Number of Wins Will Decide 2009 F1 Champion | Kimi Title Favourite In Betting

From Autosport.com | Read The FOTA’s Response

Formula 1’s world champion in 2009 will be the driver with the most wins during the season, the FIA said on Tuesday.

The governing body also announced that it had rejected a proposal by
the Formula One Teams’ Association to change the current system. The
proposal had been sent by FOTA to the FIA earlier this year.

The FIA announced the current 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 system will stay in
place, but confirmed the world champion will be the driver who wins the
most races in a season.

The points system will be used in case two or more drivers win the same amount of races during a year.

The Constructors’ Championship remains unaffected by the changes.

"The WMSC accepted the proposal from Formula One Management to award
the drivers’ championship to the driver who has won the most races
during the season," said the FIA in a statement.

"If two or more drivers finish the season with the same number of
wins, the title will be awarded to the driver with the most points, the
allocation of points being based on the current 10, 8, 6 etc. system.

"The rest of the standings, from second to last place, will be
decided by the current points system. There is no provision to award
medals for first, second or third place. The Constructors’ Championship
is unaffected.

"The WMSC rejected the alternative proposal from the Formula One
Teams’ Association to change the points awarded to drivers finishing in
first, second and third place to 12, 9 and 7 points respectively. "

FOTA had called for a points system overhaul after it conducted a
survey in which fans asked for a greater gap between the points for
first and second places to encourage drivers to go for victory.

"FOTA set out and conducted what has been a unique survey," said
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh earlier this month. "That
audience survey told us that they wanted greater differentiation for
winning and FOTA then considered a broad range of alternatives.

"Inevitably there is a balance to be struck on everything that you
do. If you have a very large differentiation between first, second and
third it is easy to envisage and to model that seasons may end sooner
because championships will be determined sooner.

"And if we reflect on the last two championships they have been
quite exciting climaxes and one would say on the face of it why would
we want to change? What we felt within FOTA was having conducted a very
thorough survey of audience views and advice we shouldn’t ignore it.

"There were people who felt status quo was the best thing but I
think what swung it was the opinion of the audience. We, as FOTA, have
unanimously agreed that is what we want to see introduced this year. We
now have to work with the commercial rights holder and with the FIA and
seek their endorsement of that proposal."

The points system that the FOTA had proposed was a good one I thought – the winner is rewarded more, as they should be, yet the rest of the points scoring positions off the podium (4th-8th) remain the same as before. Either way, I always liked the idea that the driver with most wins takes the title – satisfying for Kimi that in his winning championship he had taken the most victories (6 opposed to 4 wins his rivals had). Consistency is another
thing! And consistency is what will obviously decide the champion if
there are drivers who have the same no. of wins. I’m sure this decision by the FIA will make the drivers even more hungry to win and not settle for second which can be frustrating for us fans to watch, but I totally detested the medal system that was suggested before – thank goodness we won’t have that. We know our Kimi doesn’t like to settle for second best if he can win (Spa-Francorchamps 2008 being the most recent example to testify that!) and so he’ll be racing harder than ever this season! I cannot wait any longer! Come on Kimi – you can do it! I know we haven’t seen any races yet and therefore do not know how difficult the competition will be but Keep Flying Kimi! ~

p.s I’ve seen that the majority of fans are absolutely hating this decision by the FIA, and to my surprise I’m not that annoyed with it. I understand that the championship will now possibly be decided even before the final race – which of course, isn’t good in terms of a full round exciting championship. However, we’ve had some of the best seasons even when the champion was decided with few races to go. Afterall, Alonso became champ at Brazil in 2005 with 2 or 3 races to
go, and anyone remember Japan 2005? Of course you do, we Kimi fans do. It was as if the championship was still
on, so it’s not like the drivers are that stupid. They want to win
races anyway! But now, with this new system, in races where top competitors are forced to start from the back of the grid for example, and they have no chance to win then what will they do? As I said, consistency still matters so they will race as far as they can to get as many points possible. But it may also be reason for teams to conserve their engines and not even bother. Unfortunately, the FIA seem to have a trend of exciting us but then ruining it. This decision may be one of those. But I’m not entirely critical of it, yet. I did like the FOTA’s points proposal better, I admit. And the FOTA are concerned about the FIA’s decisions. There’s a lot to discuss about it but at the end of the day, the best driver crosses the finish line first. And that’s what I’m more interested in, most of the time. Not how many times so and so came 3rd or 2nd. We’ll have to wait and see how the season goes, first! Then we can bash or applaud this decision. F1 is like a circus and this may create an even more funny show than last year’s.

Is this just a publicity stunt by the FIA to get more media coverage and debate days before the season starts? Or is it totally about the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone battle against the FOTA and re-establishing their authority and throwing whatever the FOTA proposes back into their face?

Join the forum and discuss the news with the rest of us! Opinions and thoughts are quickly changing and developing about this matter. And so has mine. And it’s generally not good.

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From MTV3.fi | Translation courtesy of Wolfie
Raikkonen is the favourite in betting

Ferrari-driver Kimi Räikkönen is according to the international betting agencies the biggest favourite to win this year’s championship.

According
to betbrain.com, the best number is 5.5 when it comes to Kimi. After
him comes Fernando Alonso with 6.5, followed by Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa.

Hamilton was the biggest favourite in betting a week ago but the pace of McLaren has made his number bigger.

Brawn
GP team’s drivers betting numbers have become smaller during last
week. Jenson Button has the number 16 whereas you could get your money
23 times back in case Barrichello would win the championship.