F1 drops plans to introduce new points system

Formula 1 race director Charlies Whiting has confirmed that no changes will be made to the points system in 2019. A new way in which points are distributed was on the 2019 rule change agenda and was under serious discussion from senior team personnel.

F1's current points system has been in place since 2010. The top ten currently receive points, with first place bagging 25. This has changed just once in the last eight years when double points were introduced for the final round of the 2014 season.

And Whiting admitted that it is not a rule change that needs waiting, as it can be implemented upon agreement from the teams: “It’s being discussed. It’s not like a 2021 rule, it’s something that if everyone had agreed to, then we would look at introducing it immediately, or 2019 anyway. But there wasn’t agreement on that.”

The new rules for 2019 will be made official in Paris on Friday when the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council meets in Paris. However, Whiting is not expecting any surprises to come away from the meeting.

“There aren’t any secrets there,” he said. “We’ve discussed it with the teams quite a few times. Nothing substantial I would say They [the final decisions] took a little longer than expected.

“There was a lot of iterations needed because there were little areas that needed further clarification, teams kept asking us about what if we do this, what if we do that, and so on. I think it’s a fairly satisfactory process that we went through, and hopefully they’ll be clear now. So as I say, that’s 2019, that’s all done.”