F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has welcomed the decision to award the world championship to the driver who scores the most race victories – and is convinced the change will lead to more overtaking at the front of the field.
The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council ratified the most radical change to the drivers’ title race in the sport’s history on Tuesday, with the championship for the first time to no longer be determined by points but the number of wins.
Bernie Ecclestone is convinced we will now see “real racing” in Formula One after a winner-takes-all system was given the green light on Tuesday.
“The system is exactly what I proposed, just without the second and third place awards,” said Ecclestone.
He added: “What it does is make the drivers bloody well go for the win rather than settle for second.
“That’s what we will see when the guys get to Melbourne (for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in 11 days’ time).
“It will be real racing, which is good for the fans and the sport.”
Ecclestone declared himself delighted. “If you’re in the lead and I’m second, I wouldn’t want to risk falling off the circuit or doing something stupid to get two points,” he said. “If I need a gold medal to win the championship, I will overtake. It’s just not on that someone can win the championship without winning a race.
“The decision was unanimously agreed by the World Council. But we will leave all points in all of the other championships as they are at the moment.”
Max Mosley, the FIA president, defended the new rules. “Keith Duckworth once said ‘an engineer is someone who can do for one dollar what any idiot can do for a hundred dollars’. These rules will encourage clever engineering – success will come to the teams with the best ideas, not only the teams with the most money.”
Either way, it will undoubtedly threaten the unanimity of the FOTA, who felt in recent weeks that they had made serious efforts to play ball with the FIA, announcing plans to reduce budgets by 50 per cent for 2010 through a series of cost-cutting measures.
The FOTA yesterday expressed their “disappointment and concern” at the “unilateral” decisions taken in Paris.
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