What's The Points - Germany Update

Previous entries:

    What’s The Points
    What’s The Points – China Update
    What’s The Points – Spain Update
    What’s The Points – Monaco Update
    What’s The Points – Turkey Update
    What’s The Points – Canada Update
    What’s The Points – Valencia Update
    What’s The Points – Great Britain Update

(Obviously, this entry is horribly provisional with it being unknown what sanctions effecting the result may or may not be taken against Ferrari by the WMSC.)

Below is a comparison of the World Championship positions for this year’s points (left), last year’s points-system (middle) and the older 10-6-4-3-2-1 approach (right). Ties are decided by countback.

1		Hamilton		157		Hamilton		65		Hamilton		49
2		Button		143		Button		58		Webber		43
3		Webber		136		Vettel		55		Button		43
4		Vettel		136		Webber		53		Vettel		41
5		Alonso		123		Alonso		49		Alonso		37
6		Rosberg		94		Rosberg		36		Massa		20
7		Kubica		89		Kubica		35		Rosberg		19
8		Massa		85		Massa		34		Kubica		18
9		Schumacher		38		Schumacher		13		Schumacher		7
10		Sutil		35		Sutil		11		Barrichello		5

The order of the top-ten in the World Championship is unchanged despite Ferrari’s upsurge. It is clear that the quartet of drivers for McLaren and Red Bull, with Alonso striving for their coat-tails, are the first-division contenders. Rosberg, Kubica and Massa look to be fighting it out for the next division with a huge gap to the rest. Whatever one thinks of today’s decision to favour Alonso over Massa, even if Ferrari are broadly the fastest team for the rest of the season, it is a tall order for Alonso to catch and pass the four drivers ahead, with a fairly close points scoring system and the expectation Vettel, Webber, Hamilton and Button will be regularly finishing top-six, and grabbing wins where they can. If Ferrari are contending for wins and top-positions from now on with RBR and McLaren, this will probably be in the Woking team’s favour as Red Bull need quite a few wins and one-twos to overhaul the McLaren drivers.

The order for last year’s points is much the same except for being slightly kinder to Vettel. There is movement in the 10-6-4-3-2-1 scheme. Webber hangs on above Button as before with his three wins. Massa gets more reward for his two seconds and a third. Rosberg has had three third-places, Kubica a second place in Australia plus third at Monaco.

These are the points if given to engines:

	Engine	Score		Average per Team
1	Mercedes	479		159·7
2	Renault	368		184·3
3	Ferrari	233		77·7
4	Cosworth	31		7·8

No points for Cosworth. Ferrari scored 43 for first and second with zero help from Force India and Sauber. Renault scored 30, with Vettel and Webber in the top six, and both Renault drivers chipping in. Mercedes also had four contributors, from McLaren and Mercedes for 28. Ferrari made a 15-point gain on Mercedes, but with a 246-deficit and eight to go, would need to average beating them by over thirty points a race to win this.

The scores by nationality of drivers are:

	Nation	Points	Scoring Drivers
1	Germany	305	5
2	Britain	300	2
3	Australia	136	1
4	Spain	126	2
5	Brazil	114	2
6	Poland	89	1
7	Japan	15	1
8	Italy	12	1
9	Russia	7	1
10	Switzerland	7	1

Britain gained a single point over Germany, with Button and Hamilton totalling 22 to the 21 of Vettel, Rosberg and Schumacher. No change in order except Russia squeezing ahead of Switzerland on countback, after Petrov’s tenth place. With Alonso’s win and Ferrari’s new pace, Webber’s chance of singlehandedly holding Australia in third looks slimmer than before.

Thank you to Pat W’s suggestion that the “Nations Cup” count only the top two finishers, as he remembers that CART used to do. This set me thinking and I decided to go for a similar idea, somewhat reminiscent of the scoring system that used to be used in the earlier years of the Constructor’s World Championship, of only counting the score of the highest driver in a race for each nation. I also decided to use 10-6-4-3-2-1, partly because I think it a better scoring regime, partly because it meant less work. Thus, for example, the McLaren 1-2 in China would give Britain 10 points for the win, nothing for second, and Rosberg’s third place would give Germany 4 points, with nothing for Vettel’s sixth place. Incidentally, only for Monaco did six different nationalities fill the top-six.

	Nation	Points
1	Britain	64
2	Germany	52
3	Australia	43
4	Spain	37
5	Brazil	25
6	Poland	18
7	Japan	1

Obviously, the big difference is this gives Great Britain the lead, but Germany have more chance of fighting back than if I scored the two top finishers for each nation.

See also RG’s Germany update for his championship for new teams.

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