The fastest lap point in Formula 1 will disappear at the end of the 2024 season.
The FIA announced on Thursday that from 2025 drivers will no longer receive a bonus point for achieving the fastest lap. The bonus point has been around since 2019, when F1 introduced the rule in an attempt to encourage drivers to push harder on new tires during races.
However, teams only really go for the fastest lap in the race without the fastest car if they don’t risk losing a place with a free pit stop. During races with vast fields, it is not uncommon for a team in the top 10 to make a free pit stop at the end of the race to put on a set of fresh, soft tires and take the bonus point.
The bonus point is only available to drivers who finished in the top 10. If a driver drives the fastest lap from 11th place, he will not receive a point.
The move to get rid of the point was not hasty. However, it does come after a somewhat controversial fastest lap at the end of the Singapore Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo, in his final race with the Red Bull family, switched his RB car to soft tires towards the end of the race while sitting well outside the top 10. Ricciardo set the fastest lap on the final lap of the race… taking it away from race winner Lando Norris.
The race was Ricciardo’s last of the season as RB parted ways with him in favor of Liam Lawson after the Singapore Grand Prix.
Because Norris did not receive the bonus point for the fastest lap, he finished the Singapore Grand Prix 52 points behind Max Verstappen. That’s a magic number. If Norris wins all six Grand Prix races and all three remaining sprint races this season and Verstappen finishes second in each of those nine events, Verstappen will win his fourth consecutive drivers’ title by one point. Verstappen obviously drives for Red Bull Racing, the number 1 team of the junior RB team.
As well as getting rid of the fastest lap point next season, the FIA also said teams must field a young driver in four practice sessions. Currently, teams are required to field a young driver in two practice sessions over the course of the season.
