McLaren suggests awarding F1 qualifying points for aborted races

The world championship is set to discuss rule changes to prevent a recurrence of the events of last weekend’s abandoned race at Spa-Francorchamps at the next meeting of the F1 Commission in October.

An official result was declared and half points were awarded to the top 10 finishes after two non-racing laps were completed behind the safety car, a controversial outcome that drew criticism from both drivers and the teams.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown called for a change of rules to avoid a repeat of the situation in the future, saying it was not “right” that a few laps behind the safety car could result in a race being declared.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix, Seidl echoed Brown’s view and floated a possible solution if races have to be aborted because of poor weather conditions.

“On the points side, there is definitely something that should be learned from what happened last weekend,” Seidl said.

“Michael [Masi, FIA race director] already asked the teams to send back feedback of how we think the situation could be improved.

"From my point of view, one example is simply to make it crystal clear and straightforward, that if a race cannot happen, which can happen - so we need to be clear on that because it’s an outside sport - you could have an entire weekend that is washed away.

“But if a race can’t happen to put it crystal clear in the regulations that you then award or distribute points based on qualifying result, maybe half points. I think that needs to be discussed in detail but I would be fine with that.

“Then it would also avoid this discussion of the laps being done to get a classification or not. From my point of view, rewarding points for a qualifying result, if the race doesn’t happen, is something I could imagine is introduced and still be fair because it is the last point where you had a fair competition between all competitors.

“So why not give a reward for that if the race cannot happen? It’s the same as qualifying not happening and then you take the free practice result. I think that’s something which hopefully can be better.”

F1 was also criticised for the confusion surrounding the decision to scrub off laps for repeated delayed starts and counting back a lap to determine the official result following red flag periods.

“For sure, we have to look into that and see what can be improved,” Seidl added. “At the same time we all said around the table when these rules were developed, every single team was happy with that.

“Many of these rules were in place for decades and in the end it wouldn’t have changed the bad experience for the fans on Sunday afternoon.

“Again for me that was not that much of a big issue to be honest. But as always, we need to learn from it and see if we can make it more simple.

“At the same time you have to accept with the regulations in place we have to cover a lot of different scenarios, and last Sunday was a lot of different scenarios - and together - that in the end were handled within the rules from the FIA side.”