u/armchairracingdriver

In the 1979 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder - the sixth of 15 races that year - Jody Scheckter took victory after Alan Jones broke down while leading just after half distance, while Gilles Villeneuve ran out of fuel on the final lap while running third in his bid to recover from being the innocent victim of a lap two collision between Scheckter and Clay Regazzoni. 

Scheckter went on to beat Villeneuve to the title with two races to spare at Monza, when Villeneuve obeyed orders not to fight his Ferrari team leader. Jones had been eliminated from title contention before that race. However, had Jones or Villeneuve finished in the positions they had occupied at Zolder, they would have beaten Scheckter to the world title. 

How were both of these outcomes possible? Prior to 1991, only a set number of a driver’s best results counted towards the world championship. From 1967-80, there was a split-season version of this format, in which a set number of scoring races from each half of the season counted towards the championship. In every season from 67 to 90 - except 79 - the lowest figure of counting races was 66.6%, and the lowest under the split format was 71.4%.

In 1979, only four races from each half of the season - 53.3% of all races - counted towards the championship. Assuming my maths is correct, this meant the following…

• If Jones had won at Zolder, or if Villeneuve had finished third, Scheckter would have lost the world title despite scoring the highest number of total points.
• Despite scoring at eight races, only seven of Villeneuve’s scores counted. 
• Jones had two non-driver error DNFs while leading, at Zolder and Silverstone. He had a third while fighting for the lead at Watkins Glen. Had Jones gone on to win at Zolder, the resulting 12-point swing relative to Scheckter would have made him world champion. Had Jones gone on to win either or both of Silverstone and Watkins Glen, he would have added zero points to his season tally. 
• Jones was mathematically eliminated from title contention after the Dutch GP, while Villeneuve was not, despite Jones having more points.
• Entering the Italian GP - with 27 total points possible from the final three races - Scheckter and Laffite could score a maximum of 19 points. Villeneuve could score 21. Jones could only score six. 
• In the second half of the season, it was possible for two drivers to score a 100% points tally. This is the only time this was possible in F1 since 1951-53. In two of those years, the only way it was possible was for one of the two drivers to win the Indy 500, while the third was the only year in which fewer than 50% of races counted.

While the 1981-90 format is often criticised for not making Prost the 88 champion when he scored more total points than Senna, the modus operandi of this format is clear. It existed predominantly to ensure that a contender with an unusually reliable car wouldn’t become world champion solely on the basis of reliability. This worked every year except 88, as McLaren only suffering two defacto mechanical failures from 32 combined starts was completely beyond the realms of precedent and expectation. The system was not inherently flawed, it was a logical idea that fell victim to an extreme set of circumstances.

The 1979 system simply cannot be defended in the same way. It’s modus operandi is completely unclear…

• If it sought to reward consistency at various stages of the season, why was it possible for Jones to become champion while only scoring twice in the first seven races? 
• If it sought to reward strong results, why was Villeneuve the only driver (other than Prost in 1988) to drop a second place finish since 1963? 
• If it sought to reward consistency over the season, why did it make Scheckter have to drop four(!) scores, while also making him champion with two races to spare anyway? 
• If it sought to increase the value of later races in the season, it did the exact opposite. It meant Villeneuve’s erratic Spanish GP meant everything, but his thrashing of his car at Zandvoort meant little to nothing despite the same result being possible at both races. It also meant Villeneuve’s Monaco GP mechanical failure from P2 cost him six points, but Scheckter’s Watkins Glen failure from the same position cost him just three.

The obvious defence of the 1979 system is that it seemingly did at least crown the best car and driver combination as champion, and that Zolder was not the only race that played a pivotal role in deciding the title. Aside from that, it was a complete mess and thankfully never seen in that exact manner again.

But what do you think? Is there a worse points system than 79? Were pre-67 systems worse because they counted too few races, sometimes resulting in points being dropped from race wins? Or did they succeed in reducing the value of shared drives? Could the 'best 11 results' system have feasibly found a way to accommodate for a scenario like 88, or been scrapped earlier?

Clark only won titles for one team

Senna only won titles for one team

Stewart only won titles for one team

Alonso only won titles for one team

Vettel only won titles for one team

Verstappen has only won titles for one team

The only title Prost won for a team other than McLaren was in one of the most dominant cars of all time and with a defacto rookie team-mate

There is absolutely not a prayer that Senna winning a title at Williams would have enhanced his legacy in a greater manner than taking on Prost at McLaren did. If this was the case, pundits and observers of the time would not have been hailing him as one of the GOATs prior to his death. Similarly, contemporaries of Clark’s era would not have rated him so highly prior to his death.

This ‘one team winner’ take is merely a lame attempt at resolving the debate by applying an objective measure to an inherently subjective discussion, and is completely ignorant of the excellence the drivers had shown above in achieving what they did in the years they won titles - and in many cases, the years they didn’t win titles too.

In recent years, I have been trying to watch as much of F1 history as I can as a passion project, mainly because I wanted to learn about how good the drivers of previous eras really were. I previously watched back 1992-2003, covering the Schumacher era (should note I have revised a lot of these 1992-2003 opinions in the time since I watched them)

Now I have gone back through the prior era to learn about Senna and Prost & co, but as before, there are so many other elements of the sport that are extremely thought-provoking, and I hope the subreddit appreciates them being shared here…

General thoughts…

• Why 1982? I wanted to go back to 1981, but then I came across the GP Timelines YouTube channel, which makes races back to 1982 much easier to follow and drivers a good bit easier to analyse. Stats F1 is also an excellent resource. Going back to 1982 only misses out one year of Prost as a frontrunner, two years of Piquet, and otherwise covers the full prime of almost every driver that raced through the bulk of the Senna & Prost era. I will still try to watch prior years (I really want to see Villeneuve’s career) but assessments will be more difficult to make.
• People seem to think that there was this perfect version of F1 that once existed. When you watch this era, there’s definitely some element of that - the cars were ultra powerful, the drivers could follow and overtake even at twistier circuits, there was a lack of electronic aids and the sport was therefore a greater test of traditional driving skills, the sport was still in pursuit of technological perfection and races were a lot less predictable in general. However, I also think newer fans would be put off by fuel economy runs, cars that could barely run reliably, some years featuring a huge field spread dwarfing that of the modern era, and of course the safety element.
• With the above considered, I really believe the sport has only ever been a version of itself, and that what we’re seeing in 2026 is a sea change in that regard, comparable to changes seen in the immediate post-turbo era. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for someone to dislike what’s going on right now, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to like the new regs and dislike other eras of F1. 
• One of the undeniably great things about this version/era of F1 is the circuit variety. The cars could work and race seemingly just as well at Monaco as at Zolder or Paul Ricard. Nowadays (or at least before this year) a Grand Prix at Brands Hatch would simply be a high-speed parade, which is sad because Brands is an absolutely fantastic circuit.
• The most eye-opening circuit to me was unquestionably the Osterreichring. It is barely fathomable that the turbo beasts were powering around the place as late as 1987. Even by early 80s standards, the place looked like a complete death trap, where barriers existed with zero run-off in fast corners or simply didn’t exist at all, with huge fields for the drivers to spin into until they ran out of momentum. There was nowhere to go if an incident occurred on the start line and the speeds were insane everywhere except the Hella Licht. It was (and still is under the guise of today's heavily modified circuit) also seemingly an absolutely beautiful place to go racing, and I really looked forward to watching every Austrian GP of this era.
• On a similar note, it was alarming to see other safety shortcomings. Zolder never had anywhere near enough run-off given the cornering speeds. The Brands 86 pile-up was always a matter of when rather than if. It was notable that half of the circuits on the 1984 calendar were gone by the end of the decade, especially given that was the year of the ill-advised Dallas GP. I already remarked here on how 84 seems to mark a watershed moment in the pursuit of safety; the sport clearly improved from there to 1994, but sadly not by enough.
• My favorite races from each year: 1982 Detroit, 1983 Austria, 1984 Dallas (for all the ugliness, this was an entertaining race!) 1985 Silverstone, 1986 Spain, 1987 Portugal or Spain (too hard to choose), 1988 Hungary, 1989 Hungary, 1990 Mexico, 1991 Mexico or Belgium (again too hard to choose). I would make a list of honourable mentions, but it would be way too long
• If you can only watch one season from this era, make it 1986 - genuinely a contender for the best season I have ever seen, an immense title battle with Prost at his absolute pinnacle against the superior Williams whose drivers were seemingly embroiled in civil war, with Senna doing his best to keep up against all odds and great racing virtually everywhere.
• A rough ranking of seasons from best to worst: 1986, 1990, 1985, 1989, 1984, 1982, 1988, 1991, 1987, 1983. To be honest, I really enjoyed every year except 87 and 83, and even those years were not without merit, far better than truly boring years like 1992 and 2002.

On drivers…

• The idea that Prost was a slower but smarter driver and Senna was a faster but overly instinctive driver is a complete myth, with 1989 being the only exception, and even that year contains a large stretch of races from Mexico to Germany where they were probably similarly matched, but the comparison between them was clouded by mitigating circumstances. People say Senna changed his style in 1991 to defend his points lead, but this is complete nonsense, as proven by 1986 and 1987 when he was in a much slower car but collected points at a highly consistent rate and largely avoided errors. It’s also nonsense to say Prost was slower - he wouldn’t have won races like South Africa 1982, Portugal 1987 or Mexico 1990 if he didn’t have incredible ultimate pace, and he would never have been able to compete with Senna in 88 or beat the Williams duo to the 86 title either. People for some reason are hellbent on pigeonholing both Senna and Prost, without realising that doing so is ignorant of their overall skillsets.
• Prost’s superior reliability record is largely coincidental. I get that studies say his record was a large deviation from standard, and I don’t doubt for one second that he was somewhat kinder to equipment than other drivers, but it’s one thing to study the numbers and another thing to study the context. Years like 1982, 1984 and 1987 show there’s at least a degree of coincidence, and his lopsided reliability advantage over Lauda in 1985 and Senna in 1989 also seem like a coincidence given they were not car breakers, especially so in Lauda’s case. 
• I genuinely believe Prost was weaker after the turbo era. People think Senna proved himself clearly better than Prost in 89 and that is corroborated by Senna having a bigger advantage over Berger than Prost did over Mansell and Alesi. My take is Prost would not have annihilated Johansson or beaten Rosberg and Cheever as convincingly as he did if he was a significantly weaker driver than the very best. Johansson, Rosberg and Cheever all proved themselves against known benchmarks in a way that suggests Prost was just that good, even if the comparison with Rosberg is seemingly mitigated by a Keke underperformance.
• On the above basis, I think 1988 is the best reflection of Prost and Senna relative to each other and that they were essentially equal. If you put a gun to my head and threatened to pull the trigger if I didn’t pick a better driver, I’d pick Senna because he was the more complete driver (despite his greater error output) and because I don’t think Senna would ever have thrown away a title through underperformance like Prost did in 82.
• Nelson Piquet - what an enormously overrated driver. Piquet has to be exhibit A for how statistics and eye test are hugely overvalued when rating drivers. He couldn’t beat Mansell, and this is corroborated by Patrese, who couldn’t lay a glove on Mansell for two and a half out of their three years together, but was able to run with Piquet a fair bit more often at Brabham. Given Mansell’s team-mate history shows his ceiling was not that high, and that the rest of Piquet’s prime team-mates were extremely weak, Piquet quite clearly wasn’t a top-tier driver. It’s not like he was never impressive - he overcame some really costly mechanical failures to win the 1983 title, and overcame his injury at Imola to compete solidly in 87 while also developing the active suspension, but it was strange to see him almost unanimously rated a top 20 driver of all time here - for me, he probably isn’t even a top 25 driver since 1982.
• I would love to know whether Niki Lauda was better during the 70s than he was during 1984, because it was absolutely superb for a 35-year-old that had been through everything he’d been through to be that close to a seemingly prime Prost. There’s no doubt he was weaker than Prost, but he was very close to him (and basically matched him on race pace) at the vast majority of races. His 1985 was only a little weaker than 84, but blighted by horrendous bad luck. If Lauda genuinely was any better than this from 1975-78, that undoubtedly places him among the GOATs in my book, whereas before I had the impression he was close to the GOATs but not quite among them.
• Keke Rosberg is enormously underrated. I cannot emphasise this enough.
• After watching 1992-2003 I said ‘the era immediately after Senna’s death is most likely the weakest ever’. Boy was that wrong. From 1986-1991, the grid had zero strength in depth with drivers like Rosberg, Lauda, Watson and de Angelis gone. The likes of Mansell and Piquet were at least half a league behind Prost and Senna, with Berger not much further away if at all, but after that there is a clear gap to everyone else except maybe Warwick and Cheever. Patrese got thumped by Mansell for almost all their three years together, Nannini lost fairly comfortably to a post-prime Piquet, Boutsen was no better than Nannini or Patrese, Alboreto got thumped by Berger except from the first half of 87, Johansson was around the same level as Alboreto and Capelli got humbled by Alesi. The 8th best driver of this time was basically a C-level driver, whereas 8th best nowadays is more like B+ level.
• Of all the lost talents of this era and the years immediately following - Stefan Bellof, Alessandro Nannini, Karl Wendlinger etc - Martin Donnelly might have been the best of them all. For Donnelly to walk into F1 and perform as well as he did alongside Derek Warwick was very impressive indeed, because Warwick (for all his inconsistency in 1984-87) was arguably a top five driver on the grid in the two years prior but did not have the car to show it. 
• I don’t understand the hype around Bellof. He was not much better than Brundle if at all - both before and after Brundle’s Dallas incident - but people act like he was a surefire world champion, probably because of his one excellent drive in Monaco 84. Otherwise, it seems like his excellent sportscar reputation is blindly applied to F1.
• It is so strange to see Ferrari drivers being elevated by the car and a seemingly operationally sound team like they were in 1982-85. If only Alonso, Vettel or Leclerc could enjoy the kind of car advantages Pironi, Arnoux and Alboreto had and - in the case of the latter duo - wasted. I would probably trace the modern day Ferrari inefficiency to 1990, when the team managed to leave their best driver lineup for many years completely disillusioned.

Using iPhone app, Reddit no longer displays quotes correctly since yesterday. Couldn’t see any posts here on this so apologies if this has been noted and/or resolved previously.

I can see when replying to posts I now have expanded text edit options so I can use bold or italics, but there is no option for quotations.

For example

>this does not show as a quote

**this is not bold**

This is bold (using the text editor)

Is there anything I can do to fix this? I have seen people suggesting to switch to markdown editor when there are issues with formatting, but I cannot see any option to do this in-app.