Baku sprint race boredom adds to F1's ideas that flopped

The Briton had been locked in a season-long battle with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg but emerged the victor more often than not, securing ten race victories and a comfortable 17-point lead heading into the final race. Under the standard scoring system, Hamilton would have to finish no lower than sixth in order to be crowned champion but the double points reward meant he now had to finish at least third to guarantee the title.

The FIA described the bumper points payout as a way to “maximise focus on the championship until the end of the campaign” — by reducing the likelihood of the title being decided before the finale — but it made the final standing more of a lottery.

This was in a season that was Hamilton’s finest: he stood on the podium in every race that he finished and was, in the eyes of many, the rightful champion. Controversy was avoided when he won the race, earning the biggest single weekend points haul in F1 history (50), whilst Rosberg struggled with a technical fault that and finished 14th.

Perhaps thankfully, the system had little effect on either championship and was dropped immediately after the 2014 season.

2005: tyre changes banned

Ferrari’s dominance in the hands of Michael Schumacher forced F1 to try and make some radical changes in 2005, which only ended in confusion and chaos.

The team’s close partnership with Bridgestone — involving 15,500 miles of tyre development testing each year — had delivered rubber that was quicker but less durable than the Michelin alternatives used by the likes of McLaren, Williams and Toyota. The pace advantage meant that its limited lifespan was rarely a problem.

But it did give F1 a straightforward route to level the playing field. In 2005, it limited teams to a single set of tyres for qualifying and the race, only permitting changes when it started to rain, if there was a puncture or if tyres developed bad flat spots.

The strategy was effective and Ferrari failed to reach the top step of the podium during the first eight races. However, the racing itself was no more exciting.

Obvious safety concerns arose throughout the season as drivers would often have to endure tyres overheating or suffering massive blowouts, and the rule exacerbated the embarrassing situation that F1 found itself in at the 2005 US Grand Prix,

After Michelin announced it could only guarantee drivers’ safety for 10 of the 75 laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 14 cars were forced to watch from the pit-lane as the remaining runners lined up on the grid – Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi being the only teams to run the slower Bridgestone tyres. Racing against perennial back markers, Schumacher marched to victory, followed closely by team-mate Rubens Barrichello.

US F1 fans were rightfully outraged, and tyre changes were re-introduced for the 2006 season — to Michelin’s dismay.

2005: Aggregate qualifying

As perhaps F1’s most confusing idea to date, aggregate qualifying during the 2005 season aimed to introduce an element of unpredictability to race weekends, but ultimately just left most people with nothing to talk about.

The premise was that drivers would compete in two single-lap qualifying sessions: one on Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday morning. During the first session, cars were raced in low-fuel qualifying trim, producing the fastest laps of the weekend, before completing one more lap on Sunday morning with a race full of fuel in the tank. An aggregate time would then be taken using the two times and that would then set the grid for the grand prix.

The idea was met with a large amount of doubt from drivers and fans and effectively eliminated any drama from Saturday’s faster qualifying session. It was dropped after just six races in favour of a simpler single-lap elimination format, in which drivers would set one lap in race time on Saturday afternoon – the order determined by the result of the previous race.

Both systems were abandoned for the 2006 season, which introduced the three-part qualifying format that is still used in F1 today.

2006: Fuel credit qualifying

The introduction of the three-part qualifying session in 2006 was an instant success, mainly due to its ability to produce upsets or allow the likes of Michael Schumacher or Fernando Alonso to produce a thunderous one-lap wonder. But it wasn’t without its flaws.

In its early iterations, drivers’ were forced to compete in Q3 using their starting fuel loads, meaning drivers would often limit themselves to just one lap each in order to preserve the most fuel possible for Sunday’s grand prix.

In order to force more cars out on track, the FIA developed a fuel credit system, so that for every lap that was completed during they got some fuel back. But instead of creating more action, it instead resulted in a ‘fuel burning phase’ which would see every driver take to the track when Q3 first started and lap at a reduced speed to earn fuel back for the race. So instead of a shootout for pole, spectators were instead forced to watch a glorified parade until qualifying’s final moments.

The fuel credit system was finally dropped in 2008 and tweaked so that teams could no longer add fuel after Q3 – leading to further critiques that qualifying was now about who could hang on to the most fuel instead of who would claim pole position.

1950-1990: Worst results dropped

Consistency has often been the key to success in F1, but for the World Championship’s first 40 years of existence, its point system permitted an off-weekend — or several.

In an attempt to negate reliability issues and enable drivers to skip races altogether, a certain number of results were discounted from the final standings, eliminating low-scoring races and retirements. This often led to mass confusion, as drivers wouldn’t actually know where they stood in the championship until the final race of the season when all the results were tabulated.

The most notorious example of this scoring system came in 1988, when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost battled across a 16-race season. Prost was the more consistent, scoring 105 points across the season compared to Senna’s 94, with the Brazilian critically failing to finish three races and finishing sixth in Portugal.

However, only their 11 best results counted towards the championship. Prost dropped two DNFs and three second-place finishes, while Senna dropped the three races he failed to finish in, as well as a sixth and fourth place. With eight wins to Prost’s seven, Senna was declared champion.

The same system cost Prost the title again in 1990, and was dropped the following year for the modern point scoring set-up that takes driver’s results from every race over the course of a season.

2016: Elimination qualifying

Before the addition of sprint qualifying, F1’s latest attempt to spice up its Saturdays came in 2016 when it introduced elimination qualifying.

With crowd entertainment once again taking precedence, the entire field took part in the same three-part qualifying format – but now with a slight twist. After seven minutes of on-track time, the slowest driver would be eliminated every 90 seconds until the session ended, forcing drivers to produce fast lap times consistently without making any errors.

Bizarrely it had a reverse effect, with cars retiring themselves to the garage after a single lap to preserve tyres, leaving spectators to gawp at a mostly empty track. Struggling to adapt to the new system, some drivers were also randomly eliminated after failing to time their run correctly, causing them to be knocked out of qualifying whilst halfway through a flying lap.

The format made its debut for the season opener in Australia. Despite a torrent of negative feedback, it reappeared for the following race in Bahrain – where Ferrari helped to ensure F1’s newest idea wouldn’t reappear.

With just three minutes remaining in Q3 – a time usually reserved for F1’s fastest to battle for pole position – both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen got out of their cars and walked to weighing scales in order to preserve their tyres, leaving Mercedes to battle for pole unopposed.

The idea was scrapped for the rest of the season and F1 returned to its regular three-part qualifying format.