Teams have been coming and going. Drivers have been swapping back and forth and so far nothing has upset the peaceful tranquil that is the sofaF1 site. Until now!
They’ve only gone and changed the points system!
Actually it doesn’t make much of a difference. They have essentially done this for money reasons rather than sporting ones. There are going to be 13 teams next year and they new teams need to get on the score board or they’ll go bust.
So they’ve extended the points down to tenth place and to do this they’ve made a win a substantially larger 25 points. However don’t be fooled the all important ratio of “how many second places equals a first place” is unchanged.
The ratios are pretty stable all the way down as you can see:
| Position | New points | Old points |
| 1 | 25 | 10 |
| 2 | 20 | 8 |
| 3 | 15 | 6 |
| 4 | 10 | 5 |
| 5 | 8 | 4 |
| 6 | 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 5 | 2 |
| 8 | 3 | 1 |
| 9 | 2 | |
| 10 | 1 |
The only real anomoly that I can see is the strange points gap between 6-8th. There shouldn’t be more of a gap between 7th and 8th than there is between 6th and 7th.
However, other than this, there has been very little change. This means that it has made hardly any difference to the positions from last year for the drivers and actually zero difference to the constrictors. (essentially it makes a difference only if you routinely finished it ninth or tenth)
Thanks to Pat from Too Much Racing for doing the maths on this:
1. Button 230.5
2. Vettel 203
3. Barrichello 183
4. Webber 175
5. Hamilton 120.5
6. Raikkonen 119
7. Trulli 78 (the first order change, was 8th)
8. Rosberg 75.5 (was 7th)
9. Glock 63.5 (was 10th)
10. Alonso 62 (was 9th)
1. Brawn 413.5
2. RBR 378
3. Ferrari 170
4. McLaren 166.5
5. Toyota 149.5
6. BMW 88
7. Williams 80.5
8. Renault 63
9. FIF1 36
10. STR 22.5
So where does that leave the sofaF1 championship? Well my guess is that we should have to predict the top 10. It seems a pretty reasonable, if not slightly daunting prospect.
But maybe you think things should be different? Let us know in the comments before the soFIA conduct our pre-season drinks / council meeting.
SofaF1 
It makes zero difference to the constrictors? Good to note! đŸ˜€
Yes, those pythons can rest easily tonight.The 25 point for a win is what they have in MotoGP and it always confuses me. I think it's too much, personally. Maybe we'll get used to it, but the old 10 points for a win has a classic appeal to it.
As we discussed in our (ahem) 'off-site meeting' this lunchtime, if they really want to help the new/smaller teams my suggestion would be a point for finishing the race. You'd end up with fewer teams (if any!) on zero points at the end of the season and make it easier to rank them properly, and based on something acceptable like reliability.
guess the top 10? oooh, sheesh, i gets stuck after 5.