I don't like the fastest lap point award. Points should only be awarded for the final finishing positions and, to a lesser degree, for the stages, in my opinion. I don't care if you can game around with the stopwatch at the cost of the actual finishing position.
A few other thoughts or details:
Once an entry is to many laps behind to improve it's final finishing position it should be required to retire for the remainder of the race. The only exception for remaining for continuing should be to prevent losing any more postions.
There are just too many opportunities for a lame duck to interfere with the natural outcome. They are perfect opportunities for some frustrated payback, or to serve as a team blocker or drafting assistant.
I like the stage points overall, but it isn't perfect. It shouldn't include an automatic cautions.
The actual race winner should always earn significantly more points than anyone else. The stage points should be limited to prevent anyone from using them to earn the most overall points for the race or even come close. I would go even further to say that it should be impossible to outpoint anyone in the top three in the final finishing positions.
But the stage points do serve a purpose by providing an incentive to run near the front all day.. There are just to many resets for a crap performance that is dependant on lucky dogs and wave arounds. I dont even like letting the field catch up before opening pit road during the cautions.
I think the rules of competition should be less forgiving and truly punish those who can't minimize errors and mistakes or put together a complete race.
