Vettel flays F1 points change overhaul

Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel has branded as ‘absurd’ a rule change to award double points at the final race of the Formula One season.

The 26-year-old German Red Bull driver, who won the world title this year with three races of the season left, said on Tuesday that the double points measure would disadvantage those drivers who worked hard to accumulate points throughout the year.

“You can hardly imagine that on the last match of the Bundesliga season, matches are suddenly worth twice as many points,” Vettel said of the German football league in an interview with Germany’s Sport Bild magazine

“It’s absurd and it punishes the drivers who have worked hard through the whole season.

“I value the old traditions in Formula One and don’t understand this rule.”

The winner of next year’s Abu Dhabi Grand prix gets 50 points and not 25.

Had the new plan been in place for the past few years, the four-times world champion would not have claimed the
championship in 2012.

Instead, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso would have been crowned world champion.

‘Gimmick’

“F1 demeans itself with double points gimmick,” declared a headline on the F1 Fanatic website, whose poll of more than 700 members showed 90 percent opposed to the idea.

Sport Bild quoted Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko as saying his team had been against the change but were overruled.

The Austrian said that an initial proposal had been to award double points for the last four races.

The FIA said the rule change would maximise focus on the championship until the end of the campaign.

But others questioned the need for any such tweak, including television commentator Martin Brundle.

“Double points for the last F1 GP of the season looks like an answer to a question nobody was asking,” the former grand prix racer wrote on the microblogging site Twitter. 

“Devalues the  other races too.”