Here is a quick test on the evenness of car choices along the races with the bonus system. I only included races from Z91 onwards to avoid flawed conclusions - it is known that 2008 rules resulted in bonuses which tended to favour PG cars. The method consisted in adding points for cars in each race as if in a normal scoreboard. In order to give extra weight to podium results, I chose to deploy the 2009 F1 scoring system (1st to 8th receive points; 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1). Here is the overall rank:
Countach: 67
Skyline: 56
Ranger: 47
Ferrari: 46
Lancia: 41
Audi: 40
Corvette: 39
Carrera: 35
LM002: 33
Speedgate: 32
Acura: 22
P962: 18
Indy: 18
Jaguar: 13
Comments:
- Most cars are in the 30-40 range. Considering the maximum score for a single race is 39 and that there are more cars than tracks in a season, that fact speaks well of the current bonus system.
- The cars topping the rank either were used by most pipsqueaks on a track but failed to win it (Countach @Z93, Skyline @Z94, Ranger @Z95) or were used exclusively by the winner on a race (Ferrari @Z91) and ended up resurfacing late in the season. Nothing wrong with that.
- Cars lying low on the rank are now, after the averaging of bonuses for the new season, in a good position to be deployed in 2010. Audi, which was largely ignored through 2009, already dominated Z103; the IMSA cars will likely play a major role on the next few races and Indy and NSX (which were arguably over-used during 2008) will surely appear again by mid-season when their bonuses accumulate a bit more.
Thumbs up for the bonus system, I guess ;) In case anybody is curious, here is the full "season scoreboard" copy-pasted from OpenOffice Calc:
Z91 Z92 Z93 Z94 Z95 Z96 Z97 Z98 Z99 Z100 Z101 Z102 Z103
ANSX 22
AUDI 8 32
VETT 39
FGTO 10 31 5
RANG 17 30
JAGU 1 10 2
COUN 28 39
LANC 2 39
LM02 4 29
NSKY 17 39
P962 18
PC04 35
PMIN 18
GATE 4 9 10 9