Who won the most points thanks to the best lap?

After six seasons, the point for the fastest lap will be removed in 2025. Reintroduced in 2019 after 60 years of absence, this point was however only awarded to the driver who signed the fastest lap in a race if he finished in the top 10.

Of the 128 Grand Prix contested over this period, the best lap will have been awarded 127 times and will have earned a total of 113 points. It must indeed be remembered that exceptionally given the circumstances, there was no best lap during the 2021 Belgian GP, ​​which was officially run for two laps under Safety Car.

Logically, since they are the two dominant drivers of this period, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton won the most points thanks to this rule (28 and 26 respectively). It was between the two of them that the closest fight in the championship took place, in 2021, and by far since they finished being separated by eight points, while the average gap between champion and runner-up on other seasons is 142 units.

But even during their duel, the points collected were not ultimately decisive in the awarding of the title: Hamilton had in fact scored six points this way, compared to five for Verstappen. At most, the advantage in the field before the very last GP, which was 6-4 in favor of the Briton, had allowed the perfect equality of points when arriving in Abu Dhabi.

As a symbol, Kevin Magnussen gave himself the best lap in Abu Dhabi without taking the final point that could go with it, since he finished in 16th place. The Dane is one of three drivers who added one or more fastest laps to their record without having collected an additional point, with Zhou Guanyu and Esteban Ocon.

The failure of a “spectacle” measure

When this point was reintroduced at the beginning of 2019, this is what Ross Brawn, then F1 sports manager, said: “With the FIA, we invested in evaluating ideas and solutions that could improve the spectacle while preserving the integrity of our sport. Sixty years later, we felt that reintroducing a point rewarding the driver who achieves the best lap in the race was going in the right direction.”

“We have considered this solution for many months. It is a response to detailed research conducted with thousands of fans around the world. How many times have we heard drivers on the radio asking who has the fastest lap in a race? From now on, it will no longer be a question of records and prestige, but it will be a concrete motivation that will make the last part of the race even more interesting. Sometimes it is useful to remember the heritage of our sport to move forward. 'Before.”

Five seasons later, the conclusion is that of failure. With the current points scale, rewarding the winner with 25 points (while he only won eight between 1950 and 1959), the influence was going to be limited in any case (something which was reinforced by the sprints and their additional points from 2021), but in any case the issue has rarely been sufficiently crucial to go beyond the simple framework of a gimmicky measure. Certainly, on a few occasions, eyes were a little more focused on this best lap, but the overwhelming majority of the time, it was an anecdote.

It is this lack of interest and challenge which contributed to the fact that, in the first real controversy since 2019, this rule was immediately swept away. Indeed, when the Visa Cash App RB team, owned by Red Bull, deprived Lando Norris and McLaren of a point in Singapore, it mainly seemed to interfere with the fight for the title in favor of Red Bull Racing that play really this line of achievements. Whether this interference was intentional or not, the suspicion and controversy that followed precipitated the announcement of the removal of this rule a few weeks later, without this causing great emotion among fans and observers.

Best laps since 2019