The Driver Must Drive The Car Alone And Unaided

So as I write this there is no word on whether or not Nico Rosberg will be penalised for the pit-wall radio transmissions sent to him during the race. But Martin Brundle was frothing at the mouth over the prospect of penalties over something which he thought was stupid, "so because some driver hasn't memorised a manual the car is going to break" is about what he said.

I have no sympathy for that.

Firstly, you can't argue that knowing this stuff isn't part of a Formula One driver's job -- the regulations as they are today clearly make it part of the job.

Secondly, these drivers already have to know a ton of stuff -- tyre management, sporting regulations and procedures, all the car management procedures, how to talk to the media and sponsors -- a whole ton of stuff. These guys are paid a lot of money for what they do, expecting them to know how to drive the diagnostics system isn't exactly unreasonable.

Thirdly, you would think that with all the simulator work that the teams do they could run some scenarios to practice this kind of thing so that the drivers get used to dealing with the menu system while in the car and under pressure.

Finally, there's a lot of money in Formula One, surely if the menuing system is too complicated they could have someone make it simpler?

(There's also the issue that most of the rules are geared towards making failures more likely rather than less -- increasing attrition and "interest" in the proceedings. But that's a separate concern.)

I think that Mercedes will be penalised somehow. And there will be a lot of complaint.

Making Elimination Qualifying Work

So having watched this so-called "disaster" for Bahrain (and not thinking that it was terrible), I think I understand both what the intent of the plan was and why it doesn't work.

The intent of the plan is to draw out the tension of the session, where the number of eligible running cars is reduced as time goes on. The idea is that things get more and more frantic as the bar for continuing rises and rises.

There are two reasons why it doesn't work: the cars, and the sessions.

Firstly the cars. Modern F1 cars have evolved into these complicated science projects that are good for one thing -- running Grand Prix races. They are not suited to an elimination style qualification. The cars basically have one good timed lap in them, so we get the situation that we have had for the last two races: everyone boils out of the pits, sets one time, and that's it. There is practically no chance that a team could turn a car for a second timed run, and since for the first two sessions the number of cars being dropped is relatively small, for the vast majority of the runners there is absolutely zero point in even trying. Thus, empty track time. If you send a car with enough fuel for more than one timed run then you will be compromising both runs since you A) have to carry around the extra fuel for the extra timed run(s), and B) you have to go easier on your tires so that you don't root them out too early. Neither situation is conducive to setting a time which is ultimately competitive.

Secondly, the sessions. Since qualifying is still broken up into Q1, Q2, Q3, then for the majority of the field there simply is no incentive to even try to run a second time in the session -- the times are set, and moving from 10th to 8th means nothing in Q1.

So here's my idea for solving both problems:

A) Make the cars start on race-fuel (or some common, minimum fuel level; and B) run qualifying as a single session, with the elimination starting after 10 or 15 minutes.

Presto, everyone has to look after their tires; the cars get faster as the session winds down; everyone would have incentive to keep running to keep burning off the fuel load; changing to the softer tires would become a strategy as to when you'd do it; and setting times would always be relevant because the times are always live.

You'd also get an hour of on-track chaotic running which the media thinks the man-in-the-stands likes to watch.

Standing Starts

Frankly I could excuse stupid ideas like the titanium rubbing strips to make the show more visually interesting.  That kind of thing is harmless.

But a standing start after safety car is not harmless.  There's just too much chance of collision, of someone having a poor start and losing out that position.   We've seen too many cars swamped at starts and lose out track position.  It doesn't seem a reasonable thing to risk that much a shake up of the order just in the name of improving the show.  And what about false starts?  If someone has an engine problem and stalls?  What will the abort procedure be -- everyone stops their engines and we do a full start routine, or what?

Stupid.

Conspiracy Theory

So usually I'm not one for a conspiracy theory, but, the fact that immediately after Pirelli's proposed tire changes got blocked by some teams we had a cluster of potentially dangerous tire failures, leading to a clamor to change the tires.... is awfully interesting.

I wonder who is playing the opportunist now?

Personally I buy the theory that the combination of inappropriate low pressures and inappropriate use of the kerbing areas led some drivers to experience failures.  Not tire construction issues.

Better Looking Cars

The FIA has announced that from 2014, the stepped-nose cars we see today will be banned.  The change is to the maximum height of the rest of the car's nose, which will now be in line with the maximum height of the rest of the nose.

I did think that the vanity panel was an improvement over last year; we'll have to see what the 2014 cars end up looking like with the new rules.

Also for 2014, engine manufacturers will have to provide the same package to their customer teams that they provide to their factory teams; and the rules surrounding blown exhaust have been tightened.

Tire go-around

Personally I don't think it appropriate to change the tire compounds in mid season.  Some of the teams have come to grips with it; some of them have not. This is the nature of Formula One in all of its rules. Nor example, Ferrari has adapted to this rule set much better than McLaren has.  But that is no reason to change the rules.

These are the tires that Pirelli has produced.  I personally think the teams should be stuck with them for the season.

Pirelli really is in a difficult position with the tires.  If they are too robust and fast, nobody notices them. But since they were asked to produce tires that degrade, now everyone just complains about them even though at is what they were asked for.

I also think it unreasonable to blame the Monaco parade on the Pirelli tires.  Monaco is always a procession to a certain extent.  And the wild number of tire stops required elsewhere shows that things really can be up in the air.

I hope things can stabilize somewhat before next year.  All this complaining about tires is somewhat unseemly.  And I doubt that anyone really wants to go back to the bad old days of the tire wars.

Swing And A Miss

The facts of this dispute are fairly straight forward:

• That Mercedes did undergo a private test during the season with a current car; and
• That the regulations specifically prohibit testing during the season with a current car.

Frankly, anything else is muddying the waters.

Mercedes may suggest that they undertook this test at the behest of Pirelli -- the fact that a third party enticed them to break the rules does not remove the fact that the rules were broken.

Mercedes may suggest that Ferrari conducted a similar test, but with a 2011-spec car -- the rules are quite clear that once the car is two seasons past, owners can do what they want, where they want, however frequently they want, so this objection has absolutely no relevance to the dispute.

Mercedes may claim that they gained no advantage from this test.  While this may possibly be so, there is A) no reason to believe this, and B) to conduct such a test and not gain an advantage from it proposes a stunning level of incompetence on the part of team management.

That said, the penalty of being forced to miss the young drivers test at years end is not so much punishment for the team as for Formula 1 as a whole, since there will be correspondingly less seat time available to groom future talent.  It is a joke.

Pirelli's argument that there needs to be a mechanism to test tire changes is a valid one, however the whole issue of messing with tire compounds in-season is another issue.

Data Point

Kinda interesting that almost immediately after I wrote about the FIA having to decide what happens when cars collide because one is trying to stay on the track that Maldonaldo gets involved in an incident.

The details: Maldonaldo was catching Hulkenburg's Force India.  Maldonaldo made a pass attempt from wa-a-a-a-y back, and had to fight the car to control it on the exit.  This required him to counter-steer to control some over-steer as he put the power down.  Unfortunately for him, Hulkenberg was still hanging on around the outside, giving Maldonaldo lots of room.  Not enough, as Maldonaldo's counter-steer thrust the Williams' front left tire into the Force India's side pod, and Hulkenburg was summarily punted off the race track.

Perhaps because it was Maldonaldo, who's shown no reluctance to bounce things off his car should it suit him, the stewards awarded him a drive-through penalty for "causing a collision".

Not "causing an avoidable collision".

I guess if you are the driver making the pass, the onus is on you to make it cleanly.

At least we have a data point to hang the stewards with in the future.

Victory!

So I suppose it would be inappropriate to let the first victory of 2011 pass unremarked. Alonso clearly had the car and the talent to get the job done on Sunday at Silverstone, romping away from the Red Bulls and the obviously disadvantaged McLaren in a manner that only Vettel had demonstrated thus far this year.

At this point I do not think this marks a revival of Ferrari fortunes for the year. I think that Ferrari benefited from the changing conditions through the weekend by managing to find the correct solution for their car at the right times. I also think that the radically changing exhaust rules through the weekend worked to their advantage, as the more-effective systems on the Red Bulls and McLarens were being affected by the rules changes that were happening between the sessions.

So this may very well be a one-off for the year; "normal" service may well resume at the next event.

The biggest effect on the track activity was the behavior of those mangling the technical rules during the event. When the rules are being adjusted between the sessions, one cannot plan effectively to put in a program to dial the car in to the track conditions. McLaren was the most visibly affected by this, although I personally put Red Bull's vulnerability down to the effects of the uncertainty.

To announce now that the rules changes will be changed again, throwing out the new interpretations of the rules in favor of bringing in more specific regulations for 2012 -- well frankly this should have been the strategy from the start. The FIA's technical regulators really dropped the ball on this one.

So we'll enjoy the result --even if we would have preferred Massa to put a proper pass on Hamilton on the last lap -- but be fully prepared for more frustration as the rest of the season progresses.

FIA Doublespeak

Charlie Whiting talks engine maps and diffusers:

[...]

Q: Why now?

A: Because it's illegal.

Q: So why not punish the teams that have been using it?

A: Because we say that it's 'arguably' illegal. The FIA technical department can only give an opinion. The stewards are the ones that decide whether or not the opinion of the technical department is correct. [...]

I'm sure the logic of this comes down to a couple of things: first, the Stewards don't want the Technical Delegates making definitive declarations of what is or is not illegal. That would be like parking officers making declarations about what you can or cannot do with your car.

Second, the Technical Delegates don't have standing to bring forward a complaint to the Stewards as they can't be the aggrieved party. The FIA likes the system where things are investigated as they are complained about, as enlightened self interest tends to keep complaints to a minimum. In this case, practically everyone is doing exhaust-blown diffusers to some extent, so if anyone protests them they are likely to get counter-protested right back and nobody wins. An example of I'll let you cheat because you know I'm cheating.

The other thing that this system does is it encourages teams to keep knowledge of any technical violations on the parts of their competitors quiet, so that they can be sprung at a tactically opportune time. Say for example when there were Bridgestone and Michelin tires in the series, and the Michelins got excluded at a critical juncture of the season because of the way they were constructed.

The whole thing is borderline unethical. If the rules are there, play by them. If you know of a rules violation, report it.

Changing Them Goalposts

The FIA has changed the direction of car development for 2011 by deciding that blown diffusers are to be deemed "movable aerodynamic devices". They do this by once again defining the obvious:

To push this regulation change through, the FIA has deemed that throttle use will be allowed only for the purpose of increasing torque, not for 'aerodynamic performance'.

Some people give this feature credit for Red Bull's dominance over the rest of the field, but it remains to be seen if this will actually change anything at the front.

The FIA has thus far been silent as to the reason behind the change in rules interpretation.

Update, perhaps 20 minutes later: Or not:

Formula 1 teams have been given a reprieve to continue using blown diffusers freely from this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, AUTOSPORT can reveal, after the FIA had a rethink about going ahead with a major change to the regulations.

[...]

A high level source indicated that the decision had been taken because a number of 'unforeseen and unintended consequences' of the ban had been brought to the FIA's attention.

Want to bet one of of those "unforeseen" consequences was the Red Bull being relegated to running with the Lotus cars?

Team Orders Kinda Illegal

In a perverse way, you just have to admire the FIA. Given an impossible situation, they will never fail to find some solution which nobody thought about ahead of time which will make matters worse.

Take this team orders thing. The German Grand Prix stewards fined Ferrari $100000 for interfering with the result of an event and referred the matter to the World Motor Sport Council. The WMSC's options appeared limited to two opposite findings: they could back the Stewards' call and then find Ferrari guilty of bringing the sport into disrepute; or they could find that the team-orders regulations were unenforcable, and vacate Ferrari's fine.

Based with these options, the WMSC bravely found a third option:

The WMSC hearing over the matter took place in Paris today, but Angelo Sticchi Damiani, head of Italian motorsport federation the CSAI, told reporters outside that the governing body had agreed unanimously not to impose any extra punishment, according to the Reuters news agency.

That is to say, yes they used team orders, but no, it didn't bring the sport into disrepute.

This is a decision along the lines of Hamilton's knuckle rapping from Malaysia, in that Hamilton's weaving was considered bad, but not so bad as to require punishment, but future incidents of this sort would be punished.

So, are team orders still illegal? The WMSC's decision would tend to suggest that yes they are illegal.

I don't think that this decision will do anything to prevent it from happening again in the future, though.

Clarity

Three rules clarifications from the FIA.

First, courtesy Mr. Schumacher in Monaco:

With immediate effect, no car may overtake until it has passed the first safety car line for the first time when the safety car is returning to the pits. However, if the safety car is still deployed at the beginning of the last lap, or is deployed during the last lap, it will enter the pit lane at the end of the lap and the cars will take the chequered flag as normal without overtaking.

Secondly, courtesy Mr. Hamilton from Malaysia:

With immediate effect, any car being driven unnecessarily slowly, erratically, or which is deemed potentially dangerous to other drivers, will be reported to the stewards. This will apply whether any such car is being driven on the track, the pit entry or the pit lane.

Thirdly, courtesy of McLaren's behavior in Canada:

With immediate effect, if a sample of fuel is required after a practice session the car concerned must have first been driven back to the pits under its own power.

Keep your heads up and the throttles down, gentlemen.

F1 2011 Technical Regulations

Here are some rules changes for 2011.

The car weight minimum has been increased, presumably to encourage teams to use KERS:

From 2011, the minimum weight of the car must not be less than 640 kg at all times during the event.

The FIA also codified their latest complicated, driver-implemented, computer-arbitrated, invisible passing assist scheme, through use of movable aerodynamic pieces:

From 2011, adjustable bodywork may be activated by the driver at any time prior to the start of the race and, for the sole purpose of improving overtaking opportunities during the race, after the driver has completed two laps.

The driver may only activate the adjustable bodywork in the race when he has been notified via the control electronics that it is enabled. It will only be enabled if the driver is less than one second behind another at any of the pre-determined positions around each circuit.

The system will be disabled the first time the driver uses the brakes after the system has been activated. The FIA may, after consulting all the competitors, adjust the time proximity in order to ensure the purpose of the adjustable bodywork is met.

This phrase codifies FOTA's agreement to avoid use of the F-duct for 2010 and beyond into the technical regulations:

With the exception of the parts necessary for the driver adjustable bodywork, any car system, device or procedure which uses driver movement as a means of altering the aerodynamic characteristics of the car is prohibited from 2011.

And the 107% rule returns for 2011 even though it still isn't a good idea:

From 2011, any driver whose best qualifying lap exceeds 107% of the fastest Q1 qualifying time will not be allowed to take part in the race.

Under exceptional circumstances, however, which may include setting a suitable lap time in a free practice session, the stewards may permit the car to start the race. Should there be more than one driver accepted in this manner, the grid order will be determined by the stewards.

Safety Car Lines

Micheal's back, and the controversy rolls on.

The most recent issue is about the post-safety-car, pre-finish pass of Alonso's Ferrari. Personally I find the Steward's findings to be the correct one, although I freely admit that I may be biased by the colour of Alonso's car.

There is a valid argument on Mercedes' part, in that the messages issued by Race Control and combined with the withdrawal of the SC boards, the green flags and and green lights do imply that the track was open for racing -- all, what 250 meters of it between the safety car line and the finish line. Given that, the Stewards' findings regarding a race ending under Safety Car provisions can be argued to not be in force.

However.

Opening the track for racing over all of two corners and all of 250 meters of track is a recipe for chaos. If everyone has a go at the car in front, someone somewhere is going to hit the car in front of him, and at Monaco especially this will result in a large chain-reaction that will probably prevent the cars behind from passing at all -- if they even manage to avoid being involved.

So while Mercedes' interpretations of the rules may be technically correct, opening up such a condition is in nobody's best interest in the long run.

The rules should be clarified so that races that end under Safety Cars are explicitly to end under Safety Car conditions -- something along the lines of "if the race is under Safety Car conditions at the beginning of the final lap, these Safety Car conditions will be automatically extended to the end of the race" or something equally unambiguous.

Alternatively the FIA could look at getting rid of the Safety Car line entirely and just use the Start/Finish line as the Safety Car line -- something which would make all this end-of-race-procedure discussion moot.

Driver Stewards: Not Impressed So Far

So one of the new ideas for 2010 is that one of the stewards at an event will be a former driver. The idea is that this driver can bring balance to the stewards council and the stewards will therefore be seen to be more fair and balanced.

The Malasian GP of 2010 pretty much puts lie to that theory.

The stewards made themselves noticed twice during this event.

First, Lewis Hamilton was fighting for position with Dmitri Petrov's Renault. Hamilton got past into turn one, but went deep and Petrov went by on the inside. Second time past, Hamilton went back and forth and back and forth down the main straight, an action that a lesser man might construe as "weaving". Hamilton defends himself:

I wasn’t weaving for him, I was weaving to break the tow.

The stewards took a look at this behavior, and decided that while it wasn't weaving, it wasn't sportsmanlike behavior, and Hamilton was warned.

Warned!

Either it was weaving, or it wasn't. If it was, it deserves punishment. If it wasn't, then it doesn't deserve notice.

Now the problem from this is that drivers may get the idea that they can drive like that once and they will get away with a warning.

Consider this -- had it been Petrov's Renault doing the weaving trying to break the tow, no doubt McLaren would have been screaming bloody murder and Hamilton would have some words about how dangerous it was. And I don't doubt for a second that the stewards would come down hard on Petrov.

The second time the stewards got involved was at the end of the race when it was determined that eventual race-winner Vettel had passed a Lotus under waved yellow conditions during the race:

During Sunday's race, the 22-year-old passed Lotus' Jarno Trulli while yellow flags were waving, and a stewards report said Vettel "did breach ... the international sporting code".

Despite this determination, no penalty was assessed, because...

But the stewards, including former Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert, said the Red Bull slowed down in the yellow flag area, and noted that Trulli at the time had "an obvious problem".

...the "obvious problem" being that he was recognizing the yellow flags.

We won't see this decision tested, because the driver home in second place was the other Red Bull and there wouldn't be anything to gain by Red Bull protesting their own driver's conduct. But had the Mercedes been home in second place that close to Vettel's car, I'm quite sure there would have been a protest.

Both of these "decisions" are reminiscent of the FIA's clown-court favoritism that results in popular, or championship-leading, drivers being held to one standard while the rest of the field is held to another. The only thing lacking from this weekend was a decision against a back-marker driver that was similarly marginal, defended by the paper equivalent of shrugging shoulders and a "well them's the rules, sorry" explanation.

Having the drivers on the stewards board was supposed to eliminate this type of circus.

I'm not impressed so far.

Rules Proposals

An article from a couple weeks back: Why F1 doesn't need the 107% rule.

The argument in favor of the 107% rule is that the dangerous situation on the track is where you have slow cars and fast cars together, and the speed differential is what can cause the problems.

The thing is that the 107% rule does nothing to address the most dangerous situations of all during a race weekend -- during free practice when fast cars are light on fuel to set-up for qualifying, and slow cars are heavy on fuel to set-up for the race.

In race situations you generally end up with the slower cars starting behind the faster ones, and everyone is on race fuel so the loads are comparable. So there is much less "danger" to be worried about.

The other problem is that you apply a 107% rule to Bahrain this year, and only the HRT cars would be disqualified, and the faster of the two would be disqualified by less than a second.

Excluding slower cars would only make it harder for them to gain the exposure needed to raise sponsorship, which would again make it harder to do the development needed to improve speed, which increases the likelihood of failing to qualify...

So really, there's no point.

On a related note, there's talk of removing the blue flags shown to slower cars when being lapped. Personally I don't like this proposal either, for two simple reasons.

First, if there isn't a rule saying you can't impede cars lapping you, then lapped cars will start impeding for strategic reasons. Before the blue flag rule, team blocking was a matter of course. Lapped cars would take their own time getting out of the way of the lapping traffic, on the grounds that being too cooperative costs too much from their own races.

Second, the cars have enough trouble passing each other as it is, even if there is a performance differential between the cars. Look at Bahrain, where McLaren couldn't get Hamilton past Rosberg, despite the fact that the McLaren was a second a lap faster in clean air. If we are looking at some back markers like HRT being lapped four, five, or more times in an event, that is a lot of opportunities for something to happen. I know people want to "improve the show" but having leading cars taken out tripping over back-markers is artificial action at best that will in the long run devalue the sport.

Yes, part of the problem is that the tracks don't encourage passing. While windy-back-and-forthy tracks make for great visuals of F1 cars sweeping around at high speeds, it doesn't do anything to help the car behind close, and then pass, the car in front. But the aero/mechanical rules today mean that cars can't follow each other closely and that there are not going to be many mistakes granting opportunities.

If the cars can pass each other more easily, especially with a clear performance differential, then we can talk about removing the blue flags.

(I am classifying this post as F1 2011 because any rule change this year would have to be unanimously approved by the teams. I think it is unlikely that the slower cars would agree to the possibility of being disqualified, and I think it is unlikely that the faster teams would agree to the possibility of being impeded by slower cars.)

Lets Review:

These are new the teams selected by the FIA for inclusion in the 2010 F1 World Championship:

• USF1: Dead and finished. Probably permanently.
• Manor Racing: Now Virgin Racing. This may or may not be a buy-out, it is hard to tell. They have introduced, and started testing, a real racing car.
• Campos Meta: Now Hispania Racing Team, or HRT. Original owners no longer involved. Still waiting for the Dallara-designed and built car to be introduced, although that is allegedly going to happen on Thursday or Friday, a week before Bahrain. This means the first time it does any running, trivial or not, will be free practice session one at a race weekend.
• Lotus: so far the most stable of the lot. No ownership changes, and they have introduced a (plain, slow) F1 car and done some testing.
• BMW-Sauber: lost their entry while BMW was trying to exit involvement, only to gain it back when Toyota abruptly departed. Perhaps the most ironic team on the grid, since BMW is not involved at all any more, and the engines are Ferrari. Probably the best prepared of all the "new" teams since they really are not that new. We can't really count them as in trouble because all their drama happened last year.

So from five teams, you have one outright failure, possibly two total ownership changes, one very uncompetitive team, and one moderately successful team which again doesn't count because they are not really that new.

Oh, and the FIA has decided that Stefan GP won't be participating this year, even though USF1 has failed.

Now to be fair, part of the problem is that the first group of teams to sign up for 2010 did so when the FIA was planning the spending cap rules. The championship formula that eventually was decided on was very different, meaning that all these teams were suddenly underfinanced. USF1's Ken Anderson claims that the delay in sorting out the regulations for 2010 (there wasn't a peace brokered until mid- or late July 2009) meant that the new teams had no idea what set of goal posts they would actually be working towards until very late.

So you end up with a truncated timeline to meet a standard that suddenly would cost a lot more money than initially planned.

With these factors in mind, it isn't much of a surprise that the new teams would have difficulties.

2010 Last Year For Double Diffusers

Autosport reports that the FIA is planning to eliminate the "double-diffuser" loophole for 2011:

It is understood that efforts are now being made to sort out the wording of the regulations to ensure that there are no loopholes that will allow anyone to continue using a double diffuser.

Once the wording of the rules has been sorted, it will then be put to the FIA's official Technical Working Group for ratification prior to going through the channels required for it to get put into the 2011 regulations.

The article speculates such a change will reduce the cars' lapping capabilities by around one second per lap.

The main advantage to "the show" should be that by eliminating the double-diffuser, it should clean up the airflow behind the cars, permitting other cars to follow more closely. This, theoretically, should improve passing.

It is good that this rules change is being brought about for 2011, and not a knee-jerk implementation for 2010. At this point, the 2010 cars have been designed and are being built; major changes in the regulations are to be avoided.

This does nothing to improve the show for 2010. As I have written before, my concern is that eliminating the fuel stops will mean that there will be even fewer changes of position in 2010 since the cars are not going to be any more capable of getting close to each other than they were in 2009.

New Points System For 2010

The FIA recognizes that due to the increased number of competitors at each event -- potentially 26, although I'm somewhat skeptical that everyone will make the show -- there will be increased competition for championship points. Therefore, the FIA is proposing that points be awarded: 25 points to each race winner, 20 for second place, 15 for third and 10 for fourth, before descending 8-6-5-3-2-1 for fifth through 10th positions.

This Autosport article notes that this is the most recent change to F1 points was in 2003, when points were awarded to the top 8 finishers instead of only the top 6.

I am not sure I approve. I remember the old days of 1990, when qualifying meant something -- you were not in the top 26, you didn't get in -- and there were even cars showing up for pre-qualifying (only the top two cars would be promoted for qualifying -- failing that meant your F1 weekend was over at 9AM on Friday). And through all that, points were only awarded to the top six finishers.

I remember this because I was following in 1991, when the Jordan team debuted. Their being the new kids on the block forced them to participate in pre-qualifying for the first half of the year. Because the Jordans were so good it meant that the other pre-qualifiers were basically wasting their time and money since they would never beat the Jordans.

Of course reliability was much less than it is today. Take the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix. You had 34 cars show up for the weekend. Four don't pre-qualify. Four more don't qualify, leaving you with a Sunday grid of 26. Of those 26 starters, only 10 were classified as running at the end.

And of those, only 6 were awarded points.

This year it was rare to have more than two or three cars drop out. The rules were written so that if a car was mechanically capable of running, they had to or they would be penalized -- this lead to incidents such as the one where both BMWs were pounding around several laps down, or Mark Webber's Red Bull at Suzuka.

I guess there is an argument for making there be more tangible rewards for continuing to run... but I am still not sure I approve.