In 2010, the IndyCar Series began awarding championship points based on qualifications for the Indianapolis 500. The number of points awarded to each starting position has varied with time, but this year points will be awarded to the highest qualifiers over 2 days 1 day. I had a nice couple of paragraphs that explained the two day qualification procedure, but since qualifying today has been rained out, I had to update it. Note that IndyCar has recently made a habit of saying one thing, and then completely reversing its decision a bit later, so by the time you read this qualifying explanation, it could be completely wrong.
On Sunday, each driver will make a traditional 4 lap qualifying run with the track entirely to him/herself. A driver’s average speed over the 4 laps will count as his/her qualifying speed. Each driver's best speed from the first qualifying session will be used to divide the field into 3 groups: Group 2 will consist of positions 31 and below, Group 1 will consist of positions 10 through 30, and the Fast 9 Shootout group will be composed of positions 1 through 9. Drivers will receive points based on their ranking in the first qualifying session, with the fastest driver receiving 33 points and the second place driver receiving 32 points. This pattern will continue down the grid, with the last qualifier receiving 1 point.
After the first session is complete, Group 1 drivers will be locked in place. Drivers in the Fast 9 Shootout will have their times erased, and will participate in another session to determine who starts on the pole. After the Fast 9 Shootout, Group 2 will have a second qualifying session. At the end of Group 2's 2nd session, any driver qualified worse than 33rd will not make the Indianapolis 500.
Each driver in the 'Fast 9' group will also receive bonus points based on his/her shootout qualifying speeds. The pole winner will receive 9 more points in addition to the points that (s)he earned on Saturday. Each subsequent position in the Fast 9 Shootout group will receive 1 less point than the position before it, with the 9th place qualifier receiving 1 additional point.
The most points a driver could score from qualifying is 42 (33 from Saturday, and 9 from Sunday). At first glance this seems roughly equivalent to finishing 2nd in a normal race, which awards 40 points. However, the structure of the qualifying points means that qualifying isn’t nearly as important as a race.
I'm personally not a fan of awarding points for qualifying. Teams already have several incentives to qualify well during the Fast 9 Shootout. The pole winner receives $100,000 and a majority of the media’s attention in the week leading up to the race. Qualifying well also allows a driver to start in front of other drivers who are slower and/or less experienced, which reduces the chances of an accident during the race.
On Sunday, each driver will make a traditional 4 lap qualifying run with the track entirely to him/herself. A driver’s average speed over the 4 laps will count as his/her qualifying speed. Each driver's best speed from the first qualifying session will be used to divide the field into 3 groups: Group 2 will consist of positions 31 and below, Group 1 will consist of positions 10 through 30, and the Fast 9 Shootout group will be composed of positions 1 through 9. Drivers will receive points based on their ranking in the first qualifying session, with the fastest driver receiving 33 points and the second place driver receiving 32 points. This pattern will continue down the grid, with the last qualifier receiving 1 point.
After the first session is complete, Group 1 drivers will be locked in place. Drivers in the Fast 9 Shootout will have their times erased, and will participate in another session to determine who starts on the pole. After the Fast 9 Shootout, Group 2 will have a second qualifying session. At the end of Group 2's 2nd session, any driver qualified worse than 33rd will not make the Indianapolis 500.
Each driver in the 'Fast 9' group will also receive bonus points based on his/her shootout qualifying speeds. The pole winner will receive 9 more points in addition to the points that (s)he earned on Saturday. Each subsequent position in the Fast 9 Shootout group will receive 1 less point than the position before it, with the 9th place qualifier receiving 1 additional point.
The most points a driver could score from qualifying is 42 (33 from Saturday, and 9 from Sunday). At first glance this seems roughly equivalent to finishing 2nd in a normal race, which awards 40 points. However, the structure of the qualifying points means that qualifying isn’t nearly as important as a race.
I'm personally not a fan of awarding points for qualifying. Teams already have several incentives to qualify well during the Fast 9 Shootout. The pole winner receives $100,000 and a majority of the media’s attention in the week leading up to the race. Qualifying well also allows a driver to start in front of other drivers who are slower and/or less experienced, which reduces the chances of an accident during the race.
Qualifying
well in the first qualifying session also has its own advantage: all drivers, even those
who advance to the ‘Fast 9’, select their pit stalls based on the first
qualifying session results. Certain pit stalls can reduce the amount of time a
car spends on pit road, which can allow a driver to pass rivals in the
pits instead of on the track.
The current point differences between qualifying positions are not large enough to incentivize teams to be any more aggressive during qualifying than they would if no points were awarded. A team isn’t any more likely to roll the dice by taking another half turn of front wing out of the car on their upcoming qualifying run for the opportunity to gain 2 measly points over their competitors, especially when an accident at 230 miles per hour will potentially hurt the car’s performance during a race that awards double points towards the championship.
In Marshall Pruett's interview with Graham Rahal, Rahal states that there are diminishing returns from removing downforce from the car in the pursuit of more speed. It isn't worth the risk for Rahal to risk a crash, especially when he feels that the Chevrolet drivers are so much faster than the Honda teams. This attitude could be changed for teams at the front of the field if larger point gaps were available to the best qualifiers.
If IndyCar wants to award points for Indianapolis 500 qualifying, they should award points in the same manner that they do for a race. This would give teams additional incentive to improve their qualifying performance. The current qualifying points create an awkward no-win situation where teams can't gain many points on competitors during qualifications but can damage their own championship chances. The series can claim that qualifying is important because points are awarded, but in reality teams act no differently than they would if points were not awarded.
A brief aside: There are 362,880 possible ways (9!) that the ‘Fast 9’ cars from Saturday could qualify on Sunday. To simplify this analysis, I assume that each driver qualifies in the same position on both Saturday and Sunday. The first place qualifier earns 42 points (33 + 9), second place earns 40 points (32 + 8), and so on. Although it’s unlikely that cars will qualify in exactly this way, it’s a reasonable assumption: since 2013, the most positions a driver has lost from Saturday qualifying to Sunday qualifying is 5, and the most positions a driver has gained from Saturday qualifying to Sunday qualifying is 4.
For a driver competing for the series championship, awarded points are only valuable to the extent that other drivers don’t have them. Pretend that the following choices were given to current points leader Juan Pablo Montoya:
The current point differences between qualifying positions are not large enough to incentivize teams to be any more aggressive during qualifying than they would if no points were awarded. A team isn’t any more likely to roll the dice by taking another half turn of front wing out of the car on their upcoming qualifying run for the opportunity to gain 2 measly points over their competitors, especially when an accident at 230 miles per hour will potentially hurt the car’s performance during a race that awards double points towards the championship.
In Marshall Pruett's interview with Graham Rahal, Rahal states that there are diminishing returns from removing downforce from the car in the pursuit of more speed. It isn't worth the risk for Rahal to risk a crash, especially when he feels that the Chevrolet drivers are so much faster than the Honda teams. This attitude could be changed for teams at the front of the field if larger point gaps were available to the best qualifiers.
If IndyCar wants to award points for Indianapolis 500 qualifying, they should award points in the same manner that they do for a race. This would give teams additional incentive to improve their qualifying performance. The current qualifying points create an awkward no-win situation where teams can't gain many points on competitors during qualifications but can damage their own championship chances. The series can claim that qualifying is important because points are awarded, but in reality teams act no differently than they would if points were not awarded.
A brief aside: There are 362,880 possible ways (9!) that the ‘Fast 9’ cars from Saturday could qualify on Sunday. To simplify this analysis, I assume that each driver qualifies in the same position on both Saturday and Sunday. The first place qualifier earns 42 points (33 + 9), second place earns 40 points (32 + 8), and so on. Although it’s unlikely that cars will qualify in exactly this way, it’s a reasonable assumption: since 2013, the most positions a driver has lost from Saturday qualifying to Sunday qualifying is 5, and the most positions a driver has gained from Saturday qualifying to Sunday qualifying is 4.
For a driver competing for the series championship, awarded points are only valuable to the extent that other drivers don’t have them. Pretend that the following choices were given to current points leader Juan Pablo Montoya:
- Every driver will be given an additional 100 points
- Only Montoya will receive an additional 10 points
Even though choice 1 would provide a bigger boost to his point total, Montoya would clearly prefer choice 2 because this scenario that gives him an advantage over his rivals.
Although the choices given to Montoya above are an extreme example, choice 1 is similar to how points are awarded for Indianapolis 500 qualifying. The chart below compares the point differentials between each finishing/qualifying position and the next worse finishing/qualifying position. The positions have been staggered so that the point gaps to the next worst position are equal for finishing a race and qualifying. For example, finishing 10th in a race gives a driver 1 point more than finishing 11th. This is the same points value as qualifying 10th, because the 10th place qualifier receives 1 more point than the 11th place qualifier.
Consider a race winner. Winning a race would give him/her at least 10 more points than every other driver in the race, and finishing second would give him/her a 5 point advantage over every driver in the field (except the winner). Indianapolis 500 qualifying only gives the pole winner 2 more points than the second place qualifier. The point difference between the first and second place qualifiers is equivalent to the difference between the 4th and 5th place finishers in a race.
Admittedly, large point gaps do exist between some qualifiers. For example, the pole winner earns 41 (42 – 1 = 41) more points than the last place (33rd) qualifier. But this is irrelevant to the championship because the last place qualifier isn’t typically a car that’s competing for the series championship. IndyCar races typically have car counts in the low 20’s, meaning that roughly 10 cars that will qualify for the Indianapolis 500 are not competing in many other races of the season. In fact, most of these additional 10 driver and car combinations are ‘one-offs’ that will only compete at the Indianapolis 500 and therefore have no concern for collecting championship points. These ‘one-offs’ typically qualify in the bottom half of the field, meaning that they are often the cars that lose significant points to the cars that qualify well.
The bottom line is that the large point gaps that exist between drivers at opposite ends of the starting grid are unlikely to impact the championship standings: championship contenders regularly make the ‘Fast 9’. Since 2012, 5 of the 6 drivers who finished in the top 2 of the end of season point standings have qualified in the ‘Fast 9’ of that year’s Indianapolis 500. The one exception was Scott Dixon, who qualified 16th for the Indianapolis 500 on his way to winning the 2013 IndyCar championship. (Dixon has an oddly underwhelming average starting position of 14th on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval since 2012, and an equally underwhelming average finish of 15th during the same time period.)
Using the same points system that is used at the end of races would incentivize championship contenders to focus a bit more energy on qualifying well. As it is currently, awarding points for Indianapolis 500 qualifying has a negligible impact on Indianapolis 500 qualifications.
*Please note that since this post was published, IndyCar has made significant changes to the qualifying procedure for May 17. To the best of my knowledge, championship points will NOT be awarded for qualifying. Also, cars will now have to race with the same bodywork pieces that they qualify with, effectively preventing teams from using the low drag bits that had been designed by Chevrolet and Honda. I don't plan to update this post with the latest qualifying rules, so check out another site (racer.com or Twitter) for the latest, up to the minute news.
If you want to get in touch, feel free to leave a comment or send an email to spottersstand@gmail.com. Follow the blog on Twitter (@spotstandblog) for reminders about new posts.
Although the choices given to Montoya above are an extreme example, choice 1 is similar to how points are awarded for Indianapolis 500 qualifying. The chart below compares the point differentials between each finishing/qualifying position and the next worse finishing/qualifying position. The positions have been staggered so that the point gaps to the next worst position are equal for finishing a race and qualifying. For example, finishing 10th in a race gives a driver 1 point more than finishing 11th. This is the same points value as qualifying 10th, because the 10th place qualifier receives 1 more point than the 11th place qualifier.
| Race Finish Position | Race Points | Race Point Gap to 1 Position Worse | Qualifying Point Gap to 1 Position Worse | Qualifying Position | Qualifying Points |
| 1 | 50 | 10 | |||
| 2 | 40 | 5 | |||
| 3 | 35 | 3 | |||
| 4 | 32 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 42 |
| 5 | 30 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 40 |
| 6 | 28 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 38 |
| 7 | 26 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 36 |
| 8 | 24 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 34 |
| 9 | 22 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 32 |
| 2 | 7 | 30 | |||
| 2 | 8 | 28 | |||
| 2 | 9 | 26 | |||
| 10 | 20 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 24 |
| 11 | 19 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 23 |
| 12 | 18 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 22 |
| 13 | 17 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 21 |
| 14 | 16 | 1 | 1 | 14 | 20 |
| 15 | 15 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 19 |
| 16 | 14 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 18 |
| 17 | 13 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 17 |
| 18 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 18 | 16 |
| 19 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 15 |
| 20 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 20 | 14 |
| 21 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 13 |
| 22 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 12 |
| 23 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 11 |
| 24 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 24 | 10 |
| 1 | 25 | 9 | |||
| 1 | 26 | 8 | |||
| 1 | 27 | 7 | |||
| 1 | 28 | 6 | |||
| 1 | 29 | 5 | |||
| 1 | 30 | 4 | |||
| 1 | 31 | 3 | |||
| 1 | 32 | 2 | |||
| 25 | 5 | 0 | N/A | 33 | 1 |
| 26 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 27 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 28 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 29 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 30 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 31 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 32 | 5 | 0 | |||
| 33 | 5 | N/A |
Consider a race winner. Winning a race would give him/her at least 10 more points than every other driver in the race, and finishing second would give him/her a 5 point advantage over every driver in the field (except the winner). Indianapolis 500 qualifying only gives the pole winner 2 more points than the second place qualifier. The point difference between the first and second place qualifiers is equivalent to the difference between the 4th and 5th place finishers in a race.
Admittedly, large point gaps do exist between some qualifiers. For example, the pole winner earns 41 (42 – 1 = 41) more points than the last place (33rd) qualifier. But this is irrelevant to the championship because the last place qualifier isn’t typically a car that’s competing for the series championship. IndyCar races typically have car counts in the low 20’s, meaning that roughly 10 cars that will qualify for the Indianapolis 500 are not competing in many other races of the season. In fact, most of these additional 10 driver and car combinations are ‘one-offs’ that will only compete at the Indianapolis 500 and therefore have no concern for collecting championship points. These ‘one-offs’ typically qualify in the bottom half of the field, meaning that they are often the cars that lose significant points to the cars that qualify well.
The bottom line is that the large point gaps that exist between drivers at opposite ends of the starting grid are unlikely to impact the championship standings: championship contenders regularly make the ‘Fast 9’. Since 2012, 5 of the 6 drivers who finished in the top 2 of the end of season point standings have qualified in the ‘Fast 9’ of that year’s Indianapolis 500. The one exception was Scott Dixon, who qualified 16th for the Indianapolis 500 on his way to winning the 2013 IndyCar championship. (Dixon has an oddly underwhelming average starting position of 14th on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval since 2012, and an equally underwhelming average finish of 15th during the same time period.)
Using the same points system that is used at the end of races would incentivize championship contenders to focus a bit more energy on qualifying well. As it is currently, awarding points for Indianapolis 500 qualifying has a negligible impact on Indianapolis 500 qualifications.
*Please note that since this post was published, IndyCar has made significant changes to the qualifying procedure for May 17. To the best of my knowledge, championship points will NOT be awarded for qualifying. Also, cars will now have to race with the same bodywork pieces that they qualify with, effectively preventing teams from using the low drag bits that had been designed by Chevrolet and Honda. I don't plan to update this post with the latest qualifying rules, so check out another site (racer.com or Twitter) for the latest, up to the minute news.
If you want to get in touch, feel free to leave a comment or send an email to spottersstand@gmail.com. Follow the blog on Twitter (@spotstandblog) for reminders about new posts.
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