What would have happened if the F1 points system hadn't changed?

All the figures here are from this article in GPUpdate (in spanish)

The 2010 championship ended this way:
Drivers'
1. Sebastian Vettel – 256
2. Fernando Alonso – 252
3. Mark Webber – 242
4. Lewis Hamilton – 240
5. Jenson Button – 214
6. Felipe Massa – 144
7. Nico Rosberg – 142
8. Robert Kubica – 136
9. Michael Schumacher – 72
10. Rubens Barrichello – 47
11. Adrian Sutil – 47
12. Kamui Kobayashi – 32
13. Vitaly Petrov – 27
14. Nico Hülkenberg – 22
15. Vitantonio Liuzzi – 21
16. Sébastien Buemi – 8
17. Pedro de la Rosa – 6
18. Nick Heidfeld – 6
19. Jaime Alguersuari – 5

Constructors'
1. Red Bull-Renault – 498
2. McLaren-Mercedes – 454
3. Ferrari – 396
4. Mercedes GP – 214
5. Renault – 163
6. Williams-Cosworth – 69
7. Force India-Mercedes – 68
8. Sauber-Ferrari – 44
9. Toro Rosso-Ferrari – 13
10. Lotus-Cosworth – 0
11. Hispania-Cosworth – 0
12. Virgin-Cosworth – 0

With the previous point system (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1) things wouldn't be so different
Drivers'
1. Sebastian Vettel – 104
2. Fernando Alonso – 101
3. Lewis Hamilton – 100
4. Mark Webber – 97
5. Jenson Button – 87
6. Felipe Massa – 57
7. Nico Rosberg – 55
8. Robert Kubica – 52
9. Michael Schumacher – 25
10. Rubens Barrichello – 15
11. Adrian Sutil – 15
12. Kamui Kobayashi – 9
13. Vitaly Petrov – 9
14. Nico Hülkenberg – 6
15. Vitantonio Liuzzi – 5
16. Pedro de la Rosa 2
17. Sébastien Buemi - 1
18. Nick Heidfeld – 1

Major changes: Hamilton and Webber would switch places, Barrichello and Sutil would still be 10th and 11th, De la Rosa would be ahead of Buemi and would have scored more points than Heidfeld and Alguersuari wouldn't have any points.

Constructors'
1. Red Bull-Renault – 201
2. McLaren-Mercedes – 187
3. Ferrari – 158
4. Mercedes GP – 80
5. Renault – 61
6. Williams-Cosworth – 21
7. Force India-Mercedes – 20
8. Sauber-Ferrari – 12
9. Toro Rosso-Ferrari – 1
10. Lotus-Cosworth – 0
11. Hispania Cosworth – 0
12. Virgin-Cosworth – 0

Major changes: Williams would still be ahead of Force India and STR would have the lowest score since they started in 2006

With the 1991-2002 point system (10-6-4-3-2-1) the championship would also be similar:
Drivers'
1. Sebastian Vettel – 84
2. Fernando Alonso – 81
3. Mark Webber – 76
4. Lewis Hamilton – 76
5. Jenson Button – 61
6. Felipe Massa – 34
7. Nico Rosberg – 28
8. Robert Kubica – 26
9. Michael Schumacher – 11
10. Rubens Barrichello – 6
11. Adrian Sutil – 5
12. Vitaly Petrov – 3
13. Kamui Kobayashi – 1
14. Nico Hülkenberg – 1
15. Vitantonio Liuzzi – 1

Major Changes: Only nine drivers would score more than ten points, Hamilton would tie with Webber but Hamilton won 3 races and Webber won 4, Barrichello would be ahead of Sutil, Petrov would be ahead of Kobayashi and Buemi, De la Rosa, Heidfeld and Alguersuari would not score.

Constructors'
1. Red Bull-Renault – 160
2. McLaren-Mercedes – 137
3. Ferrari – 115
4. Mercedes GP – 39
5. Renault – 29
6. Williams-Cosworth – 7
7. Force India-Mercedes – 6
8. Sauber-Ferrari – 1
9. Toro Rosso-Ferrari – 0
10. Lotus-Cosworth – 0
11. Hispania-Cosworth – 0
12. Virgin-Cosworth – 0

Major Changes: Williams would still be ahead of Force India, Sauber would have only one point (Kobayashi's) and STR would not score.

And with Bernie's stupid revolutionary Medal System?
1. Sebastian Vettel – 5 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze but 3 fourth places
2. Fernando Alonso – 5 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze but 2 fourth places
3. Mark Webber – 4 gold
4. Lewis Hamilton – 3 gold
5. Jenson Button – 2 gold

Interesting, isn't it?



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

So in the end the scoring system only really helps those at the lower end of the grid to actually get some points.

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Which was the very reason the points system was changed.

Says something though when you think that in 1991 with the old system, 24 separate drivers still managed to score points that year.

but it was different, all cars in 80s and first 90s had a very poor reliability... indeed, in the 80s usually the races ended with no more than 10 cars (and in hockenheim with no more tha 5 or 6 due to turbo problems). lower cars then reached 5th or 6th place because all the cars ahead of them had broken. today is hard to see an engine failure, a suspension failure, or whatever so the fastest cars in qualy end the race without problems

You had tyre wars too, so some circuits suited tyres better than others, and you had cars which were better in qualifying than they could be in the race, so there'd be big speed differences between qualifying and races - Pirelli obviously spring straight to mind.

Hungary 97 is probably one of the biggest supporters of that Gav aswell...

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL