Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited
Formula 1’s main support championships Formula 2 and Formula 3 will reduce the amount of points on offer in all sessions next season.
The main change for F2 is to the Saturday sprint race, where its current 15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 system of points for the top eight finishers is reduced to 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. A previously announced, a reversal of the top 10 in qualifying will set the grid.
F3 will undergo a similar change and actually brings back sprint races to its format for the first time since it succeeded GP3 in 2019. Sprint races were part of GP3 from its creation in 2010 all the way through to its final season in 2018, but were not carried over into the FIA F3 era as the reversed-grid races ran to the same length as the race using a grid set by qualifying pace.
For its first three seasons, a points allocation 15-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 top the top 10 was given in the reversed grid races. Now that single reversed-grid race, after both series experimented with running two per weekend in 2021, will hand out points on a reduced 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis to the top 10 finishers. Qualifying’s top 12 will be reversed to set the grid.
Pole positions and fastest laps will be worth half their previous value, with two points for feature race pole rather than four, and a single point to be earned for taking fastest lap in a race when previously two were on offer.
This means a maximum of 39 points can be scored per race weekend, with the feature race – another new element for FIA F3 which was previously scrapped when it succeeded GP3 – still handing out points on a 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 scale to the top 10.
Despite the announcement of the changed points system, F3 has not indicated whether its sprint races will be a shorter length than the feature encounters.