text: When the team captain presented it to the referees at the final game's start, they were told it was not permissible and thus for this heat, Belgium were unable to play their joker at all; the only time any team's joker was not contested.The Belgian team of Spa were too far behind the leading teams for the bonus joker points to have had any impact on the heat winners. With the increase in the number of teams to eight from the 1979 series on, the joker system was changed. Teams had to win the game to get a bonus of six points if they played their joker, with four points for finishing second and two points for finishing third. If they failed to finish in the top three for the game, there were no bonus joker points earned. The 'Fil Rouge' format was changed in 1981 so that all teams competed together in four repetitions of the game, with different team members in each repetition. The teams retained their best score/time from each of the four repetitions to determine the points after the fourth repetition. 