Formula 1: Double points in last race plan to go ahead

The issue was briefly raised at a meeting in Geneva on Wednesday but no attempt was made to overturn the plan. 

It is the idea of F1 commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone, to keep the championship alive as long as possible. 

The meeting was held largely to discuss the introduction of a cost cap in 2015, on which some progress was made. 

One leading team boss told BBC Sport before the meeting on the condition of anonymity that "most participants would agree to ditch it". 

He said Ecclestone and the FIA had "completely misjudged the predictable negative response from the public". 

Ferrari president Luca Di Montezemolo had said last month that he was "not enthusiastic about it, because for me it looks too artificial". 
 

However, none of the teams made a major issue of the plan at the meeting. This is almost certainly because they consider it is not an issue over which it is important enough to be worth getting into a dispute with Ecclestone. 

The teams have agreed with the FIA and Ecclestone not to discuss with the media events at the meeting. 

However, the decisions made on the issue of the mooted cost cap are to go to vote of the FIA World Council, the sport's legislative arm, on Thursday. This will be a rubber-stamping exercise. 

The teams did not agree on a figure for the upper limit of spending. This will be discussed at a further meeting of the team's finance bosses. 

F1 believes it needs a cost cap for three main reasons: 

1) The barrier to entry is too high - it is unlikely any new team would want to enter knowing it would be four to five seconds off the pace with no chance of progress 

2) The high costs mean there are no independent engine manufacturers in the sport, which means F1 is beholden to motor manufacturers, which tend to come and go from the sport at will 

3) There is too little competition across the grid and an ever-reducing chance of a surprise result, such as a smaller team qualifying on the front row or getting a podium finish. 

Introducing a cost cap of, say, £150m, would not reduce the costs of the smaller teams as many are spending less than that, but it would carve in the region of £100m off the budgets of top teams Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren and close the gap between front and back. 

Source : BBC