New Formula One Qualifying

"sonicgabe" (gabeloewenberg)
03/19/2016 at 04:36 • Filed to: Formula One

Yeah, so that sucked. Hot laps don’t count when your 90 seconds is up unless it’s the end of the session? Cars not on track for several minutes at the end of Q2 and Q3. Teams just giving up.

Why mess with what was a very exciting qualifying system? This was a joke. Heck, Haas should have been up in to Q2, maybe even Q3. If I was at the race, I’d want my money back. The FIA needs, no must fix this by the next race. The only option is to bring back the old system.

DISCUSSION (10)

Wheelerguy > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 04:41

No that’s the point. The showrunners want to see teams to give up. At least the weaker ones.

derf > Wheelerguy
03/19/2016 at 05:01

If that is the point, it’s not a very good one. My understanding is that this was some kind of half-assed response to prevent reverse grids from being pushed through (which, to be fair, would be an even worse idea).

With the previous model there was time enough for back and forth, with cars trying to top each others times in successive runs. Now, there’s no time to turn the car around and complete both an out lap and a hot lap. On a dry track in good weather, there’s no reason for the last five minutes of each session to be a tea break.

I suppose if the objective is to shake up the grid by making it easy for people to screw up qualifying and end up starting further back than they otherwise would have, it could be viewed as a success. Frankly, I think it’s a bag of ass, and I really hope it’s gone by the time Monaco rolls around. I like watching qualifying - for some circuits as much if not more than the race itself.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 05:08

Couldn’t agree more. I haven’t watched f1 much in the last couple seasons (despite being an avid fan for years) but I decided to see if I could get back into it today only to be confronted with more nonsense.

derf > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
03/19/2016 at 05:37

Sure, Merc’s platform has been eating everyone else’s lunch, but even when Lewis and Nico are off fighting amongst themselves there’s been some really good racing from the rest of the field.

The good news is that if the tweets flying around are any indication, they’ll probably go back to the old quali format post-haste. I just hope it doesn’t get replaced by some other half baked grid mixing scheme.

sonicgabe > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
03/19/2016 at 05:37

Just off the top of my head, if they kept the format they have now, but changed the elimination time from 90 seconds to say every 30 seconds with the ability to finish your hot lap if time runs out after you’ve passed the halfway point on the track, it could be pretty exciting. Maybe. I literally thought of that while I was typing. It would at least keep cars on track through the final minutes of the session. Maybe it wouldn't work at all. But they need to so something. Think about how the system they put in place will work at longer tracks, like Spa.

derf > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 06:33

You still need time to turn the car around though. It’s not like you can sit out on track and lay down maximum pace laps one after the other. If you want the absolute best out of the car, you need minimum fuel and fresh rubber. And then once you’ve been in, you need time to get through your out lap before you can start a proper flying lap.

“Oh, but we need to encourage closer racing or people will say it’s boring!”. Well, Mercedes simply has the fastest package right now. Any scheme that tries to artificially mitigate that advantage is going to involve BS of some form or another. I’d rather they just let everyone get on with proper qualifying and see who can put the fastest lap in. There’s been plenty of exciting racing going on even when the Merc boys are off at the front doing their own thing.

hike > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 08:47

I just watched it recorded. What a waste of time. The new qualifying is utter shit. They ended up with less cars running and frustrated drivers. This better not last longer. Half they guys set one lap then stopped even bothering with it in q3. I hope the drivers ripped into it during pressers.

scoob > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 11:49

You called?

Chasaboo > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 11:58

Martin Brundle’s comment was so on the money about it. It did not have the result they wanted, more cars on track during all of qualifying.

Minardi Gras > sonicgabe
03/19/2016 at 12:51

Your emoji is correct.

If the rules said that cars must be on track circulating for the whole time, fuel burning, times coming down, then it could be interesting - although they’d need to be on the medium/hard tyre and laps would be more like race laps than qualifying laps.

When you have people in the pits that can’t do anything about their elimination 5 or 6 minutes in advance it’s stupid. Even when the last person was on track they had to already be on a good lap when their 90 seconds started or they were out. If they could finish a lap it would help but still... poop.