So I was really bored one night and so I thought, what if Formula 1 decided to use the NASCAR Playoff Format this year. I know I know, F1 will never ever use such a system and they should never ever ever ever do it. But what happens if Liberty went bonkers and decided to send F1 down this path to end this sport? To those who are not familiar with it, NASCAR has a regular season, in which the top 16 drivers after the regular season go to the Playoffs to decide the NASCAR Champion. Every 3 races there will be an elimination, where the bottom 4 drivers will be eliminated. This goes on until the Final 4 drivers emerge, and they'll go into the winner takes all final race, where the highest finishing driver in the final championship race will be the champion.

So, naturally (or unnaturally), I wondered, what if F1 for some crazy reason decided to use a format like that? Sure we'll probably have the same champion but how would the championship shape out? So i decided to put it to the test and try it out with this season. If you would let me indulge in my crazy thoughts...

1. Points System

First of, I had to decide on a points system, and I decided to use a system which awarded all drivers points, because having multiple drivers with 0 points will make tie-breaking diffficult with an elimination system. So i decided on this scale: 50-42-35-30-25-22-20-18-16-14-13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4. Drivers who do not finish a race will just get 1 point. These are regular points, and these points will get wiped away after every elimination. I'll get to that next.

I also had to decide on playoff points. These are points that do not get wiped away after each elimination and can carry over all the way to the final elimination race. So I decided on:

Race Win - 3 PointsPole - 1 PointFastest Lap - 1 Point

Because Formula 1 has lesser races and lesser points to give out in general, I didn't want the Playoff points to override the regular points so much, so i tried to give some points out but not too much to strike some sort of balance. But as you'll see later, the Mercedes domination makes this very difficult still.

2. Race Calendar

Now, we have to decide on how the calendar will look like and how many playoff races do we want. But because we only had 17 races this season, I decided that having too many playoff races would upset the balance quite a bit, so I settled on the calendar below, with 10 regular-season races, and 7 playoff races.

2020 Parallel Universe Calendar

So now we've got the points and races, time to calculate the results. The season has run all the way up till the first playoff race so far, but who has gotten into the Playoff Races? Only the Top 12 drivers on points will make it to the next round. Oh and I think I forgot to mention, having a race win will also automatically secure you a spot in the next round too.

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Regular Season Standings

So our 12 playoff drivers have emerged. Gasly is up in fourth because his win in Monza automatically locked him into the playoffs and his points didn't matter anymore. Also notably, due to Vettel's abysmal performance towards the end of the Regular Season, he started sliding down the championship and ended up not even making it into the Playoffs.

So our playoff grid is set! And here are the playoff points that each driver will start off with as we head into the playoffs. Remember, these points carry over from round to round and will not be wiped off, unlike the regular points.

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Playoff Points at the Start of the Round of 12

We now go into our first ever playoff race at the Nurburgring for the Eifel Grand Prix. It was a race of attrition for most, how were our playoff drivers affected? Here's the standings are the first round.

Standings after the Eifel GP

So, Hamilton has booked himself a spot in the Round of 8 unsurprisingly, and even if he didn't he would be miles ahead based on his playoff points alone. Bottas is sitting on the elimination bubble after his retirement, saved by the playoff points from his race wins and poles from the regular season. The 4 drivers currently at risk of elimination were the other 4 drivers who retired from the Eifel GP. This is what happens with this NASCAR playoff format, 1 bad race can really shape your whole season just like that, and they cannot afford another retirement or they would need to win a race or be out. And winning a race to get into the next round is much harder to pull off in F1 as compared to NASCAR (unless you're in a Mercedes).

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So that's all I have for now, not sure if people will care about this or if people even want this on here but thought I would share what I've been spiralling on the past few days being stuck at home. If you all like this, I could do a weekly update on the Playoffs as we keep going all the way to Yas Marina.

Who do you think will be eliminated this round? 2 races to go at 2 relatively unknown tracks, it's really anyone's game! Will we see a surprise elimination?

Let me know what you think about this fantasy NASCAR style F1 season and we'll see how this goes in this parallel universe. Cheers! Thanks for letting me indulge in this crazy parallel universe haha

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**EDIT: Slight correction to the graphics, I somehow forgot Lando got a fastest lap in Austria

**EDIT2: Idk why but i feel like i need to say, the reason why i made this post WAS NOT to present this as a viable alternative for F1 to become more exciting. It’s more to take a ridiculous motorsport championship format and see how ridiculous it can make F1. That is all, i’m not saying F1 should use the playoffs because it would be more exciting. Heck no, this is just for fun and see how ridiculous it can be 😅😅