🇵🇹 Formula 1 2021: R3 - Portimão and the benefits of a rule change

The extra point rule in F1 is relatively new, being brought in at the start of the 2019 season. 

If you finish in the top 10, you get an extra point. It either rewards that one blistering lap from a driver, or it adds an extra kick to a late-race strategy - if you've got the time for a pit stop, then on low fuel and soft tyres, aggressively drive to take a final point for yourself and crucially, away from your rivals.

For F1, it also makes commercial sense, by being able to sell something that comes with championship points, but also is quantifiable. It's easy to understand, it's not subjective, and it means something.

Pole position is its own reward, so awarding points for that wouldn't work. A point for fastest pit stop? Perhaps that takes away too much from driver skill, and imagine the outcry if someone used a free pit stop to change tyres just for the sake of it. Those things can (and are) sponsored, but (most) people don't watch F1 for lightning quick pit stops, right… right?

The race in Portugal was, to put it kindly, not a thriller, especially when compared to the destruction derby in Imola a couple of weeks before and the overtaking clinic at Portimão in 2020. Only one driver retired (Raikkonen, after getting it wrong against his teammate), and everyone's pit stops went frustratingly to plan.

So the battle moved away from track position to fastest lap. Red Bull's Sergio Perez has driven his tyres into the ground, going 50+ laps on his mediums. They pitted him late and put him on softs, with explicit instructions to go set a fastest lap.

That spurred Mercedes into action, who brought Bottas in for the same tyres and he duly delivered. That stop gave Verstappen the time to pit without losing a place, so he pitted and aimed for the extra point too.

And he drove an excellent lap, pulling a 1:19.849 to take second +1 point and reduce the damage Lewis Hamilton's win did to his championship prospects.

The time was within a second of the time he qualified on, but despite his post-race radio message, the Dutchman exceeded track limits in turn 14, causing his time to be deleted, leaving it to Paul di Resta to inform him that actually, the effort didn't count in the end. Awkward. Verstappen offered a defence, saying "that is a bit odd, because they were not checking track limits at Turn 14, but whatever." Even more awkward, they were being assessed at that part of the track, meaning it's an unforced error that gives Bottas and Mercedes the extra point.

You don't have to finish first for fastest lap

Looking at last year's results, it obviously pays to get the clean air first place affords, but it's not essential, with that point being spread across the top 10.

The value of this rule change has been apparent for a while. Remember the first time around in Austria in 2020? Lando Norris knows Lewis Hamilton has a five-second penalty, and drives an exceptional lap for a podium finish that also came with an extra point because of the speed.

The other note on fastest lap in the 2020 season also involves McLaren. Carlos Sainz finished level on points with Alex Albon, but was classified higher (sixth overall). The reason he got level was a solitary point for fastest lap, gained in the second Grand Prix of the season on the same track. He finished ninth in the end, his lowest points finish of the season, but that extra point pushed him up one place overall.

The next races are in Spain and Monaco, two circuits where it is difficult to overtake. For drivers that don't get that optimal track position, the extra point might be another way to make an impact on the standings.