New qualifying rules proposal

[Bruce D]

What the FIA think the fans will react like



How the fans are really reacting

[steveaki13]

Most fans must be shaking their heads.

F1s viewing must plummet with this and poorer TV coverage.

[steveaki13]

on a wet day it will be a complete lottery. I mean we know its normally every car over the line improves. Well if you are in the wrong place you could go out in rain and we end up with basically random grid.

[inimitablestoo]

The weather's not any bigger a problem than under most other qualifying systems that have been tried though; I'm more concerned with "eliminated" cars trundling back to the pits and getting in the way of "live" qualifiers, or what happens with yellow flags and red flags when they come out during a session. Or indeed, if more than one car has failed to set a time by the first elimination point, which one gets knocked out?

In principle, it's actually not that bad a system, but I don't know that the current system needed changing that radically. Perhaps use this new system for Q3 only?

[AndyL]

So as I understand it, there are still 3 sessions as before, but instead of knocking out X number of drivers when the session is completed, they start knocking out the drivers with the slowest times from half way through the session, one at a time every 90 seconds until X have been eliminated. Is that it?

It sounds like it'll be pretty chaotic. What's the purpose of this change? Just to make the grids more random?

[Rollo]

Most fans must be shaking their heads.

F1s viewing must plummet with this and poorer TV coverage.

It matters not to me what the qualifying rules are. Apart from the Australian GP, Mad Uncle Rupert has hidden all of the wallyfying behind his precious paywall.

They could throw darts into the front of a Rolls-Royce Trent 800 and have them shoot out the other side at a rotating dartboard and I'd still be none the wiser.

[Bruce D]

In principle, it's actually not that bad a system, but I don't know that the current system needed changing that radically. Perhaps use this new system for Q3 only?

Everyone seems to be forgetting the Pirelli factor though. These tyres are only good for one lap so everyone is going to crawl around until they think they are under threat then bang in their quick lap. The fight for pole will probably be over with 5min to go because both would have shot their tyres and have nothing left. Unless they are allowed to change tyres but that isn't clear from the article I've read on Autosport.

[The Black Knight]

Having read through the new rules for qualifying I can't help but think that this is a very bad idea and is not going to have the desired affect. The current qualifying format works really well and there is no need to shake it up. If they want to do something different then go back to the 12 lap 1 hour qualifying we used to have. I still think that and the current quali format were the best.

[Tazio]

The current qualifying procedure is just fine. I don't understand why they feel compelled to mess with it.

[N. Jones]

Ii think they are dumb. Qualifying is never going to be exciting to the point where the viewership is on par with the race.