Well, that sounds wide open for abuse. Also, I am not sure how the bookies would deal with something like that when calculating the odds. "Well, this driver is better, but the other one has a huge following on twitter, so the odds are in their favour..."
That's the most stupid thing I've heard all week. No matter how it's implemented it's silly. Fans shouldn't be able to influence the result of a race.
But if you're going to let the audience VOTE on the outcome I might as well go watching survivor. Maybe they'll let us vote asshole drivers off the island?
But it is a brilliantly viral idea from the marketing point of view. Think of that Saturday afternoon when you have a few posts popping up on facebook and twitter "Your friend is supporting ____...", it is sure to get a bump in non-hard-core fans watching the race.
Racing is one of the few places they can do this.
Putting aside the technical / abuse angle, which is totally valid.......From a getting fan interaction and publicity idea, its not a totally bad idea. Its a bit "reality".
Now, if there is a god, he knows full well I cant stand all this "reality" and social media lark, but frankly, it is popular. FE needs to hook in to something as it needs to build a following. Its never going to appeal to the olde skool big engine and noise brigade who cant get their heads round electric at all, so it needs to get new fans interested. IMHO, that means going all youth and modern. So, things like this are a reasonable idea.
Problem I see is that this specific idea is possibly born of gray suited men in a meeting not really understanding either racing or social media. I understand the general intent, but not the currently touted solution.