Opinion: Kevin Turner

The revival of a point for fastest lap was done with good intentions – and we all know the adage that states where they lead. The concept should be consigned to history

“It was inevitable that it would change the way the teams went about their business”

It’s been a flawed concept from the start, but there’s now enough evidence to say for sure: Formula 1’s point for the fastest lap is a bad idea. Fastest lap statistics have always been fraught; not quite pointless, but requiring lots of caveats. For example, the fact that arch-rivals Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna scored 41 and 19 fastest laps respectively tells us something about their different approaches to a race weekend, but is merely one part of a much bigger picture.

Similarly, Kimi Raikkonen sits third in the all-time fastest laps list. Partly that’s thanks to his genuine speed at Mclaren, but more than half of his tally of 46 were scored at Ferrari, often late on in races when they were largely irrelevant to the grand prix.

So why did F1 reintroduce the point for fastest lap in 2019, 60 years after it was last part of the championship scoring system?

When the move was announced in March 2019, F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn said:“together with the FIA we have been committed to evaluating ideas and solutions that can improve the show while maintaining the integrity of our sport. How many times have we heard the drivers on the radio ask the team about who holds the fastest lap? Now it will no longer be only a matter of record and prestige, but there will be a concrete motivation that will make the final part of the race even more interesting.”

It wasn’t the worst idea in the world, but it was inevitable that it would change the way the teams went about their business. And perhaps the most obvious example of that was at the recent Portuguese Grand Prix, when two of the top three made late, extra stops in an effort to secure the bonus point.

Max Verstappen set the quickest lap, only to lose out due to track limits, handing the point to Valtteri Bottas. Leader Lewis Hamilton, who had defeated his two rivals and had recorded the quickest tour until Sergio Perez made his late (but planned) stop, sensibly decided not to risk another tyre change. Pretty much the same thing happened in the Spanish GP a week later.

This is not to criticise those who made those stops. It makes sense for them to chase the extra point if the gaps behind are big enough. But surely one of the F1 ideals is that it’s meritocratic.

The fastest lap often doesn’t go to the driver who deserves it. Thanks to the way races evolve and the need to look after the cars in the past, or‘turn them down’now, that’s always been the case, but the current situation exacerbates it.

It is sometimes hard to determine when a late stop is purely aimed at gaining the fastest lap, but generally it is possible to make a call. Of the 42 GPS that have been held since the point returned, 16 FLS have been taken by a driver who made a late stop probably for that purpose. And that doesn’t count another half a dozen or so set by drivers making late stops for other reasons.

That’s not to say that all of the late-stopping fastest lap-setters were undeserving. In the 2020 Hungarian GP, Hamilton was so dominant that he was able to make a late stop, grab fastest lap and still win. But that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Both of Pierre Gasly’s fastest laps for Red Bull came because he wasn’t able to keep pace with the frontrunners, but was far enough ahead of the pack to make a stop. In other words, he was rewarded for not doing a very good job.

You could argue that it’s simply become another part of the game, but it tends to hinder the drivers most likely to deserve the point. That doesn’t seem an entirely fair or pure way to try to keep a championship close, which seems to counter Brawn’s point about“integrity”.

Only drivers who finish in the top 10 score the point too. Presumably this is to stop those out of the points from stopping and going for the point. But it can also deny genuine fastest lapsetters. Bottas scored a legitimate fastest lap at the 2019 Brazilian GP but then retired, becoming one of only two drivers (the other being Kevin Magnussen in Singapore the same year) since the start of 2019 not to get a point, despite the fastest lap on their CV.

And imagine if someone were to lose a race because of a problem experienced during an extra,‘fastest lap’pitstop. Dramatic yes, but what F1 should be about? Highly debatable.

Even worse, though, is that it has the potential to change the outcome of the world championship. Stirling Moss misread his pitboard while dominating the 1958 Portuguese GP. He therefore didn’t respond to title rival Mike Hawthorn’s fastest lap. At the end of the year, Moss had four wins to Hawthorn’s one, but lost the championship by a single point in a result that all but the most diehard Hawthorn fans consider one of the great F1 injustices.

The true test of speed comes in qualifying, for which the reward is a favourable grid position. The elements that are needed for a race victory are much more complex. Fastest laps fall awkwardly between the two.

The point for fastest lap was an interesting experiment.

But it doesn’t reward those it should, skews the troubled statistic even further, and can create scenes that are more farcical than interesting at the end of a GP. Time for it to go.