F1’s rules need sticking plaster and surgery after fastest lap row · RaceFans
A widely-criticised change to Formula 1’s rules five years ago, combined with a long-standing quirk of team ownership, created a controversy last weekend which threatens to overshadow its championship fight.
Lando Norris’ championship destiny was in his hands heading into the Singapore Grand Prix. Prior to last weekend, if he took the best result available to him at every race, there was nothing Max Verstappen could do to stop him winning the title.
That is no longer the case, for reasons entirely unrelated to the performance of either driver. The fact that was possible points to a flaw in F1’s rules.
As the final laps counted down on Sunday, Norris was on course to score the bonus point for fastest lap. His lap of 1’34.925 on a 16-lap-old set of hard tyres was an impressive time, almost half a second quicker than the next-best effort of any other driver (Charles Leclerc, whose tyres were eight laps fresher). He took big risks to set it as well, brushing the barrier at turn 10 the lap before.
But with so little to separate the performance of F1’s teams these days (Singapore was the closest race of the season among the top nine outfits), the quickest driver at the head of the field is unlikely to lap quicker than a driver at the back who has pitted to fit a set of soft tyres.
The bonus point is only awarded to drivers who finish in the top 10. Therefore a driver running at the back of the field has no incentive to forfeit their running position to stick on a set of soft tyres and go for the fastest lap, besides their own amusement. Unsurprisingly, it seldom happens.
Why Ricciardo apparently chose to do so therefore inspired much conjecture. He was running well out of the points in what is widely believed to be his final F1 race. He did not ask to make an attempt at the fastest lap, but was told to pit with three laps remaining.
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Afterwards RB team principal Laurent Mekies, who had not previously indicated Ricciardo’s place at the team was in immediate danger, said: “Given this may have been Daniel’s last race, we wanted to give him the chance to savour it and go out with the fastest lap.”
However others, notably McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, found it suspicious that the sister team to Verstappen’s Red Bull squad should use one of its drivers to make an attempt on the fastest lap which earned them nothing in the race.
Whatever the truth behind the situation, allowing a third party to interfere in the championship situation is obviously undesirable. It is exactly the kind of warning F1 ignored when it introduced the bonus point for fastest lap five years ago.
A cynic might say F1 is less interested in ensuring a fair fight for the drivers’ championship than provoking attention-grabbing controversy. It’s probably fairer to say those running F1 gave too little consideration to the likely unintended consequences of the bonus point for fastest lap when they introduced it.
One quote from Ross Brawn, F1’s managing director at the time, illustrates how the implications of the rule were not fully considered. On the possibility of a driver winning the championship by pitting for fresh tyres at the end of a race to set the fastest lap, Brawn admitted “it would be quite controversial, I don’t doubt that.”
“If you do that, should the guy who’s leading the championship come in and try and emulate what you’ve done?” he continued, unrealistically assuming that the driver in this example would leave enough time for their rival to react.
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F1 claimed fans who hated the bonus point “gimmick” soon said they “loved” it. Our surveys of RaceFans readers showed otherwise: the rule was opposed before it was introduced and afterwards too.
F1 never needed the bonus point for fastest lap, it adds nothing to the intrigue of races and could easily be discarded. Doing so would help prevent a repeat of the kind of controversy we saw on Sunday, one which may already prove decisive for the championship, and may recur before the season is over.
But although that change is necessary, it would only serve as a sticking plaster for a deeper structural problem which would be far harder to address.
Given the current circumstances, it comes as no surprise that McLaren are most vocal among Red Bull’s rivals in questioning whether its owner should be allowed to run two teams. This objection long predates not only McLaren’s recent re-emergence as championship contenders, but even Red Bull’s return to the top. Brown was urging Liberty Media to address the issue of ‘B teams’ as long ago as 2018.
Clearly, there is too much potential for collusion to allow two teams to share the same owner. The bonus point for fastest lap is only one example of this: RB’s drivers past and present, under their various disguises, have seldom disguised their willingness to put up more of a fight against Red Bull’s rivals.
Brown was not in charge at McLaren when Red Bull purchased its second F1 team, Minardi, in 2005. There was little opposition to that takeover, at a time when other teams were struggling and Red Bull’s investment ensured the Faenza team kept its doors open and staff employed.
F1 should not take that for granted. But that was almost two decades ago, and the sport has changed significantly since then.
It appears there is no appetite within F1 to address the problem of B teams. But if it fails to, controversies like this will repeat even if flawed rules like the bonus point for fastest lap are expunged.
Next to that, addressing the issue of ‘B teams’ will be far more difficult. But at a time when new entrants are clamouring to be allowed in, letting one company run two teams, to the detriment of the championship, has never been harder for it to justify.
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