I tweeted about the FIA‘s new Formula 1 rules yesterday, giving my brief initial reaction. Where do we stand after a night’s reflection?

Points

I don’t think many people are terribly excited about the rather botched new points system. The world champion will be the driver with most race wins, while other driver positions and the constructors championship will be decided by the existing points system. At least the medals proposed by Bernie Ecclestone would be clear; this just seems messy.

If the season is closely fought throughout, or utterly dominated throughout, then it’s going to make little difference.

I think there are two very unsatisfactory possible outcomes though, which I’m sure I’ve stolen from elsewhere.

Let’s say Brawn GP do have a fast car, but Ferrari and McLaren catch up mid-season. Button wins the first five races, and the rest are shared between four drivers. Button wins the championship, having finished no better than 11th in the last 12 races of the season. It’s an extreme example, but really could happen. And it would be the wrong result, clearly.

Or let’s say that Massa wins the first two races of the season. Ferrari would be daft to encourage Raikkonen to win races, because that would effectively harm their chance of securing the drivers championship. In other words team orders – though not explicit, of course – could come into effect much, much earlier.

Personally I don’t think FOTA’s proposed 12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 system did enough to reward wins, but this goes too far.

We’ll know if it’s a poor system if it gets changed for 2010. And I bet it does.

Budget Cap

The choice for teams for 2010 is: operate under the current technical regulations, which will be stable until 2012; or have a £30 million budget cap, but no engine freeze, a more aerodynamically efficient standard under body, and movable wings.

In short: this is mental, and I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Like putting a standard engine out to tender, this is surely the FIA forcing the teams to do more, in this case probably to accept a budget cap of some sort. I imagine there will be compromise on the part of the FIA, but they’ll basically get their way. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Interviews

This is brilliant. All drivers will have to be available for interviews after qualifying – at whichever stage they are eliminated – and the race – whether they retire or finish the race. So if someone gets shunted off at the first corner, there’s no storming off to their garage and hiding in their motor home. I think we’re going to be treated to some excellently terse interviews.