Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone is confident his proposal for the world drivers’ championship to be decided by gold medals awarded to race winners will be implemented next season.
Ecclestone said he was moved to act by Lewis Hamilton’s triumph, when he clinched this year’s title by finishing fifth at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix.
Under the proposed system, which Ecclestone said should be approved by motorsport world governing body FIA next month, Felipe Massa would have won the title because he beat Hamilton 6-5 on race wins.
“It’s going to happen,” Ecclestone said. “All the teams are happy. The reason this happens is that I get fed up with people talking about no overtaking.
Ecclestone believes that a medal regime would encourage drivers to overtake and he repeated his resolve to have the new system up and running in time for the first race of next season, in Melbourne at the end of March.
But influential voices in the sport have criticised the scheme. Eddie Jordan, the former team owner, called it “a nonsense” and Damon Hill, the former world champion, said he was “baffled” by a proposal that could mean the championship is decided by the halfway point.
“I can’t possibly believe he’s thinking straight, especially on this one,” Jordan said. “His focus must be on cost-cutting and nothing else. The rest is just dressing it up.”
“He is tinkering with something on which he has lost the understanding,” Jordan said. “He thinks only wins matter. The points are necessary. I was one of the team principals who advocated the points should go down to eighth place because one point is as important to those teams as a win is to McLaren and Ferrari.
“There has not been enough thought put into this and for him to say that it comes with the full approval of all the teams – I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.”
Ecclestone’s plans have been criticised in other quarters. Professor Steffen Huck, Head of Economics at UCL and an expert in the way that incentives fuel success, said the changes would be short-sighted.
“The medal system only incentivises the top,” said Professor Huck. “But there are other undesirable consequences as well.
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