Why F1 must get rid of the point for fastest lap
Opinion: It’s been a flawed concept since its reintroduction to Formula 1 in 2019. But with every passing week, the evidence mounts to underline that awarding a point for the fastest lap is a bad idea and should be dropped
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Fastest lap statistics have always been fraught. Not quite pointless (pun intended) but requiring lots of caveats. For example, the fact 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 small 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.
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