From: nxn@uts.amdahl.com (David J. Nixon)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: If Patrese had passed Senna . . . (Pick6 scoring)
Date: 28 Jul 92 18:29:46 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA


If Patrese had made the pass . . .

Now that the silly season is well under way I'd like to raise
the issue of the pick 6 scoring system.
First of all, I think John, Paul and Spyros have been doing a wonderful
job running this monster. Amidst the usual anarchy of the net, the pick6
has been running very smoothly indeed - way to go guys!

That said, I think the scoring system is rather capricious, favoring
those that happen to get the minor placings right, and penalizing those
that get the order right, but are off by one place. As an example,
I'll use my brother Rob's pick for the German G.P. in which he chose
Mansell, Patrese, Senna, Schumacher, Brundle, Berger. Had Patrese made the
pass in the final laps he would have got the top 5 and 45 points. As it
is he scored a meager 20 (less than me - heh, heh!-).
The present system is too much of a lottery. If you find lotteries
exciting, then that's fine, but I prefer a larger skill factor.
Next season, we need to award more points for close guesses.

One simple system that I think is fairer is to pick 6 drivers in order
as we do now, but to award the lesser of the points the driver actually
scores, or the points for the position you selected that driver in. This
would bias the points more to the top positions - which I think is good.
Taking Rob's pick for Germany again, he would score:

(actual finishing order was Mansell, Senna, Schumacher, Brundle, Alesi, Comas)

10 for Mansell	(pick 1st, finish 1st, score 1st)
0 for Patrese	(pick 2nd, finish 8th, score nothing)
4 for Senna	(pick 3rd, finish 2nd, score 3rd)
3 for Schumacher(pick 4th, finish 3rd, score 4th)
2 for Brundle	(pick 5th, finish 4th, score 5th)
0 for Berger	(pick 6th, did not finish, score nothing)

or 19 out of a possible 26.

Had Patrese made that pass, he would have scored 25 out of 26 for the top 5
in correct order.

Another issue is scoring based on all 16 races. If you miss a race
(as we did the first before the present triple mailing system) it's very
hard to catch up (although Bruce Fisher is doing well). It's not like the
real championship where a driver can catch up quickly with two or three
wins, because there are a large number of people competing, and you have
to score well each race just to keep up with the front runners.
I don't like scoring based on average points per race because that encourages
those with a high average to drop out. Perhaps those who miss races might
score the median score for that race, or maybe the 25th percentile, just so
there's a definite penalty for missing a race. Another way would be to drop
your worst one or two scores, although this isn't going to help those who
miss a high-scoring race if there are any low-scoring races (like Canada).

My picks for 1993 team/engine/driver combos:

Williams/Renault	Mansell/Prost
Bennetton/Ford		Schumacher/Brundle
Mclaren/BMW		Alesi/Berger
Lotus/Ford		Hakkinen/Andretti
Ferrari/Ferrari		Senna/Quayle

although I think there's a chance Nige will retire again,
in which case Schumacher or Alesi will move to Williams,
and Unser is more likely to get the terms he wants (to drive indy)
at Bennetton.

Dave Nixon
nxn@uts.amdahl.com