It appears that we have meandered into a new year, an event that probably should have been cancelled due to lack of interest - but alas here it is. So a week into 2015 it is probably time for another update from this dark corner of cyberspace. Yes, I know such a prospect must strike despair into the very souls of anyone who happens to be reading... which in itself is an uncharacteristically optimistic thought... but it has to be done.
On the general news front, the driver line up for 2015 has pretty much been decided, save for the two teams that suffered financial difficulties towards the end of 2014. Both Caterham and Marussia (under the branding Manor GP) were listed on the official 2015 entry list, but their ongoing struggles make prospects for an actual appearance in Australia in March a little on the unlikely side. Especially now that Marussia announced they collapsed after the result of £31 million debt, which is a lot more than wanted to raise from the crowdfunding. The bow wave of monetary complications threatens to spread a little further when one of the key funding sources for a smaller outfit comes under increased pressure. Several drivers have found themselves in employment purgatory after finding someone else sitting smugly in their race seat. A fate that seemed all but destined for Jean-Eric Vergne, passed over for a main Red Bull drive twice was then also denied a stay of execution at Toro Rosso. Vergne will be replaced by Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jnr - son of WRC star of the same name (just not Jnr). Vergne however has moved over to Formula E, with Andretti Autosport - a team with strong Indycar connections, as well as picking up testing duties at Ferrari alongside another lost soul Esteban Gutierrez. A couple of weeks before the end of the year, the McLaren saga was finally resolved, and that didn't work out too well for Kevin Magnussen who is also now resting in the spare parts bin, or the McLaren pitwall. The inevitable but very prolonged decision saw Alonso confirmed at the team, and Jenson Button was thankfully retained to form a line-up consisting of two world champions.
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| Japanese Super Formula |
So in addition to defining a degree of experience required to be eligible for a F1 drive the system also, potentially inadvertently, deals with the contentious issue of rich pay-drivers. Those members of the F1 fraternity who arguably only made it onto the grid on account of a substantial bank balance rather than a demonstrable amount of talent. The argument over who deserves to be offered a seat and who shouldn't is one that occurs every season, usually while pointing an accusatory finger towards the back of the starting line-up. Historically is has been the smaller teams that have found themselves in need of a paying driver - simply to offset the exorbitant cost of competing. The most infamous recent example being Max Chilton - who it is reported supplied funds in the region of £7m per season to retain his seat at Marussia. Of course the point at which the line is drawn to separate a pay-driver from a driver with sponsorship support is constantly moving. For example Alonso - a double world champion - will have sponsor support from the likes of Santander and Telefonica, does this lump Fernando in the same category as Chilton; I suspect not. It's the midfield where the difference becomes all that more difficult to discern, take Sauber for one - they have hired Felipe Nasr because of his connections to Banco Do Brasil as a source of funding. But the Brazilian has proven to be reasonably quick in GP2. If the team didn't need the money there were more successful drivers in the same category who haven't been picked up yet. On that note you could suggest that Nasr's sponsorship bought him the seat, while Jolyon Palmer is largely ignored and Vandoorne is walled up in McLaren's overflowing driver pool.
Under the new system, not only does a potential driver need to have spent time in a lower formula to build experience, they need to be performing very competitively too. This is where the super-license points come into play, the FIA have effectively ranked a number of development categories in terms of their relevance to F1 (more on that later). Any driver aspiring to compete at the highest level needs to finish strongly in these championships to super-points - only the last three years contribute to a driver's tally of super-points. A championship title naturally offers the most super-points and a higher ranked championship has a larger top score. This means that the likes of Marussia/Manor GP and Caterham can't simply pluck a driver out of GP2 or World Series by Renault purely on the contents of their piggy bank, because they won't have accumulated enough super-points. On the surface this seems like a perfectly logical idea, promoting the most capable drivers into the sport in the interests of a more thorough competition. Could it be that the FIA have finally developed a foolproof system based on actual reasoning?... well as you might have guessed. No. Because the points system they have developed is, well, a bit crap. They are as follows.
| Championship | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th |
| Future FIA F2 Championship | 60 | 50 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| GP2 | 50 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| FIA F3 European Championship | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| FIA World Endurance Championship (LMP1 Only) | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Indycar | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| GP3 | 30 | 20 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Formula Renault 3.5 (World Series by Renault) | 30 | 20 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Japanese Superformula | 20 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| FIA Certified National F4 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| National Formula 3 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Formula Renault 2.0 (Eurocup, ALPS, or NEC) | 5 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
As you can see the list is rather limited, no mention of the FIA's new futuristic series "Formula E" or DTM - a series with F1 connections and from which Di Resta progressed. There is no consideration for further reaching series from other categories such as NASCAR, WTCC (even if it is considerably worse than many national touring car series) or Australian V8s. Admittedly the machinery involved wouldn't bear too much relevance to F1 but they are still important categories. One case in point is Juan Pablo Montoya left F1 for NASCAR and then back to Indycar - so a transfer in reverse might not be so alien a concept. It would be a bizarre rarity, but one very much worth seeing. Why can't we have interdisciplinary drivers being eligible for selection - Sebastian Loeb went from dominating WRC to competing strongly in circuit racing in the WTCC (neither series offers super-points) and even spent some time at Le Mans in a GT1 Ferrari (again no points for that) back when we had GT1 cars.
No GT car qualifications are considered, and even the World Endurance Series entitlement is specifically limited to LMP1 - a category with a very limited number of entries to start off with. More to that point, LMP2 and LMPC feature more developing and emerging drivers than LMP1 to begin with... On top of that the equally strong American endurance equivalent is completely ignored - likely on the basis that is has no LMP1 category, LMP2 and Daytona Prototypes are the top class there. It very much narrows the channel and ultimately will increase demand for the championships which do earn super-points, this in turn bumps up entry fees and therefore pushes the pay-driver debate further down the hierarchy. GP2 teams will become inundated with richer drivers pushing their way ahead of faster but less well supported opposition. I tend to assume that Jean Todt and the rest of the FIA didn't think on the ramifications beyond the microcosm of F1, and how the super-points ranking would influence the global system of driver progression.
The second problem with this system is the ranking, one that appears on the surface to be a deliberate stab at Red Bull's development program. Due to their affiliation with Renault the majority of their drivers have progressed through Formula Renault 3.5. Vergne, Vettel, Ricciardo, Alguersuari, Sainz Jnr all used the category as a launch pad. Since a Red Bull protege in the form of Verstappen proved to be the catalyst for this whole super-points idea the Red Bull System bears the brunt of it. Formula Renault 3.5 is not on par with GP3 - it is far closer to GP2 but the points system doesn't reflect that. I have seen arguments on the internet over the past day or so pointing out that this super-points ranking could be harmful to the business model of Renault's development program by making it less attractive to prospective racers. Both their 3.5 and 2.0 litre categories have been given an unusually low score, to the point where European level competition is favoured less than national level F3, and considering the state some of those categories are in it defies belief - British F3 last season had races with fewer than six cars involved...
Additionally why is the Japanese Superformula ranked so poorly - it is known that the cars in that division are the closest on performance to F1 machinery. Coverage in this part of the world is rather negligable so I can't comment on the quality of the field or the competition - but the skill involved must score it better than that. Also in what universe is Indycar ranked lower than GP2... the American series is fiercely contested to the point where a GP2 graduate can't jump across the pond and dominate proceedings. Several drivers who have made the switch have done very well - Mike Conway being the first to do so - but is it worth more points than that. To top the whole thing off - the highest ranked category is a series which doesn't exist yet... how does that work. So you can compete in all kinds of championships but you can still be outscored by a figment of the FIA's imagination... Seriously.
At the lower end of the spectrum the table ranks Formula 4 above Formula 3 at the national level... which completely defeats the object of numbering the tiers of national motorsport if 'upgrading' from F4 to F3 involves less super-points. But from what I think is going on, at least in the UK is that F4 is taking over the mess they made of Formula Ford as part of the TOCA package and the series that was Formula 4 becomes something else... In short the further down the ladder you go the less sense it makes because the amount of potential feeder series increases considerably. You could suggest that National F3 and F4 as well as European Formula Renault 2.0 sit on a similar - if not lower tier than the US 'Road to Indy' championships: Star Mazda and Indy Lights. There is also Formula Toyota in New Zealand to take into account. The list goes on and on as soon as you start to integrate more national racing systems... none of which are really considered in this new super-points system.
In conclusion, here is another example of the powers that be rushing through a new concept. Yes at the very core of the idea it makes sense - striving for a stronger quality field and restricting inexperience - but the approach is too narrow and could easily exclude very capable drivers. If Mark Webber decided that the WEC wasn't working out too well, if Porsche constantly find themselves behind Audi and Toyota - a comeback would fall foul of the rules. Three consecutive 4th or lower placing in the WEC end of season results would only net the Australian 30 super-points which isn't enough. I suppose you could say that the whole system is a huge over-reaction to a perceived problem that didn't really exist. Verstappen is an anomaly, just as Raikkonen was when he moved from national Formula Renault here in the UK straight into a Sauber in 2001. Developing an entire scheme to prevent occasional anomalies doesn't make sense - even if the outcome does carry a hint of logic and rationality. I expect, and hope for changes and improvements to the system in due course altering the weighting of different classes and the expansion of the narrow selection of eligible series. The powers that be may have stumbled onto an idea which has merit but managed as per usual to screw the whole thing up...
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