Rain significantly hampered the 24 Hours of Daytona but in the green flag action we saw, Fernando Alonso was tremendous, Kamui Kobayashi was no slouch and those two along with Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande won overall in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac. Sebastián Saavedra had an accident while leading the LMP2 class but the subsequent red flag and the four-lap lead he had earned the #18 DragonSpeed Oreca-Gibson of Saavedra, Pastor Maldonado, Roberto González and Ryan Cullen the class victory. Richard Westbrook had to make a pit stop in the #67 Ford GT from the GTLM lead and a minute later the red flag came out. The green never returned and the #25 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing BMW of Connor De Phillippi, Augusto Farfus, Philipp Eng and Colton Herta won in GTLM. The #11 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini of Mirko Bortolotti, Christian Engelhart, Rik Breukers and Rolf Ineichen won in GTD for the second consecutive year.
Elsewhere in the world, Formula E was overshadowed in Chile. The World Rally Championship began its season in Monaco and a manufacture reached the century mark in an important statistical category. Jason Anderson got hurt in training during the week and will be out for a significant portion of the Supercross season. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Does IMSA Need to Change Its Points System?
The 24 Hours of Daytona is in the book. The race may stand above everything else that happens in the IMSA season it is a part of a championship and, while the winners might not be thinking about the championship lead they possess, those who left Daytona with a sour taste in their mouths see a mountain to climb with six weeks until they can begin clawing back the deficit in Sebring.
Not everyone is going to have a swell 24 hours. Somebody has to finish last. Somebody is going to lose a piston or have a suspension piece break. It can be a terrible start to a season but in some cases the start can be worse than it has to be.
In past seasons, the 24 Hours of Daytona has attracted many one-offs and those cars are awarded points in the championship. While a full-time car could have an early exit or severely fall behind the eight ball in Daytona, the blow to championship hopes could be significantly harsher if a full-time team comes out on top, which is very likely. In this case, the uphill battle may be insurmountable from the first race.
The best example off the top of my head is the 2007 Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype championship. Scott Pruett won the race in the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing Lexus while the #99 Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac of Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty finished 22nd. Gurney and Fogarty won seven of 14 races. Pruett won twice. Gurney and Fogarty won the title over Pruett by two points.
It isn't that Gurney and Fogarty's results in the other eight races were terrible. They ended the season with eight consecutive podium finishes. They finished ahead of Pruett in ten of 14 races but the one lingering thing in the championship was the Daytona result.
In 2015, Wayne Taylor Racing was disqualified from Daytona after a drive-time infringement and instead of finishing third, they finished 16th. That decision took 15 points away from Ricky and Jordan Taylor. The Taylor brothers won twice and had three runner-up finishes but despite this they finished fifth in the championship, 17 points off the champions João Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi.
This year's race saw the Mazdas finish ninth and 11th in class and now they are at the back of the championship having to fight uphill. Mazda isn't the first manufacture to have this happen. Someone has to be at the back after race one but the IMSA system puts a team like Mazda further behind than other systems.
The IMSA points system is slightly flawed. While the winner gets 35 points, second gets 32 points, third gets 30 points with fourth and fifth getting 28 points and 26 points respectively with sixth getting 25 points and it descends by a point from there. Every driver gets an additional point for participating in a race.
My biggest gripe with some points systems is not that it gives too few points to a race winner but it gives too many points to second place, third place and so on (looking at you NASCAR). If you want to make winning worth more the simplest solution is making finishing second worth less.
IMSA has had some close championship battles in recent years but the system plays into the hand of the championship leader. Last year, Colin Braun and Jon Bennett entered the finale trailing Eric Curran and Felipe Nasr by four points. A victory for Braun and Bennett would have won the championship on tiebreaker but second with Curran and Nasr in third would not have won Braun and Bennett that title.
In GT Daytona last year, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow won the title from Katherine Legge by four points with Legge finishing second, one position ahead of the two in the race. Legge finished ahead of those two in seven of 11 races. She didn't have a disastrous race but her worst result was eighth at Sebring with a seventh at Road America.
What if IMSA had a different points system and one that awarded second place less?
My system of choice has always been the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system that Formula One used for three decades.
In that case, Bennett and Braun win the Prototype championship with 41 points, 11 ahead of Jordan Taylor and Renger van der Zande and 12 points ahead of Curran, Nasr and Filipe Albuquerque, who all finished tied with the tiebreaker going to Albuquerque. Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya would be fifth on 23 points with João Barbosa on 22 points and Pipo Derani/Johannes van Overbeek and Hélio Castroneves/Ricky Taylor tied on 20 points with tiebreaker to Derani/van Overbeek.
There would have been a tie in GTLM with Antonio García/Jan Magnussen and Ryan Briscoe/Richard Westbrook tied on 43 points but the title would have gone to Briscoe and Westbrook on tiebreaker with the Ford duo having won three times while the Corvette pairing never stood on the top step. Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner would have been third on 37 points, one ahead of Joey Hand/Dirk Müller. Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor would have been tied on 34 points with Connor De Phillippi and Alexander Sims with the tiebreaker to De Phillippi/Sims with their two victories.
Like Prototypes, GTD would have finished in a tie. Sellers/Snow and Legge would all have 51 points. The tiebreaker would have gone to Legge, who had four runner-up finishes to Sellers/Snow's one. Álvaro Parente would have been third on 38 points, as he ran most of the season with Legge. Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating would have been fourth on 30 points with Cooper MacNeil on 28 points.
A major series hasn't used the 9-6-4-3-2-1 system in close to three decades now. I know that. Something a little more modern would be a more likely option and the FIA points system of 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 would make the most sense. Most series use it. WEC, ELMS and ALMS use it. It is common. People know it. It works. How would the system have changed IMSA at least for 2018?
Bennett and Braun still win the Prototype title with 120 points but only two points over Curran/Nasr and Taylor/van der Zande with the tiebreaker to Curran/Nasr. Albuquerque would be fourth on 109 points with Cameron/Montoya on 87 points, Castroneves/Taylor on 83 points and Goikhberg/Simpson on 80 points.
Briscoe and Westbrook would have won the GTLM title but not needed a tiebreaker, as the Ford drivers would have 155 points, three more than García/Magnussen, 15 points ahead of Gavin/Milner and 18 points ahead of Hand/Müller and Bamber/Vanthoor with the tiebreaker to Hand/Müller. De Phillippi/Sims would be sixth on 130 points.
The GTD title would have gone to Sellers/Snow with 175 points, six more than Legge. Parente would be third on 129 points with Bleekemolen/Keating on 123 points and MacNeil rounding out the top five on 114 points.
While the players would have remained the same in 2018, in a few cases the results would have been different. I think IMSA could do a better job of making sure winning a race was worth more and in this case it comes to diminishing finishing second. This change to the championship system would not diminish the series at all. The one thing it appears it would do is make getting a victory even more imperative to a championship push. Corvette would be looking back at 2018 quite differently with either of proposed systems above.
IMSA has a lot of things going for it and the racing is great. I am not sure a change is needed but one would not necessarily make things worse.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about the results of the 24 Hours of Daytona but did you know...
Sam Bird won the Santiago ePrix.
Cooper Webb won the Supercross race from Oakland, his second consecutive victory.
Marcus Armstrong won two of four Toyota Racing Series races from Hampton Downs. Artem Petrov won a make-up race after the rain-abbreviated Teretonga Park round. Liam Lawson won the third race of the weekend.
Sébastien Ogier won Rallye Monte-Carlo, Citroën's 100th World Rally Championship victory.
Jean-Baptiste Dubourg and Olivier Panis split the Andros Trophy races from Lans-en-Vercors.
Coming Up This Weekend
The Bathurst 12 Hour rounds out 60 hours of endurance racing in four weeks.
Toyota Racing Series will be in Taupo.
Supercross returns to Southern California and San Diego.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
