Hamilton unconvinced by new tyre and qualifying rules

2016 F1 season

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Lewis Hamilton doubts F1’s rules changes for the new season will have much effect on the championship.

Speaking at a Mercedes press conference Hamilton dismissed suggestions that the revamped qualifying rules and revised tyre regulations would shake up the competition.

“I don’t know what the implications are of the new rules changes,” he said, “but the engineers don’t think it’s going to work, and I trust the engineers.”

“So we shall see after race one.”

A late change in the qualifying system was written into the regulations last week which will see drivers being eliminated every 90 seconds. In another change, each driver has been allowed to choose their tyre allocation for each race.

However team mate Nico Rosberg was more positive about the latest changes to the sporting regulations.

“I think the tyres might have a bigger impact than we now predict because there’s three tyres for example now in Melbourne that we can use and people can gamble a little bit more,” he said.

“That’ll increase the variability and variability is probably good in that sense. That could also increase the excitement.”

Rosberg urged F1 chiefs to keep considering ways to improve it.

“I am a big fan of the sport, I think the sport is awesome. I don’t disagree that there’s some things that could be done better, of course. We need to keep questioning it and keep pushing forward and keep looking at making the sport even more fun for everybody at home who’s watching us, for all of you, and even for us.”

“But also this year Ferrari is very close so for sure that’s going to make it even more exciting.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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27 comments on “Hamilton unconvinced by new tyre and qualifying rules”

  1. Are these the same engineers that helped form the Overtaking Workers Group, and the same engineers that predicted the engines would be much louder this year?

    Yeh, I won’t always take their word.

    Unhappy drivers/engineers is often a good thing! They love predictability and smoothness.

    1. Wrong, engineers love the unexpected, it gives them a chance to show their skills and increase their knowledge.

      1. But their job is to read and predict correctly. They don’t like hectic situations where others can interfere with their optimum strategy.

    2. How does his reply to a question directed at him – even resemble an “outburst”?

      1. Real engineer complain about difficult situations but loves to solve them. (think Scotty of the Enterprise)

  2. More and more I’m not liking Hamilton because of his constant outbursts ahead of the new season. I’m super excited for the new season but the constant complaining will ruin it for many people. So maybe it is not the poor rule-changes or the poor leadership, but it is the complaining towards these things from experienced personnel which is dropping the viewing numbers down

    1. Was he complaining?
      Or was he answering questions from the reporters at a press conference?

      How many people here don’t think the new rules are going to make a big difference. I think the new qualifying rules are probably going to make it more boring, because we are going to see the same divers ever race being the last two on track. Maybe a selection of 3 or 4 drivers if Ferrari have closed the gap. There is not going to be any last minute dashes of drivers trying to improve their position.

    2. Hamilton is the top driver, gets all the attention, its not his fault that media keeps asking those questions to him. The viewing is falling down could be attributed to more online viewership if that is not taken into account. There are lot of countries where people can’t afford/don’t want to pay the high subscription charges(South America, SE Asia) so they stream it.

      1. but the problem is his replies…

    3. RaceProUK (@)
      13th March 2016, 15:44

      More and more I’m not liking Hamilton because of his constant outbursts ahead of the new season.

      Let’s have a look at what he said again, shall we?

      “I don’t know what the implications are of the new rules changes, but the engineers don’t think it’s going to work, and I trust the engineers.”

      Funny… it seems like he’s refusing to give an opinion there, deferring to his engineers.

      “So we shall see after race one.”

      Funny… he seems to be withholding judgement until he’s seen the changes in action.

      If that’s what counts as an ‘outburst’ nowadays, then everything anyone ever said is an outburst.

      1. Sorry, I didn’t read the complete article! Just reacted after seeing the title!

        1. Yeah a lot of people do that…

        2. To be fair, I think what you did @lolzerbob was the definition of an outburst.

        3. “More and more I’m not liking Hamilton because of his constant outbursts……”

          “…..Sorry, I didn’t read the complete article! Just reacted after seeing the title!”

          *facepalm*

    4. His Instagram post re halo would be considered an outburst. This not so much. He does appear to have a greater tendency to leave his filter off than other drivers though – for better or worse.

  3. These new tyre and quali rules won’t work, mainly because they don’t go far enough.

    IMO, better tyre rules would have been; top 5 start the race on softest compound of the weekend, next 5 start the race on the next softest compound, 11th downwards have free choice.

    Qualifying wise, I’d have liked to have seen rapid-fire qualifying, OR, a reverse W/C order qualifying race.

    Rapid-fire qualifying is basically single-lap qualifying in Q1, Q2 and Q3. Cars leave the garages every 20-30secs, running order = fastest from previous session runs last, turning FP3 into an unofficial “pre-quali” for Q1. Times are deleted if you progress to the next session, as such you have no time to your name, therefore if you crash out in the next session or exceed track limits for example, you’re starting from the back.

    Reverse W/C order qualifying race pretty self-explanatory. 22 cars, 22 laps, where you finish = where you start for the grand prix. Bit of strategy in there aswell as 22 laps is enough of a distance to question whether you pit or not, whether the others will pit or not, what tyres you put on, how much fuel you carry, etc.

    My personal favourite is the rapid-fire qualifying. I like knowing drivers are really on the limit, and if they make a mistake there’s a big penalty. Lots of respect for drivers who can handle that adrenaline and pressure, and still put a stonking good lap-time in. Makes for pretty good TV too I feel. Likewise, the smaller teams being able to guarantee sponsors a minimum 20-30secs TV time per car can only help towards their survival :).

    1. He trusts the engineers ?
      Last years Monaco race would have me think twice about that Lewis hahaha

      1. @reggie747, why? Again Monaco was Lewis’ choice to stay out, his team urged him to pit and he told them he knew better and wanted to stay out. Only has himself to blame for that one. Go check the radio transcripts if you don’t believe it. Its all there.

        1. hahaha whoops I got it all backwards, but yeah the reverse of what I just said, Lewis wanted to pit and the team urged him to stay out, but Lewis decided to pit anyway against their advice.

          1. Yet another ‘outburst’ proven incorrect EF1?

            Honestly – get a grip…

    2. @thef1engineer

      Do you have good relations to Saudi or Gulf billionaires?, because that’s a sound plan for taking over Todt’s job, now all you need’s the endorsements from powerful people.

  4. LOLZ, it will make the races easier for him :) He just needs to make sure he has accurate tire and fuel metrics available for him on his steering wheel. Rosberg, playing politics as usual, but who can blame him, it’s kinda how he grew up, and how he expects things to work ;)

    1. *concerning the ‘radio ban’ implications.

  5. Has something happened to Mark Webber?

    1. RaceProUK (@)
      13th March 2016, 23:30

      It’s a Mercedes press conference, featuring the current drivers. So why do you mention Webber? Why mention a driver who has never raced for Mercedes, who has never been involved with the team, and isn’t even in F1 anymore? Why mention someone who has 0% relevance to the article? And why specifically Webber? Why not Villeneuve? Why not Hakkinen? Why not Kubica? Why not McNish?

  6. Personally I don’t expect much to change as I believe nothing has been done about the same thing that was LH’s biggest complaint late last year…couldn’t get by NR in his dirty air…couldn’t stay within 2 seconds behind without ruining his tires. Quali has nothing to do with that, and perhaps a bit more tire variation on the track might create a bit of action but I suspect most drivers will be on the same tires at the same time once they have settled into the season, and dirty air will still be a big handcuffer.

  7. the tyres and qualifying wont make much difference to Mercedes, what will make a difference is Ferraris new power plant configuration, and moslty the new ICE with very high compression.

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