How F1 can get races like Le Mans and the Indy 500

Points make prizes has become the defining mantra of motorsport. But over the past month, it has been races that transcend the championships they are part of that have stolen the headlines in the racing world.

Nobody watched in amazement as the LMP1 cars dropped like flies in the Le Mans 24 Hours because there were double World Endurance Championship points available. And the massive interest in Fernando Alonso and the Indianapolis 500, not to mention the vast interest in the race as a whole in the United States in particular, had nothing to do with the 47 points he accrued for qualifying fifth and being classified 24th.

So, it's fair to question the dependency on championships in racing, whereby the haul of points on offer for winning is in some ways more important than the victory itself, when it comes to exciting and engaging the fanbase. It's races like Le Mans, Indy, the Daytona 500 and the Bathurst 1000 that really capture the imagination.

An important caveat to all this is that using these outlier races as the starting point for looking into this topic is fraught with danger. They have long histories and are firmly entrenched in the consciousness not just of racing fans, but those who would never even consider watching a regular IndyCar or sportscar race. It's impossible to have a full calendar of races of that profile.

But it does underline that there is an appetite for races and events with their own identity and character. And, as a rule, championships tend to subsume such identity through the need for homogenisation.

A seemingly petty example of this is the World Rally Championship, where even the evocative names of events such as the 1000 Lakes and the Acropolis Rally were relegated to secondary status behind Rally Finland and Rally Greece. More prosaically descriptive perhaps, but identikit names drain the flavour.

F1 lacks a blue riband race in the vein of Indy or Le Mans. The closest is the Monaco Grand Prix, which has the history and transcends motorsport in terms of public interest. But while it has a little of the vibe of a standalone event, beyond the circuit itself and the lack of Friday running, it feels much the same as the other races on the calendar.

For some years now, there has been endless talk about modifying the race format. And with F1's new commercial rights holders reviewing every aspect of grand prix racing, there is certainly scope for modifications. But underpinning all of this discussion is seemingly the belief that there can only be one format.

Why does every single F1 race have to be run to the same format? The same question might be asked of WEC, where the other eight rounds on the calendar are all run over six hours and therefore have little to distinguish between them.

This is where championships become a problem, with the desire to offer equal weight in terms of the competition and reward. There's an unvoiced assumption that, with the exception of those events privileged by history, all things must be equal. It's no coincidence that the only race with a distinctive character that has become a minor classic in the past couple of decades is Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.

But why shouldn't F1 look at having a range of race formats? Certainly, have a default structure, because there won't be enough viable formats for each event to have a different one and fans will want some kind of stability and predictability. But why not consider adding one double-header event with qualifying and the race on the same day, Detroit IndyCar-style? And have another event with a series of heats building to a final?

Some thought would have to be put into how to do this in the most sensible way, but the acid test is whether a race gets talked about more because of it. What if the Russian Grand Prix was 'the one with the heats' rather than just another race on a track that few remember?

This doesn't mean throw countless stupid formats at F1 in the hope that some stick. Perhaps just decide that a few races will have a modified format, in consultation with the promoters who will have a good idea of what could work for their fanbases, and create some viable, sensible formats that will change the racing without making it gimmicky.

This is where the mindset created by championships and homogenisation becomes counter-productive. A degree of variety will counteract the fatigue, encourage fans who might be bored by the same shape and structure recurring year after year to stay tuned in and potentially also help to refine a way of racing that could become the new baseline because it works so well.

There are some who would argue against championships in their entirety, but it's clear that they do serve a critical purpose in providing a narrative context. The Alain Prost/Ayrton Senna collisions at Suzuka in 1989 and '90 would mean nothing without the framework provided by the world championship, they would just be two big-name drivers colliding with each other.

And without the title on the line, would those iconic moments in F1's history have even happened in the first place?

Similarly, the two clashes under the safety car between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel would not mean as much without the backdrop of the world title fight. So, it would be ridiculous to suggest that racing can go back to its early days of standalone and often barely even loosely affiliated races.

It's common for the initial significance of the world championship in what might be termed its 'current' form to be downplayed. There was a world championship prior to that in the mid-1920s. Run by the Association des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR), which later become the FIA, it's generally treated as little more than a footnote in grand prix history.

After the outbreak of the Second World War interrupted discussions to turn the European Championship of the 1930s into a World Championship, it wasn't until 1950 that it finally came to pass.

One of the key figures in this was Antonio Brivio, Marquis Sforza, an Olympic bobsledder who was also a racing driver of some ability whose results were compromised by staying loyal to Italian machinery.

History is a little patchy on the creation of the world championship, but Italy had a big influence so Brivio has to take at least a good chunk of the credit for this. This, of course, was at a time when grand prix racing was still in its slightly ramshackle post-Second World War days.

The calendar comprised the British, Swiss, French, Belgian and Italian Grands Prix, plus the Indianapolis 500 that stayed on the calendar from 1950-1960, had little to do with grand prix racing and continues to mess up official statistics to this day. And while Autosport's review of the 1950 grand prix season only mentioned the fact Giuseppe Farina had won the world championship in passing, there was no doubt of its importance.

After all, Alfa Romeo had withdrawn from grand prix racing early in 1949 after losing drivers Jean-Pierre Wimille, Achille Varzi and Count Carlo Trossi, but it swiftly returned. While the need to promote the new Alfa 1900 road car played a role in this, the world championship also offered a great promotional platform and it was unconscionable that the upstart former Alfa Romeo employee Enzo Ferrari's new constructor could be allowed to win the world championship.

It also played a part in Mercedes making a subsequent return, albeit with a lag in the system after the pre-war cars brought out of mothballs briefly in 1951 proved not to be so effective on twistier tracks.

So it would be a mistake to suggest nobody cared about the world championship during this period. Even though the calendars were far more limited and there was still a wide range on non-championship races, the existence of this title did make a difference. And that has become more and more important over the years.

But over time, the world championship has become all-encompassing. The last top-line F1 race for which points were not awarded was the 1983 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. It's telling that only 13 cars competed, with the focus firmly on the 15-championship rounds as Bernie Ecclestone overhauled F1 and moulded it into what it is today.

That was necessary at the time, but this is also what has led to the unintended consequence of things becoming too rigid in many championships. There are obviously exceptions, too many to be listed here, but with so much motorsport happening it's vital to find ways to make your category stand out and be distinctive. Otherwise, it risks becoming amorphous and too lacking in character.

Of course, safety standards must always be maintained and it would be foolhardy to introduce unusual races just for the sake of it. The German Formula 3 Championship introduced an oval race in the last decade for which the cars simply weren't designed for it in terms of safety and it was soon dropped.

So, a message to those putting together championships - loosen up a little. Consider alternative formats, be willing to try things that create a different kind of race while still maintaining the character and upholding the core values of your category.

While you're never going to get a whole year of Le Mans 24 Hours or Indy 500s, that might be a way to open the doors to introducing a few more classic races that seize the public's attention.

Championships are a good thing. But when a championship becomes and end in itself rather than a means to an end, that's when the shackles have to be loosened a little.