F1's New Title Process Full of Flaws

The world's most popular form of racing -- in terms of global fans and ratings -- announced this week a new system to crown its champion in 2009 that certainly leaves a lot to desire.

That series, the FIA Formula One World Championship won last year by British driver Lewis Hamilton, officially adopted a new drivers championship rulebook that gives the season-ending trophy to the driver with the most race wins.

Sure, it looks like a system that will make racing exciting, but I can't help but look at all of the competition problems it will expose.

I'll grant to you that the race for a win will now take on an inherently larger role -- especially early in the season. Getting out of the box strong and nabbing a race win or two will setup a driver to be in immediate contention for the championship even if there are few mild stumbles in the middle of the season.

What happens, say, if Hamilton wins six of the first seven races like 7-time retired champ Michael Schumacher did in 1994 and 2004? With a 17-race schedule, such a title chase would be virtually over early in the season. Talk about a ratings nightmare -- even if 2 drivers evenly split the final races.

On the flip side, the system seems to create a nice run for each race win, but when a driver is worried about picking up another spot deep in field in the final laps, are points that simply go for a manufacturer's title really that big of a deal? And more importantly, do fans watching on TV care if Felipe Massa passes Robert Kubica for a position that doesn't affect the championship?

I can't say I'd be too excited about it, but rather just watching the leader to see if he makes a mistake or suffers a mechanical issue in the final laps. I'd also think such a system would make the sponsorship of a team that challenges for Top-15s instead of wins drop significantly in value because the focus of race will solely be on the winner -- though the coverage of back runners has long been an issue of television controversy.

And of course, I won't even get into the possibilities of a driver getting wrecked by another driver in an all-too-common first-turn crash. Those incidents always seem to snare a driver that had practiced well during the weekend and was in position to possibly win the race.

This will definitely cause teams to scrutinize their pitting strategy with a fine tooth comb because of how many ramifications a well-timed or an ill-timed pit stop can have on a driver's finish. That, though, leads down the alley of how little on-track competition actually exists in the series that we won't tackle today.

Had this been applied to NASCAR, Carl Edwards would have won last year's championship and other recent champions would have been Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle and Ryan Newman. Would you consider each of those names -- I'd argue for Edwards and likely Biffle -- to be champions after their respective seasons that left them at the top of the win heap?

NASCAR's point system isn't perfect and, yes, it needs to place more emphasis on winning. But to base a championship solely on a team taking a few races and potentially not finishing more seems ludicrous.