Drivers championship after 4 races:
Code:
1 Paul TRACY 65
2 Bruno JUNQUEIRA 54
3 Michel JOURDAIN, Jr 42
4 Adrián FERNÁNDEZ 29
5 Patrick CARPENTIER 28
6 Sébastien BOURDAIS 27
7= Roberto MORENO 24
7= Mario DOMINGUEZ 24
9 Alexandre TAGLIANI 22
10= Jimmy VASSER 20
10= Mario HABERFELD 20
12= Darren MANNING 14
12= Oriol SERVIA 14
14= Tiago MONTEIRO 8
14= Patrick LEMARIÉ 8
16 Ryan HUNTER-REAY 7
17 Joël CAMATHIAS 6
18 Alex YOONG 4
Despite winning 3 out of 4 races Tracy's lead is down to just 11 points (over Bruno who has no wins) as a result of retiring from the Brands Hatch race.
Compare the above with how the points table would look if the points system used by F1 until last year (10-6-4-3-2-1) was used:
Code:
1 Paul TRACY 30
2 Bruno JUNQUEIRA 16
3 Michel JOURDAIN, Jr 13
4 Sébastien BOURDAIS 10
5 Adrián FERNÁNDEZ 9
6 Mario DOMINGUEZ 6
7= Alexandre TAGLIANI 4
7= Jimmy VASSER 4
9= Oriol SERVIA 3
9= Mario HABERFELD 3
9= Patrick CARPENTIER 3
9= Roberto MORENO 3
Thus PT would, despite retiring yesterday, still lead the championship by a margin more than 1 race win.
There has been plenty of debate in F1 (and WRC etc) with regard to the changing of their points system - that it doesn't put as much of a premium on winning races as it should. The same argument applies to CART and its points system; PT could win more races than any of his rivals and yet lose the title to one of them.
Any thoughts?