List of Formula One World Championship pointscoring systems
This is a list of pointscoring systems used to determine the outcome of the FIA World Drivers' and Constructors' Championships since 1950. The Championships are awarded to the driver and constructor who accumulate the most championship points over the course of the Championship season.
In some seasons, only a certain number of a driver's best results were counted towards the World Championship. This was most significant in 1988, when McLaren drivers Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna were dominant. Prost finished 14 races in either first or second, retiring from the other two, while Senna won 8 races to Prost's 7, meaning that he only needed 3 further 2nd places to secure the championship irrespective of Prost's other results. This resulted in the anomaly that Prost took a record number of points, yet was not champion. The current system was introduced for the 2003 season, and was designed to allow more teams and drivers to score points regularly, whilst the reduced gap in points between the positions means that reliability is usually more important than the final position.
The most dominant Drivers' Champion in terms of points scored is Jim Clark, who scored the maximum of 54 points (6 wins) in both 1963 and 1965. In recent times, Michael Schumacher finished on the podium in every race of the 2002 season to score 144 of a maximum 170 points. The most dominant Constructors' Champion in recent times was McLaren in 1988, scoring 199 of a maximum 240 points and finishing 134 points ahead of their nearest rival.
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Pointscoring systems
| Seasons | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | Fastest Lap | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950–1953 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4
The Constructors' World Championship was not awarded from 1950 to 1957.Points for shared drives were shared equally between the drivers, regardless of how many laps each driver completed. | ||||
| 1954 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | In the 1954 British Grand Prix, seven drivers set the same fastest lap time, and each received 0.143 of a point. | |||
| 1955–1957 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | Drivers who shared more than one car in a race only received points for their highest finish. Points for shared drivers were shared equally between the drivers, unless one driver was deemed to have completed "insufficient distance". Points were shared equally between drivers who set the same fastest lap time.Formula 2 cars raced with Formula One cars in the following Grands Prix, but were ineligible for World Championship points. | |||
| 1958 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | Points were no longer awarded for shared race drives. Only the highest-scoring driver for each constructor at each race were counted towards the Constructors' Championship. | |||
| 1959 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | ||||
| 1960 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||||
| 1961–1962 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | ||||
| 1963–1964 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||||
| 1965 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||||
| 1966 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 5 | Drivers who were not classified (ie did not complete a specified amount of race distance) did not score points, even if they finished in the top 6. | |||
| 1967 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 (5 from first 6, 4 from last 5) |
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| 1968 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 10 (5 from first 6, 5 from last 6) |
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| 1969 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 (5 from first 6, 4 from last 5) |
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| 1970 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 (6 from first 7, 5 from last 6) |
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| 1971 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 (5 from first 6, 4 from last 5) |
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| 1972 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 10 (5 from first 6, 5 from last 6) |
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| 1973–1974 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 13 (7 from first 8, 6 from last 7) |
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| 1975 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 12 (7 from first 8, 5 from last 6) |
Half points were awarded for races stopped before half-distance was completed. | |||
| 1976–1978 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 14 (7 from first 8, 7 from last 8) |
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| 1979–1980 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 (4 from first 7, 4 from last 8) |
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| 1981–1984 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | All | Second drivers of teams that officially entered only one car were not eligible for points. This affected Jo Gartner (Osella) and Gerhard Berger (ATS), who finished fifth and sixth at the 1984 Italian Grand Prix and Yannick Dalmas (Larrousse) who finished fifth at the 1987 Australian Grand Prix. Their points were not redistributed. | |||
| 1985–1990 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 11 | Teams that only entered one car did not score points for their second driver. | |||
| 1991–2002 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | All | ||||
| 2003– | 10 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | All |