Should NASCAR Follow F1 and Change the Points System? Certainly Not!
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009By: Drew Hierwarter
The recent announcement by Formula 1 that it will change the way it determines its champion for the 2009 season has many people talking. Basically what they’ve done is decide that the driver who wins the most races will be the champion. Period. The rest of the field will get points the old fashioned way, but the champion will be the guy who wins the most races, no matter what else happens.
Now there are those who think this would be a great idea for NASCAR too. We’ve heard this ever since the 2003 season when Ryan Newman won 8 races, more than any other team that year. But Matt Kenseth won the championship based on the fact that he had a more consistent season. Kenseth only won one race but he had 25 top ten finishes and he completed 97% of the laps.
And that’s the key. The NASCAR points system was designed from the beginning to reward consistency. The team that gets good finishes every week, week in and week out, has always finished higher in the points than a team that may win several races, but drops out of several more.
Continuing with the example of the 2003 season, Ryan Newman won 8 races, as I already mentioned. That was more than any other team that year. But Newman also had seven races where he did not finish. He had 11 races in which he finished lower than 20th, and his average finish for the year was a mere 14th. You certainly can’t call that a championship year.
In 2004 Kurt Busch won the championship although Jimmie Johnson won the most races at eight. But Johnson also had 7 DNF’s, 8 races with a finish lower than 20th, and an average finish of 12th. Tony Stewart won the title in 2005 but Greg Biffle won the most races at six. However, Biffle had 11 races where he finished below 20th and an average finish of 12th. Stewart’s championship that year was due to completing 99.4% of the laps with an average finish of 10th. That was a championship performance.
Jimmy Johnson has won the championship every year since 2006 so far with 2007 being the only year he won the most races. In ’06, Kasey Kahne won more races than anyone else at six, but he was not the champion because he had five DNFs, 11 races in which he finished lower than 20th, and he earned an average finish of a dismal 16th.
In 2008, Carl Edwards came closer than anyone else to deserving a championship based solely on wins. He won 8 races and he only had 5 finishes of 20th or worse and he scored an average finish of 10th. Close but no cigar, Jimmie Johnson and the 48 team had a better overall performance and won the championship because of it.
Ed Hinton, in his blog for ESPN.com says that Formula 1 has finally got it right and NASCAR should follow suit. Sorry Ed, you’re a veteran NASCAR reporter and well respected around the sport but, this time, you couldn’t be more wrong. NASCAR should continue to award the championship to the team that consistently turns in a good performance each and every week. Not the one who wins the most races but can’t finish well in the rest of them.