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" The news that Formula 1 will assign double points for the 2014 season finale race in Abu Dhabi was almost unanimously greeted by jeers and groans from both fans and drivers. Formula 1&amp;#039;s Strategic Working Group, set up to study solutions for what are perceived to be problems with the current state of the series, proposed the measure, which was quickly approved by the FIA. This is no surprise as the SWG is made up of the heads of the major teams: Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, Mclaren, and Williams, plus FIA president Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone. The rationale behind this is to keep interest in the series alive until the end in case of a blowout like in 2013, where Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull wrapped up both the Drivers&amp;#039; and Constructors&amp;#039; championships three races ahead of the season finale in Brazil. Scoring systems have been changed before, usually in an effort to curb the domination of a particular team, notably Ferrari and Schumacher in the early 2000s. But there has never been a race arbitrarily worth more than others. Fans are not happy with what they see as an ever-increasing reliance on gimmicks to add &amp;quot;excitement&amp;quot; to the series. DRS passing, performance-compromised tires, and the overabundance of penalties doled out for what are seen as minor offenses are extremely unpopular, but this latest change seems to have hit a tipping point. It&amp;#039;s not just the public complaining about this latest measure, either. Sebastian Vettel was harshly critical of the scheme. &amp;quot;Imagine if in the last football match of the season there were suddenly double points,&amp;quot; Vettel told the German newspaper Sport Bild. &amp;quot;It is absurd and punishes those who have worked hard during a whole season.&amp;quot;  One might be tempted to say Vettel&amp;#039;s criticism stems from calculating that, had this rule been in place in 2012, he would have lost the championship to Fernando Alonso (and Felipe Massa would have been Champion in 2008), but on the other hand, with the rule in place, Vettel would have won this year&amp;#039;s championship not by 155 points, as he did, but by 175. Historically, changing the way points are assigned has done little to influence the closeness of championships. Looking back over the past 20 seasons and three different scoring systems, the last race has been the decider 11 times, with only five of those 20 seasons having been complete blowouts and the championship being decided more than three races from the end. Not a bad record.  Followers of the sport simply cannot see the need for making one particular race count more than another, and the move has been universally panned. Online discussions centered on the need to make more teams competitive, perhaps through a more equitable distribution of commercial interest revenues, but at the core, fans want to see a driver&amp;#039;s championship won by driving, not scoring.  Formula 1 is making a grave mistake underestimating its fans by introducing gimmicks like this. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a6294/f1-introduces-double-point-for-final-race-fans-worldwide-groan/>