After the confusion of Verstappen’s title in Japan, the regulation will change
After the confusion surrounding Max Verstappen's title win at the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix, the FIA will work on modifying the regulations. There will be a discussion about the distance covered during the race.
Max Verstappen won his second F1 title at Suzuka last year in complete confusion. A late announcement due to the five-second penalty imposed after the race on his runner-up Charles Leclerc for cutting the chicane and gaining an advantage on the last lap.
The demotion of Leclerc to third place has given Verstappen an insurmountable lead in the standings, but even the Red Bull driver wasn’t certain of the situation because he and his team had the impression that not all the points were going to be awarded due to the shortened race.
A distribution of points based on the distance travelled.
Interrogations arose due to the regulatory changes implemented after the fiasco of the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix. New rules had been formulated regarding the distance requirements for point distribution. From now on, the winner of a race who covers less than 25% of the race distance would receive six points. For distances between 25% and 50%, the winner would obtain 13 points, while for races exceeding 50% but remaining below 75%, 19 points would be awarded. Finally, anything above 75% would follow the standard scoring system.
Based on this new scale, during the Japanese Grand Prix which took place over 28 laps, just over 52% of the total distance, most observers deduced that Verstappen would earn 19 points for his victory, Sergio Perez would get 14 points for second place, and Leclerc would receive 12 points for third place.
However, the exact wording of the FIA rules stated that points would only be limited for suspended races that were not restarted. That is why all the points were awarded in Japan when he crossed the finish line after three hours.
“(D) You said that Japan was controversial (sic) – no. We blamed the FIA, but it’s not the FIA who made the rules, it’s the teams who made the rules, and we implemented them (F),” he countered to the Austrian director.
The drafting of the regulations being the responsibility of the FIA, the new director Steve Nielsen will soon modify the content in preparation for the 2023 season, affirmed the president of the Federation.
