Feature: Scoring System Proves a Sore Point

To finish first, first you have to finish.

The old motor racing adage has rung true this season in both the rallying and Formula One, where a revised points system has favoured consistent finishing over raw speed.

The change has helped take both title battles down to the wire, boosting television viewing figures for Formula One and handing rallying the closest final in World Championship history.

Smaller teams, still spending large amounts of money, have benefited by being in the points more often. But there is also the possibility of a driver who has won no races being crowned champion and plenty of people feel that would be wrong.

That could have happened this weekend, had doctors not ruled out rallying's Richard Burns on Monday after he suffered a mystery illness and fainted while driving his Porsche on the motorway.

Briton Burns has not won since 2001, yet he led the Championship for much of the season and was five points off the leaders heading into the final Rally of Britain.

An unlikely, but not inconceivable, scenario could have seen Burns finish third in Wales on Sunday and still claim the crown had his three rivals made mistakes or been ruled out by misfortune.

Six wins was not enough to give Ferrari's Michael Schumacher respite from Kimi Raikkonen, with just one victory to his name, until the end of Formula One's final race.

Under the old 10-6-4-3-2-1 points format, Schumacher would have wrapped up his record sixth title before Suzuka but the new 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 system made him sweat all the way to Japan.

Unhappy Finn

Burns, who took his 2001 title with just one win, played the game to perfection.

Peugeot teammate Marcus Gronholm, the 2002 champion who can usually be relied on to go flat out for victory, could end the year with four wins but still cannot overhaul Burns' points tally.

"This new system is not correct," the Finn said even before the season had started. "The winner of a rally is not sufficiently rewarded. The winner is the winner so he should have a quantifiable advantage as far as the championship goes."

Gronholm drives a red car sponsored by Marlboro cigarettes and that is not the only thing he has in common with the folks at Ferrari.

"I think after a period we have got to see whether it is correct that a driver who only wins one race can compete for the Championship," said Ferrari team's technical director Ross Brawn last month.

"That was how it used to be, if you remember, and then it was changed because it was felt that wasn't the correct way."

Formula One has never had a champion without a win, although Finland's Keke Rosberg took just one victory in a 1982 season full of winners. But Raikkonen is a young lion who rattled Schumacher's cage, while Burns has been wilier and more willing to settle for points.

No Point

The irony is that the Briton was no fan of the changes either.

"To be honest, at the beginning of the year I was one of the people that didn't really see the point of it," Burns said in an interview last week. "And I would still stick with that because I think the old points system was better in as far as judging performance was concerned.

"But there isn't anything you can do about it, you're not going to change the points system so complaining about it isn't going to do any good. We've just got to be as intelligent as we can about it and get the most out of it that we can."

"I've started every rally this year wanting to win, but some rallies I've had to accept at the end of the first day that I'm not going to be able to," he added.

"I've tried to capitalise on my strategy for this year which has been to be at the finish of every single event. It's a very conservative strategy but it's nearly won me the Championship. We'll have to see how we start next year as to whether that's going to change."