In their infinite wisdom Formula One have once again made a move to artificially enhance the sport.
Following on from Pirelli’s tyres, made specifically to degrade at a unnatural rate to spice up the racing, alongside the use of DRS and KERS to aid in overtaking manoeuvres, the next step appears to be a wildcard race at the end of the season.
While Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA have thus far refused the idea of drivers throwing obstacles at each other for good telly, they do however like the idea of double points for the final race of the Formula One season.
An idea that would indicate winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a track with no history or soul as twice as important as winning the likes of the iconic races such as Monaco or the British Grand Prix.
This would mean that the race winner would be able to claim 50 points from winning the final Grand Prix of the season, with second place taking 36 points. 30 points would be available for third, whilst fourth would still take 24 points, just one single point less than a race win during any other race weekend.
If this system had been in place over the past ten years then Kimi Raikkonen would be a two-time Formula One World Champion adding Michael Schumacher’s 2003 title.
Lewis Hamilton would have lost his only title to Felipe Massa in 2008 while Fernando Alonso would be a triple World Champion taking Sebastian Vettel’s 2012 championship.
With a 14 point bonus for the race winner, this has been designed to mix up and extend the FIA Formula One World Championship into the final race of the season, in a bid to engineer a edge of your seat finale and obviously raise global television audiences.
But is it really required? Two of the last four years titles have been decided on the final race weekend of the season in any case and this will simply be seen as a knee-jerk response to a 2013 season dominated by Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel, which wouldn’t have been affected by the change in points system anyway!
There will also be a new five-second penalty for minor infringements implemented in time for the 2014 season.
How this will occur is yet to be decided, but the most obvious method would be a time penalty at the end of the race, which of course makes things a little harder to follow for the fan at the side of the track and watching from home, especially if the on-screen graphics begin to falter!
Meanwhile the the FIA has also confirmed that a three-day Pirelli tyre test will be staged between 17-19 December in Bahrain with Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Force India and Toro Rosso all taking part.
Double points for final race from 2014
