Dumbest rules in motorsports.

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Nascar's Chase For The Nextel Sprint World Series Play-Off Post Regularized Season has always been so dumb. Apart from the obvious butthurt about Matt Kenseth having a one-win championship, it just seems like it had to be like other American sports just... because, I guess?
 
One rule I don't see brought up is FIA F2 and FIA F3 winners are not allowed to compete in the championship anymore.

The concept from what I hear is it gives everyone a chance as they are stepping stones to F1 but I can only see that if the winner of F2 is automatically put in F1 next season but that isn't how it works. A winner of F2 can be denied an F1 seat because either they don't bring the money to the team or the roster just doesn't have open spaces for next season. F2 driver can't just keep doing F2 and continue to hone their skills due to this rule and has to move elsewhere until a spot is available and a team wants them but that oppurtunity might not ever come and it could even be seen as too late to pick that driver up for F1.
 
Liquid
Nascar's Chase For The Nextel Sprint World Series Play-Off Post Regularized Season has always been so dumb.
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Agreed, this is the main reason why I just cannot get invested in Nascar like other series. Not a fan of stages either.
 
As a Mayfield fan, I very much enjoyed Richmond in '04 when he grabbed his first win in 4 years to jump 5 spots in the points and make the very first Chase. Unfortunately the Chase itself was a disaster for him. And I didn't really care for playoffs other than seeing my favorite driver pull off something crazy like that.

They really watered down the competition since then. From 10 drivers in its original year to now 16. Consistency doesn't count for anything if it's a win-and-you're-in thing. Isn't that what the All Star race was for?
 
Liquid
Nascar's Chase For The Nextel Sprint World Series Play-Off Post Regularized Season has always been so dumb. Apart from the obvious butthurt about Matt Kenseth having a one-win championship, it just seems like it had to be like other American sports just... because, I guess?
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Because that's how Brian France Jr. thought NASCAR was going to beat the NFL in TV ratings, which was something he had an unhealthy obsession with. Now I think they just can't scrap the format because TV networks like having the pre-scheduled commercial breaks (though to be honest, that's probably what the phantom debris/"competition" cautions were for, so at least they're being up front about it now).
 
EngieDiesel
Because that's how Brian France Jr. thought NASCAR was going to beat the NFL in TV ratings, which was something he had an unhealthy obsession with. Now I think they just can't scrap the format because TV networks like having the pre-scheduled commercial breaks (though to be honest, that's probably what the phantom debris/"competition" cautions were for, so at least they're being up front about it now).
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Indeed. He chased after ratings and it sort of ruined the sport altogether. That is one aspect F1 sort of accepted years ago. Racing is all about consistently running well AND winning. The stage points sort of fix that, but at the same time, the stage cautions artificially reset the race.
 
If you contrive and reset the race with three laps to go, you might as well just have a three lap race. :indiff:
 
I'll just softball this in; points. Namely...series which use thousands of points. Even hundreds. No.

Just make a simple point system and stick with it. I don't want to hear "Well luckily he's only 13,500 points behind and having scored 2,500 points for the pole, and 1,500 points for the fastest lap...he could...".

I don't care about any justification - stop it.
 
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Multiple Classes competing for overall wins.

Granted if there's an overall championship they are competing for, I don't mind it if the classes can be balanced (not like IMSA P class nightmare of balancing DP and LMP2 which glad DPi saved)

But it feels like battling another class when there is no benefit to beating them is pointless and takes away a bit from the race. ALMS solution for Audi running away with LMP1 was to force them to play with LMP2 even though there was no benefit to Audi beating a LMP2 and screwing any other LMP1 teams over.

EDIT: I know LMP2 cars had the corner advantage back then which helped them go up and compete in some of the tighter tracks but I think the solution of lower LMP1s level further for LMP2 advantage to be significant just because of Audi and make front running in LMP a mess, just made it hard to follow
 
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New rule to despise in F1, or more of a stewards clarification. Any car on the outside has zero right to even keep their car in track. Depending on who the driver on the inside is.

Maybe it's the lack of rule relating to what type of running off is legal versus what should be penalized.
 
Redneckchef
New rule to despise in F1, or more of a stewards clarification. Any car on the outside has zero right to even keep their car in track. Depending on who the driver on the inside is.

Maybe it's the lack of rule relating to what type of running off is legal versus what should be penalized.
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You only have to go back a week or so to see that's also a Supercars rule, just ask Will Davison. The only difference is that if you're Will Davison it also applies to being on the inside as well ;)
 
I don't particularly enjoy Pirelli being the sole tyre supplier in F1. I might be alone on this but I think a second tyre manufacturer would bring back a lost element of competitiveness in Formula One. It could backfire and be reduced very quickly to tracks Company A is fast at vs tracks Company B is fast at but to me it seems like an easy rule change to add a new element to strategy and design, and give pundits something else to talk about in a proper, racing sort of way without being a chintzy, tacky gimmick.
 
Liquid
I don't particularly enjoy Pirelli being the sole tyre supplier in F1. I might be alone on this but I think a second tyre manufacturer would bring back a lost element of competitiveness in Formula One. It could backfire and be reduced very quickly to tracks Company A is fast at vs tracks Company B is fast at but to me it seems like an easy rule change to add a new element to strategy and design, and give pundits something else to talk about in a proper, racing sort of way without being a chintzy, tacky gimmick.
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I've honestly never been a fan of sole tyre suppliers in general, sure 1 will always be almost completely dominant in open tyre categories but I think it's interesting to for other tyre suppliers to take a spin at it.

The Tyre War aspect of Super GT I find is very appealing
 
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Tyre Wars are usually expensive and lead to boring racing as the wrong tyre choice at the start of a season can hobble a team unfairly.

Basically it's another variable which will just spread the grid out again. We don't need another Indianapolis 2005.
 
The late 80's NASCAR tire wars allowed for good parity and shook up the status quo, though.

On the flip side, my recollection of the 1988 Coke 600 was that it was a dangerous wreckfest.
 
In the 2001 British Touring Car Championship, they had this rule which applied only to the Sprint races where the Touring Class would start a certain number of seconds before the Production Class but would then have to complete an extra lap so the Touring Class runners would effectively be behind the Production Class runners, despite appearing to be ahead on the road. This resulted in 6 instances (not counting the first round at Brands Hatch where both classes had separate Sprint races altogether) where a Production Class runner was the first car to finish but would not be recognised as the official winner since the Production Class was a separate Championship from that of the Touring Class in order to avoid a repeat of what happened so many times in the multi-class era. Confusing for certain and dumb enough to be dropped for the 2002 Season. I know the BTCC was going through the immediate aftermath of the decline of Super Touring almost running the series into the ground at the time but still, if Alan Gow had never left, I am sure he would have found a better way of handling the transition than Richard West and Octagon Motorsport did.

Liquid
Dropped scores has always been something I have intensely disliked.

"Only the best 11 results from 16 races count"

Well, just have 11 races then. What's the point in the other 5 after the fact? Dropped scores punishes drivers who consistently finish and finish well:

1988
Actual Scores
Prost: 105pts
Senna: 94pts

Dropped Scores
Senna: 90pts
Prost: 87pts

Prost lost a staggering 18 points. That's almost two clear victories. He finished 1st or 2nd 14 times in 16 races whereas Senna was less consistent, finishing 1st or 2nd 11 times in 16 races; maybe only slightly less consitent but still less consistent.

In the interest of full disclosure Senna won 8 races to Prost's 7 which is absolutely fair and uncontested but really, finishing more races and more often on the top two steps of the podium to drop 18 points compared to just 4 is insane. I'm so glad that we don't have to deal with these sorts of fiascos any more.
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Dropped Scores are pretty dumb in every series that's ever used them.

Jimlaad43
Tyre Wars are usually expensive and lead to boring racing as the wrong tyre choice at the start of a season can hobble a team unfairly.

Basically it's another variable which will just spread the grid out again. We don't need another Indianapolis 2005.
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The "tyres-having-to-last-a-full-race-distance" rule in the 2005 F1 Season was a dumb rule full stop. It was one of many contributing factors to what happened at Indianapolis and we all saw what happened to Kimi Raikkonen on the last lap at the Nurburgring.
 
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Carbonox
So here's something - the old BTCC format where the overall championship was awarded to whoever had the best record in their own class, even if said class was well behind the actual fastest cars on the grid, so it became a matter of who was the most dominant driver in a specific group. One of the worst cases was John Cleland taking the 1989 championship with a best finish of 9th, but class wins in all but 2 races.

It's like awarding the 1987 F1 title to Jonathan Palmer because he scored more points for the Colin Chapman Trophy than Piquet did in the overall championship.
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The 1960 Season has got to be the dumbest in that respect as that year, the usual class system was dropped, in favour of what is known as a 'silhouette' specification, with all cars having to use an engine no bigger than 1,000cc in capacity. The cars also had to have the same overall appearance, wheel size, wheelbase, rear axel and gearbox casing as on the road cars they were based on.

Later in the year, cars with larger engine capacities (1,600cc or more) were allowed to enter races, although they were not eligible for the overall championship. The lack of entrants also saw the BSCC run alongside GT cars, confusing the entry list some what.

Also made for a season that only produced 5 point-scorers! FIVE POINT-SCORERS in a season in which just over SIX TIMES THAT MANY competed!
 
Aggregate Qualifying from the 2005 F1 Season was dumb enough to be scrapped after 6 races.

Also the short-lived multi-elimination qualifying from the 2016 F1 Season.
 
I don't even remember the 2016 change. Must have been so horrible it didn't work yet so ineffective it isn't memorable or infamous.
 
Tornado
When F1 banned tire changes in races.


When F1 banned refueling in races.
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tire changes...yes, refueling...actually pretty smart. Tire changes were to break the Ferrari domination. Refueling was one of the most dangerous thing about F1. F1 is about the drivers, so I personally don't think there should be pit stops at all.
 
Liquid
The worst cases during that period were Chris Hodgetts' back-to-back titles in 1986 and 1987 because he did it in the lowest and slowest of the four classes.

If you were to award the BTCC by the class of the fastest cars with the biggest engines during the 1980s, i.e. the ones we would think of as "really" winning the races, it would look like this:

1980 Champion - Gordon Spice (Ford Capri) Actual Champion - Win Percy (Mazda RX-7)
1981 Champion - Pete Lovett (Ford Capri) Actual Champion - Win Percy (Mazda RX-7)
1982 Champion - Jeff Allam (Rover Vitesse) Actual Champion - Win Percy (Toyota Corolla)
1983 Champion - Andy Rouse (Alfa Romeo GTV6)
1984 Champion - Andy Rouse (Rover Vitesse)
1985 Champion - Andy Rouse (Ford Sierra XR4Ti)
1986 Champion - Andy Rouse (Ford Sierra XR4Ti) Actual Champion - Chris Hodgetts (Toyota Corolla)
1987 Champion - Tim Harvey (Rover Vitesse) Actual Champion - Chris Hodgetts (Toyota Corolla)
1988 Champion - Andy Rouse (Ford Sierra RS500) Actual Champion - Frank Sytner (BMW M3)
1989 Champion - Andy Rouse (Ford Sierra RS500) Actual Champion - John Cleland (Vauxhall Astra)

So you would have had Gordon Spice and Pete Lovett winning their only titles, Tim Harvey with an extra title, John Cleland with one less, none for Chris Hodgetts and Frank Sytner, and Andy Rouse with three more bringing his total to seven.



The Jim Clark Trophy, but yeah. He scored 95 points whereas Piquet "only" scored 73.
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In 1958, the first year of the British Saloon/Touring Car Championship, the outright title, by rights, should have gone to Tommy Sopwith on countback as he and Jack Sears ended up with 48 points apiece after dropped scores are taken into account but Sopwith scored 8 Class Wins to Sears' 7. I know because I have done the research. I know it was the series' first season and they probably weren't expecting the Championship to end in a dead-heat and therefore didn't think to impose a rule accordingly.
 
Har1MAS1415
Going by the information in that link, it sounds like it should have had more thought put into it and more time to be implemented or just not bothered with at all.
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It was one of the last rolls of the dice from the poison dwarf before he was being pushed out.

The problem was that the driver who was eliminated never actually got to finish their lap, so what it actually resulted in was everyone running for the first 7-10 minutes and then no one going out afterwards, which is exactly what the teams warned would happened.

With a bit more thought, they would've said that if out on a lap, then the driver wouldn't be eliminated until after the completion, but that would involve manual processing rather than an automated system.
 

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