Qualifying could be changed by next race

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: Formula One heads are considering replacing the sport’s unpopular new qualifying system after just one race.

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Yesterday was a bad day for F1 as a sport:

The really sad thing is there was so much interesting stuff that happened. Like Hamilton’s 0th Pole position, the presence of the Toro Rosso drivers in Q3, the absence of one driver each from Williams and Red Bull – and has McLaren-Honda improved?

These should be the points of interest, not the format.
Stephen Crowsen (@Drycrust)

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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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42 comments on “Qualifying could be changed by next race”

  1. Surprise, suprise…

    1. Please Keith,
      This new format might work it they ban refuelling during entire qualifying, we might watch 3 laps fuel Manor vs 15 laps fuel Mercedes for Q1 and its still fair because all their own choices.
      *Offcourse refuel might still taken but grid penalty awaits, HAM and ROS may refuel for their last head-to-head battle but the looser will start from P3 (P2+1) and the winner will keep pole (P1+1) = P2 = Pole.

      1. Refueling back (more drama on more to see), V12 engines back (the sound and tone, not only the noise is important, also shows much more who can really drive), much more power to engines by using V12, so much tyres as you want to use and all type (more strategy, more driving), radio conversations away; totally. F1 should not be an idiotic saving in everything concerning driving itself. They do have e formula etc. and it’s enough. World it’s not saved by this idiotism.

  2. If FOM really want an elimination style quali they could have 60 minutes, the first 15 minutes are a free for all, then after that every 3 minutes you eliminate the slowest car, until you have 15 minutes left, and in the current year 12 cars left. They then have the last 15 minutes to battle over the top positions. With an ever evolving track over a 60 minute period it would ensure action at the beginning as everyone needs to set a time, then action throughout as people squabble over not being last, and finally the last 15 minutes being a top 12 shootout.

    1. I like that idea! It takes the best from the 1 hour fromat and combines it with elimination so we can have cars on track all the time. With proper thought it could actually work. Pity then, that proper thought and F1 strategy group are complete opposites, mutually exclusive

    2. er….wasnt that the old style qualy format only different time periods? #:)

  3. While this F1 qualifying format is a pointless backward step it is nowhere near as bad for F1 than these made to degrade tyres which penalise an attacking driver or Bernies sputid idea of reverse grids, can you imagine the Jim Clark, Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Schumacher etc. years with that kind of system, would have been great for the “nearly” champions but even better for the 3rd. raters.

    1. I completely and absolutely disagree that the tyres are anywhere near as bad as this. The tyres make for exciting, unpredictable racing, which is a good thing. I also disagree that they penalize attacking drivers, not only because I don’t think we at home have any idea what that actually is, it’s not stopped Hamilton from winning the last two seasons and surely he is the epitome of what fans call an attacking driver.

      1. I completely disagree, you want exciting and unpredictable then go with Bernies idea and make the fast drivers start at the back, I want the fastest driver/car to win unless they make a mistake, that is the whole point of F1. It is clear that you don’t know what an attacking driver is, Hamilton is usually out front with no need to attack, but on the odd occasion when he is behind Rosberg he complains that he can’t attack without destroying his tyres, you are of course excused from not knowing what attacking means in F1 because there has been very little of it since Bernie started fiddling with the format over 20 years ago, you need to go back to A.Senna and earlier to understand what F1 has lost.

        1. RaceProUK (@)
          20th March 2016, 0:55

          You seem to be forgetting the battles Schumacher and Alonso had in ’05 and ’06

          1. You seem to be forgetting those were battles on the Bridgestone tires on which you could battle without destroying them. The current pirelli cheese tires will be destroyed after a few corners of attacking. They overheat and the rubber in them is converted to hard plastic which does not revert. Once you’ve done that the tires are gone.

            F1 is not about the sport anymore but about the entertainment. What they seem to forget is that if the sport is good, the entertainment will follow. This change in particular seems to have it’s root in the track promotors who were trying to get more entertainment for the fans and probably try to generate more income through that, seeing as how Bernie sucks them dry for all the cash he can get. I for one am less and less interested in this so called pinacle of motorsports.

            There was nothing wrong with qualifying. If they want to fix this, fix the aero problems of following the car in front through ground effect. That would give you downforce and the ability to follow a car through the corners because the front wing will be less important. It also makes it possible to remove the current aero vortexes and other stuff that makes the air behing a car so difficult for the following car.

            And while I’m at it, make F1 free to air again and also remove silly gimmicks like DRS. And just to go on, also stop with the halo nonsense. That’s just a response to freak accidents. Just accept that racing is dangerous and not every danger should be eliminated. The racing is safe enough as it is and if you want it safer, go watch another sport.

          2. @raceprouk, “very little” is not none, those were great battles despite the re-fuelling but if you had these tyres in those days, we would not have had those great battles either.

          3. RaceProUK (@)
            20th March 2016, 15:36

            @FormerF1Fan: Thanks for bring up something totally irrelevant.

            @HoHum: So what you’re saying is that there wasn’t any attacking except for all the attacking that actually happened.

          4. @raceprouk, No, read my post again, I didn’t say there was NO attacking, I said very little attacking.

          5. RaceProUK (@)
            21st March 2016, 17:23

            Then you clearly have selection bias, as there was plenty of attacking in the 90s and 00s.

        2. @hohum … That’s not what you said. You said F1 hurts attacking drivers. But Hamilton has been dominating the sport. Either Hamilton is not an attacking driver, or what you said was simply not true.

          Just, pick one. What you’re saying is not consistent with what we see on track.

          Also, you are trying to make it sound like the tyres are making it a complete lottery. In which case, I challenge you to tell me who in last years championship was out of place in the final order. Because again, that’s not true.

          Obviously we disagree, I like the strategy, I like the pitsops, I like the potential for passing that the tyres bring. I don’t think no stops makes for good racing. And I much prefer they stop because they need to, than because the rules tell them to.

          Also, it’s impossible to go back to the 90’s. You just can’t. You can not make a rule set that will cause that. And it would be completely ridiculous to race under the rules from the 90’s.

          1. More rubbish Mike, attacking is a verb, making it an adjective to suit your argument doesn’t cut it.

        3. Great comment HoHum.

    2. My bad on this, also. I was so certain, this new quali would be super-exciting. I’m not sure what happened? Did the engineers crunch the variables and then decide this was the best way to approach the format? Or, are the Mercs so dominant and 2016 is essentially going to be like 2015 that they all knew where they would be and then saved tires?

      1. The problem is you can’t change 1 thing and not have it have an effect elsewhere. For elimination qualifying to have stood even a remote chance of working in this format, we would have needed more tyres.

  4. Anybody know what happened with bottas? There was mention of possible penalty after Williams didn’t hand his suspension spec sheet in in-time!?

    1. @nemo87 – Wondered the same thing. Not seeing any news on what happened with that at all. Reports are now Bottas will take a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change. No mention of the other.

    2. Gearbox change.

  5. Ignoring that Mercedes are first and second Bernie, the whole point of this system was a flop. The “crescendo” and I say that with as much sarcasm as I can, was a complete bust, not only that but in the old system, because the track would be at it’s grippiest (That’s a word, sue me) later in the sessions, we actually did have a “crescendo”. Not only that, but it meant we could have surprise results if a big name made a mistake or Vestappen did something even more ridiculous than usual.

    If we simply go back, it will be so, so much better.

    1. Could it be that Bernie and the headline writers cannot see beyond the top two or three in any sporting event. They are convinced that because the same people are at the top every event that it must be boring.

      Maybe to Bernie and people like him, and you need not look further that US politics, followed all over the world, that 2nd and below are losers and can and should be ignored.

  6. @keithcollantine the helpful ‘Grid’ link in the Australian GP drop down menu has disappeared. Can we have it back? I want to check the grid again without going through old pages.

  7. If there is one race that deserves this farce of qualifying is Bahrain so I say leave it for one more race and just revert in China. If there was one that didn’t deserve it is Melbourne, but that’s just how it goes, unfortunately, when you senile people trying to “improve the show” instead of trying to improve the sport.

    1. @paulk
      Why the hate? Bahrain has been throwing up more good races than bad over the past 12 years.

        1. @paulk, and yet there were relatively few complaints on human rights ground around the Turkish GP, despite the record of Erdogan’s government on arbitrarily detaining individuals, widespread media censorship and systematic electoral fraud – if anything, Istanbul Park was one of the more popular modern circuits and there have been quite a few people wanting to return there.

  8. Wow, that was quick.

  9. Knock-out qualifying was the one bright spot in the malaise that has become F1.

    1. Sarcasm, right?

  10. the cord cutter thing hits home for me big time. F1 is literally the only reason i have cable in the US. I’m more than happy to pay F1 for the rights to just stream the races (assuming i can watch any time after the session is over).

  11. The only change that qualifying needed was eliminating most if not all of the setup restrictions in order to go back to having qualification-specific and race-specific setups. This used to be enough to have a relatively mixed grid as some cars were very good at low-fuel one-lap qualification, while others excelled in race trim.
    If I’m not mistaken, the current setup and parc ferme restrictions were introduced to save cost, but all their cost-saving (and keeping huge profits for “owners”) has ruined the sport and the spectacle.

  12. PSA for US readers: PlayStation Vue carries NBCSN – don’t know why that article didn’t seem to know that..

    Alternatively NowTV from Sky UK and a VPN ;)

  13. Apex Assassin
    20th March 2016, 1:36

    It took about 10 minutes. Return to 2015 qualifying from Bahrain. Unanimous agreement from FIA and all 11 team managers.

  14. Reports that the tear-off throwaway ban has also been repealed for this race. Guess they have to wait until all the cars can have a proper rubbish bin installed?

  15. I don’t understand why they restrict the number of qualifying tires. The only way to keep cars running throughout qualifying, which is what they seem to want, is to give them all the rubber they want. And I think they should stop making them start the race on qualifying tires. It forces all the front cars onto basically the same strategy. Let them mix up their strategies, and it’ll spice things up a bit.

    I think they should be given 3 compounds to choose from, and forced to use at least 2. Surely we would see some interesting combinations and strategies that might give a team like Ferrari a chance to win races, even if they can’t beat Mercedes in qualifying. Again, they shouldn’t limit the number of tires available. It really ties the hands of the strategists.

  16. Lee Porcelli
    20th March 2016, 4:11

    Thank god that idea was thrown away. Now we can enjoy qualifying again. A lot of us are know trying to work out how we can get a part refund from Bernie. We now know why he is not at the first meeting of the year.Have great viewing spot into turn one with general admission ticket. It’s between two grand stands and opposite a viewing screen. Found it last year. Happy times.

  17. I’m really curious to see how Haas can do. Gutierrez finished a lap that didn’t count, and was only 1.29 off the Mercedes in Q1. That was right up there with 5th and 6th, and would have put him in a very close 7th, if it had counted…

  18. So we’ve gone back to the “old” Q1, Q2, Q3. Wise move.

    As many different quali formats have been floated recently, by myself amongst them, the tyre rules are really the way to go about mixing up the grids/racing WITHOUT altering qualifying. We got an indication of that today.

    I’d suggest the top 5 MUST start on the softest compound of the weekend, the next 5 the next softest, and 11>22 get free choice.

    This would put the Merc and Ferrari boys in the pits early, the mid-pack in the pits a few laps later, and brings the slower boys up into the mix. 15>20 laps into the grand prix, you’d get your mixed grid, or mixed running order, and the purity of qualifying is maintained.

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