F1PP: 1996 rules

This posting officially announces the fifth annual F1PP competition. The goal of F1PP is to correctly pick the top drivers and teams for the 1996 season, but unlike the F1 Pick6 competition, you make one set of picks for the entire season to predict the top teams and drivers for the year. The picks are collated before the first race, and my magical set of perl scripts recalculates the standings after each race. As a result, no entries can be accepted after the start of practice for the first race of the 1996 season. While it may seem advantageous to delay your entry as long as possible, this leaves you at the mercy of Internet links and other potential failures, which may prevent your entry from reaching us in time. Don't delay too long!

To enter, fill in the F1PP web entry form. If you do not have access to the web, or to a forms-capable web browser, send an email message to f1pp@motorsport.com , with your predictions for the top 10 of the Drivers' Championship (including the number of wins for each driver), and the top 6 of the Constructors' Championship. Please format the entry as follows (note spaces after the position codes, and the colon separating the number of wins from the driver's name). Picks with fewer or more than 10 drivers, or with the total number of wins not equal to 16, or with fewer or more than 6 constructors, WILL BE DISCARDED. 

	Name: Joe Racefan
	Scores-To: joe@race.fan.com

	D1. Rosset: 5
	D2. Panis: 4
	D3. Inoue: 3
	D4. Lamy: 2
	D5. Katayama: 1
	D6. Schumacher: 1
	D7. Alesi
	D8. Verstappen
	D9. Hakkinen
	D10. Villeneuve

	C1. Forti
	C2. Arrows
	C3. Ligier
	C4. Williams
	C5. Jordan
	C6. Minardi

We will provide WWW access to the scoring reports; check the MNI web site for updates, scoring reports and standings. Scoring summaries will be also posted to rec.autos.sport.info after each race.

Points are scored according to a somewhat complex formula: basically, for each right-on pick you score 200-140-100-80-60-50-40-30-20-10 for drivers and 200-120-80-60-40-20 for constructors, with each "off" score being the right-on score for the predicted position divided by (1 + 1.5 * (# positions off)). Each correctly attributed victory scores 25 points. Intermediate standings (posted after every race) will have the Drivers' and Constructors' points pro-rated for the number of races completed so far.

If you're really keen on determining the exact scoring procedure, take a look at the perl code used to calculate the driver and constructor points.

[Note: no points scored by substitute drivers (such as Magnussen for Hakkinen, or Mansell for Blundell in 1995), will be added to your primary driver's score for F1PP scoring.]

382 players took part in the 1994 competition, up strongly from the 146 in 1994, 71 in 1993 and 35 in 1992. Tim Bailer claimed the top honours with 1560.2 points, followed by Thorwald Herbert and Dave Reed.

Here are Tim's impressive picks: 

     Drivers:
       1. [ 1.] Schumacher      Wins: 11 [ 9] 200.0 + 225 points
       2. [ 2.] Hill                   2 [ 4] 145.0 +  50 
       3. [ 3.] Coulthard              1 [ 1] 110.0 +  25 
       4. [ 4.] Herbert                1 [ 2]  90.0 +  25 
       5. [ 6.] Berger                 1 [ 0]  35.0 +   0 
       6. [ 5.] Alesi                  0 [ 1]  27.5 +   0 
       7. [ 7.] Hakkinen               0 [ 0]  40.0 +   0 
       8. [ 0.] Mansell                0 [ 0]   0.0 +   0 
       9. [10.] Barrichello            0 [ 0]  10.0 +   0 
      10. [11.] Irvine                 0 [ 0]   5.0 +   0 
                Total                         325.0 + 662

    Constructors:
       1. [ 1.] Benetton                      200.0  points
       2. [ 2.] Williams                      130.0  
       3. [ 3.] Ferrari                        80.0  
       4. [ 4.] McLaren                        60.0  
       5. [ 6.] Jordan                         20.0  
       6. [ 7.] Sauber                         10.0  
                Total                         500.0 

    TOTAL: 1560.2

Tim's score is a new F1PP record, beating Gerard Ashok's score of 1472.5 points in 1993 (adjusted for the 1994-1995 scoring scheme)!