart from very exceptional circumstances (like that of Hamilton in Brazil this year – and who says that wasn’t exciting?), there is a very significant incentive to overtake and win races using the current system.
Previously, most have blamed the lack of overtaking in Formula One on the ‘dirty air’ effect of modern aerodynamics. Hence the radical changes to the aero rules that have made the cars rather strange to look at, but theoretically able to race closer together.
Cynics may suggest then that early testing of the 2009 aero packages have shown that overtaking will still be very difficult next season, and that this sudden medal announcement from Ecclestone is simply a tactic aimed at moving the blame for a lack of overtaking away from aerodynamics before the season even begins.
As a fan of the sport, I certainly hope this isn’t the case...
Part II: How the medal system would have changed history...
Curious as to how often a medal system would have changed the result of the world championship since it began in 1950, 321Ignition delved into the archives, and found some interesting results...
Whilst 18 of the last 19 years have resulted in the most prolific race winner being the champion, the unreliability of the cars (and sometimes drivers!) in the late seventies and eighties produced almost the opposite result.
In 1977 and ’79, Ferrari drivers took the title without winning the most races.
Eventual ’77 champ Nikki Lauda scored three wins; whilst the third placed Mario Andretti managed four in the new Lotus 78. Two years later, Jody Scheckter was outscored by Alan Jones (three wins to four) on the way to his championship.
1981 saw champion Nelson Piquet and a young Frenchman named Alain Prost score three wins each, but a count back of silvers would have turned the title in Prost’s favour.
Prost would again be ‘denied’ another two world titles by the points system in ‘83 and ‘84, where he won four races (to Piquet’s three) and seven races (to Lauda’s five) with the fast yet often fragile turbos from Renault and TAG.
Nigel Mansell, famous for his aggressive ‘by the scruff of the neck’ driving style, could well have retired as a three time world champion, having outscored Prost five wins to four in 1986 and Piquet six wins to three in 1987.
The most incredible championship in this era, the 1982 season, would have needed a count back of bronze medals to decide the winner. With champion Keke Rosberg only scoring one win all season, Rene Arnoux, Lauda, Didier Pironi, John Watson, and Prost scored two wins each, with the last three drivers also tying on two second place finishes each. Pironi, who did not compete in the final five races of the season after a near-fatal practice accident for the German Grand Prix would have emerged with the world championship, scoring two third places to Watson’s one.
Jim Clark was also one that would have benefited heavily from the medal system being in place. As well as keeping his ’63 and ’65 championships, his efforts in the ‘64 (Clark’s three wins against John Surtees’ two) and ’67 (Clark’s four wins versus Denny Hulme’s two) seasons would have netted him another two world titles, prior to his death in ’68.
Meanwhile, the only drivers title in the first 14 years of the world championship that would have changed hands had the medal system been in place was 1958, with Stirling Moss’ four wins in the unreliable Vanwall easily accounting for champion Mike Hawthorn’s one.
Also of note; the ’59, ’61, ’68, and ’74 champions would have kept their titles on a count back despite being tied for most wins, whilst Nino Farina’s 1950 triumph over Juan Manuel Fangio saw the two combatants take three wins each, and not score any other medals all season! Presumably Farina’s fourth place at Spa would have been used to settle the tie.
Of course, with the sport having evolved massively over time, especially in the car reliability stakes, the pre-1990 stats are largely irrelevant to the current situation.
However, the notion of Moss and Pironi being world champions, or Prost retiring with six titles certainly provides material for some good bar-room discussions as we endure the long break before Albert Park.
- Stefan Bartholomaeus
© 321 IGNITION Pty Ltd 2008
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