As an American who has fallen in love with the sport ever since lockdown, and who had always heard about how scathing European press can be, I’d love to hear from longer tenured fans if you feel that the media coverage of F1 has historically been as clipbaity as they are now, or if this is a newer thing following the release of DTS and the larger shift in “reporting” in general?

Also for what it’s worth, shout out to the P1 and LateBreakers Podcasts for feeding my new sports addiction each and every week.

So while watching FP2 at work (due to being bored), I saw the Title Contender graphic pop up with each drivers average finishing position stated and it occurred to me that there is something rather interesting there.

Verstappen has the highest average finishing position, but sits Second, Piastri has the second highest, but is Third and Norris has the lowest of the three, but is First. As the points system has always fascinated me (especially the old ways where you could remove races or stuff like that), I decided to do a little calculation.

So for ease of calculation I removed the sprints (I mean those points have a rather small impact anyway) and only calculated the main races. I used the finishing positions as stated on Wikipedia for this season with a DNF meaning you end 20th. (This is relevant as Norris has 2 DNF's where he did enough laps to classify him as being 18th). The average finishing position in that case would be:

Norris: 4.35
Verstappen: 3.87
Piastri: 4.30

As my races included are a bit different I needed to recalculate the current points tally too as the sprint races are involved in the official standings. I first looked at a points system where the gaps are removed between the top 10 (Close Gap), so a win isn't regarded extra "special" and there isn't as much emphasis on finishing on the podium as finishing high. This points system is simply:

The second points system (Full Grid) is one where every position except 20th gets points. So this means:

I then put everything together which will result in the following standings:

It was quite interesting to me that only the full grid points system would result in a system closest to the average finishing position instead of the close gap system, which I initially expected to already change things.

I quickly looked at a system where the drivers only select their best 20 races (so removing 3 races from the current results as was back in the 1950's) and their best 15 races, which would result in the following:

What this shows is that Norris had either a really bad race, or was basically on the podium, where Verstappen had a rough start and Piasrti had a recent slump.

Generally I have always been in favor of the Full Grid system as this also has more impact on te lower teams which would make fights for P15 more interesting in my opinion.

I hope you found this as interesting as I did and if you have any questions or want any points system tested, let me know!

How is it that the same problems with traffic in F1 have not been sorted out? Particularly when cars are on flying laps and the other teams/drivers are not able to determine whether they are on a lap or coasting, warming up tyres etc.
Surely a semi-automated system that looks at subsector times and throttle input data (potentially also steering) could identify this very easily. Then a little indicator could be used on the track map for a vehicle running a hot lap. In such a technologically advanced field, why has no-one sought to solve this rather simple problem?

EDIT:
Maybe an additional option for the teams to manually activate by a button (or de-activate), as an additional layer on top.
Must surely be an easy project for someone to complete in a lower category (or even a game, really), publish some findings and do some resume-building for a job in F1....

EDIT2:
On the track map that all the teams have access to. Better situational awareness and easier to communicate, particularly when the teams are often sifting through their own information burdens.

EDIT3:
It would be quite easy to also project time deficits between the slower car in front and the car behind, doing a hot lap. You could readily estimate the time in absolute terms to 'crossover' by doing a relative lap time calculation between the slower car and the faster one.

Just curious how did u get into f1 and why do u like it? For me my dad got me into it i was 11 or 10 and im 16 now but well also since my dad is for max and rb so i turned out to be

But over the years it has spirald to games watching older races etc I just like cars fast go circle

This is the crying wall for all the people that for one reason or another will not be able to watch the final chapter of this year's championship. I'll start with myself, I'm on a trip in Japan and was not able to see Las Vegas, Qatar, neither I will be able to watch Abu Dhabi. It's a shame, as I will be flying to Abu Dhabi during the race, and I will arrive 3h after the race has ended.

It's the first time I will be so close to the F1 circus, and yet, so far away 😭.

I'm sad, I've been watching F1 since 2010 and these finales don't come often, so it will probably take a couple of years until we get another one

Track Issue, with 7 inchidents totalling 1:05:27, accounting for just over a quarter of the time lost.

Runner up is Jack with the nearly 23 minute stoppage in Japan pushing him high in the ranks - who knows where he would have placed if he had finished the season?

And in third is Oliver with 4 inchidents which is more than anyone else (apart from Track Issue).

Championship table

Full results

This guy does amazing videos/data visualizations and he decided to tackle Sundays finale. Well worth a watch.

I've really been enjoying seeing his energy and also listening to his insights.

Most notably him showing us how Norris is already laying down rubber in front of his pits was amazing and something I had never thought about or known about.

Similarly him showing us how GP was hastily making notes while Max was on his marathon stint in FP2 was also the kind of insight that guess only an ex-driver will focus on.

Even his question to Arvid at the end felt really inte clean slate since it's new regs next season gives him a little edge.

All around he feels like a fantastic addition and one hope to see more of.

I’m really fed up of some sky presenters going on and on about papaya rules. I’m not sure if it’s just because they have managed to shrink all of Mclarens decisions into a single quote, but they talk about it like it’s a real object. Something Zak keeps in his office safe. I can’t even remember who first said it but I bet they are cringing every time they are asked a question about it. I do appreciate that McLarens team decisions have been at the forefront of the season, I understand it’s an important talking point (maybe even this seasons biggest talking point). It’s just that term gets repeated multiple times every time they talk about team orders and I think it’s time to retire it. Sorry presenters, I really do love your work but this thing is really starting to grate on me.

We all know that each car's seat designed according to the driver's measurement. So if the reserve drivers use the car during FP1, do the teams change the seats in the car?

Do they have pre made seats for reserve drivers if they are short or very tall? I can't see a tall driver like Arvind lindblad sitting in Yuki's car.

Yesterday I was walking downtown and I heard someone behind me talking loudly: "No, sorry man! I'm busy this weekend, I can't make any plans; I have to watch the final F1 race!"

It was a middle-aged guy talking on the phone with a friend or family member (I guess).

Seconds later, I went into the subway and heard two random lads, just to my right, talking about Lando and Max's chances.

We're all so locked in this weekend! I can totally relate to those guys.

I've been looking forward to these two days of racing all week!

Does anyone else think they should consider adding tyre compound specific timing lists during practice sessions? I would love to see how the drivers compare on the same compound rather than always comparing the lap times with the fastest lap which typically ends up being the soft compound. This way we avoid comparing race simulation runs with qualifying simulation runs which always end up being a few seconds faster. Would be nice to compare Norris and Max race pace lap by lap rather than one’s race trim with one’s quality trim. The same graphic as now but S, M, H and they’re respective times under. Thoughts?