Winning a championship is one of the best feelings in the world, as any racing driver lucky enough to do so would tell you. But sometimes the ‘winning’ bit doesn’t quite go to plan.
Formula 1 and its top open-wheel support series produced championship conclusions that were either short on action, downright confusing – or simply did not happen at all.
Formula 1: Points rule read wrong
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen knew after the summer break he was on course to become a two-times F1 champion, and his inevitable crowning came at the Japanese Grand Prix.
This was an apt location as Suzuka is the home track of Red Bull’s power unit designer Honda. For the grand prix weekend, Red Bull expanded the visibility of Honda’s logos on their cars. Unfortunately the resolution of the title fight left many bemused.
Verstappen put in a masterclass performance, edging the Ferrari drivers for pole position and then charging away in a race that was hit by a deluge of rain, was stopped for several hours and then run to a shortened distance.
This led to misunderstanding among teams and media over whether full points would be awarded or not. New rules had been introduced following the widely-criticised Belgian Grand Prix last year defining the points which would be handed out based on how much of the race distance had been completed. The consensus when Verstappen reached the chequered flag to win was that he was not yet champion, even if his pursuing rival Charles Leclerc was penalised for going off-track and gaining and an advantage, as eventually happened.
So when Verstappen was told in the post-race interview by Johnny Herbert he did not immediately believe it. Eventually the FIA admitted that, due thanks to an unintended quirk of the rules, full points had indeed been awarded for the shortened race and Verstappen was therefore champion.
Work is underway to revise the rule again. When the world championship trophy was received by Red Bull at the FIA’s prize-giving Gala, Horner referred to the “confusion” over the deciding race, which triggered a swift response from president Mohammed ben Sulayem. “The FIA was blamed for the points but it was not the FIA which made the rules,” he insisted. “It was the teams who made the rules and we were implementing it.”
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