Radical Changes to F1 Qualifying

[Valve Bounce]

Go to Autosport.com to view the full text. Basically qualifying will be two sessions of one lap each. The first session will take place in the order of the championship (previous year's I suppose). with Msch going first and probably de Matta going last. The second session will be in the reverse order of the times achieved in the first lap, with the fastest lapper going last.

[Adam43]

Is it the championship order at that point? Or as you say last years?
Is it last years for the first race and then the current table for the rest of the races?

Is it fair?

[ASCII Man]

Already read it, not a bad idea, except the reversed grids on saturday will give the fastest (MS) guy an even bigger advantage...

[neilap]

And this is supposed to do what? I liked the free for all!!

[Kex]

I suppose they did this to solve the 'problem' of nothing much happening on Friday.

[Arneal]

I believe they changed qualifying to give better TV exposure to the sponsers of the back marker teams. I think it is a bad move for fans, the qually was the best part of the F1 weekend.

It makes sense for the order to be determined by the current standings rather than the previous years.

[Valve Bounce]

I suppose the question is: if either JPM or SchM were leading the championship, and had to be first car out on the friday to run a lap, how far up would he be in quals knowing that the track gets faster as quals progresses normally. Well, if there are other races, like our V8's in Oz running before quals, then JPM or SchM would probably be able to get the car well above the halfway mark.
Now if the same guy then started halfway down the order the second day, where would he qualify ? If it's SchM or JPM, then probably on the front row or thereabouts. We have often seen these guys run their fastest lap with about ten or even 15 minutes to go, and I suspect it is more of a function of how they have been setting up their cars (successfully or otherwise) during the early part of quals rather than the track geting faster, and faster, and faster.
So, personally, I don't see this making as much difference to the race winners as Bermax had hoped.
Look at it this way, if SchM qualified 6th, not because the car was slow, but only because the track in the final half hour was faster due to rising track temperature, would he still win the race? Probably have some difficulty at Monaco and Hungaroring, that's all. Anywhere else, yeah!!

[Wrex]

OK, it would seem that there is some confusion with the rules.

They will run on the Friday afternoon (in superpole style) in current championship order, with the exception of the 1st race where they will use the previous years championship.

Example Melbourne 03

Michael
Rubins
Montoya
Ralf
etc

This is not qualifying though, it just determins the order of superpole. Assuming the times on Friday superpole were

Montoya 1:29.xxx
Michael 1:29.xxx
Kimi 1:29.xxx
.
.
.
Yoong 1:54.xxx

Therfore, on the Saturday Qual session, they would start with Yoong, running through to Montoya.

Track conditions (weather excluded) will be mostly irrelivant. Montoya may get a slightly better track than Yoong, but hardly better than Michael after 1 lap.

Changing conditions (rain), small mistakes and poor setup are the only contributing factors. If it were to rain, it is likely to effect a group of drivers rather than one alone. It would be highly unlucky for the provisional pole man to be the only one effected by rain.

It would be intersting to see a downpour just before the top 10 went out Watching the top 10 cut through the field would be awsom.

All in all, it wont change the starting order much. But some will be better at this than others (I'm guessing Monty and Michael will be the only pole sitters next year) and every now and again a hero or lucky driver will come through. IMO, it takes nothing away from F1 but has added some more excitement. Now only if Australia could watch qualifying....

[Wrex]

Hmmm, one question though, does the 107% rules still exist, and if so, what happens if someone crashes during qualifying?

[Sato san]

thats what i wondered......as it is now more of a do or die effort ...Many drivers wont even finish the lap i reckon.

[f1manoz]

I think this is the most interesting decision made. Qualifying well on Friday effects Saturday start. And it could mean something if the track warms up/cools down or if it even starts to rain....

I can predict a lot of JPM poles if he gets it hooked up though...

[mac]

I think this is very good. I think they would have to get rid of the 107% rule. No biggie - they'll be lucky to have 20 cars next year anyway.

[z2252314]

I think JPM is an awesome qualifier, but I think this system is actually favouring MSchumi. Juan usually struggles during his first couple of runs. After tweaking with the set-up he usually pulls out a blinder in one of the last two runs to snatch pole. Michael on the other hand, usually decides to only use three runs. He doesnt tend to make as much improvement with the car as JPM does and he tends to find the limit quite early. I actually think this system is working towards Michael's strengths and against JPM's strengths. I suppose only time will tell.

[Sato san]

Z.....makes a good point here.....Micheal's strength is that first flat out lap....he normally gets a few tenths that the others catch up later.....i think Juan will right up there too.

[Wrex]

As I said earlier in the thread, Monty and Michael will kill with this. But everyone can overcook a lap, so it will be interesting.

[neilap]

So think about this scenario. Sato and Yoong are tied for the championship leading up to the final race. Yoong puts in his run and gets the pole, then when Sato comes out there is a downpour. The WDC will be decided by the weather!!

CART used similar qualifying and quit it. In a wet race it could be potentially even more dangerous. Maybe after seeing it put to work I will have a different opinion.

[Wrex]

Originally posted by neilap
So think about this scenario. Sato and Yoong are tied for the championship leading up to the final race. Yoong puts in his run and gets the pole, then when Sato comes out there is a downpour. The WDC will be decided by the weather!!

If these two are fighting for than championship, why are we watching?

As to your point, a championship is decided over 17 (oops, 16) races, not the last one. Does it matter what variable effects the end? A mechanical failure, the weather, whats the difference?

[Valve Bounce]

Wrex, you forget that nowadays when quals start, nobody wants to go out first because they are waiting for some poor schmuck to go out to clear the track of dust and lay some rubber on the track. So the big guns never bother to come out until at least 25 minutes into quals, which is backed up by every F1-Live commentary this year. So the first guy out will have lesser track conditions than the last guy out (theoretically). However, as I outlined above, this is hardly going to make that much difference to the top guns who will probably get their cars well within the top ten anyway on the first day, which will nullify any advantage that anyone having the last run on the first day will have. I can only see this being a lottery if the track condition changed dramatically during one of the two days due to rain or a sudden drop in track temp. I really cannot see any of the tail enders getting any advantage out of this.

[Wrex]

The point is though Valve, the track difference Michael & Juan wont be any different. Each driver will still be on a similar track to those with similar speed. The Minardi's may go out on a dirty track but one won't have any advantage over the other. I don't think Yoong is going to leave a much cleaner track for Webber (and so on).

[Valve Bounce]

You miss the point. If SchM went out first on Friday, he would be running on a dirty track as first car out. The last guy out, say de Matta will have a much cleaner track with Lotsa rubber freshly laid. That is the theory to favouring the poor schmucks. In reality, I can see SchM qualifying around 6 or 7 at the worst on Friday, which will be sufficient to nullify any dirty/clean track advantage on saturday.

[R]

I too think this new procedure for qualifying will favour TGF and be a disadvantage for JPM, for the reasons mentioned by z2252314. I also think JPM will be more likely than TGF to try too hard, and go off in the effort, meaning he'll have to start way back on the grid. This could happen on several occasions, IMO.

[Glen]

Most likely the top guys will not worry too much about Friday, as you guys have suggested. Anywhere in the top seven or so should be good enough to get the best of the track on Saturday.

Even more extreme qualifying engines and set-ups are possible, but there again there will be a need to play it safe and not cock-up your one and only lap each day.

If (when?) we get a surprise pole we can look forward to some fun and games with strategy... If you're on the front of the grid you can call the shots - run heavy, hold the field up and frustrate the two-stoppers; pull a surprise and go off really light... quite a few different twists may well come about. We saw this year what happens when the slower cars get in front at Monaco - you control the race from the front and your pursuer can only respond to what you call.

I think we'll see a fair bit of hard racing and frustration in the first few races, until the drivers settle in to the idea that they might not necessarily be in their "rightful" place on the starting grid. Bring in the "lose ten places at the next race rule" a few times (for incidents resluting from said frustration) and the first half of each race should be quite interesting.

[classic]

This year in the CART series, they had fixed pit stop windows. i.e., every car could only run continuously for a set number of laps before it had to pit. The only effect that it seemed to have on the racing is that it restricted the strategies that could be played out.. We have seen some memorable races in F1 where some drivers have won on a single pit stop strategy when the other opt for a two pit stop strategy..

The qualifying changes are catered more towards keeping the TV viewers/spectators happy (in the sense that at any time there is always one car on the track) However, what it does is that it makes it boring.. I can opt to only watch Montoya and Schumi qualify and switch of and watch something else.. Why on earth would I want to watch some one like Yoong qualify?? The reason that I see the entire qualifying session now is because I don't know when some one is going to go out. Also I like the psychological play that happens between drivers.. when some one's time is beaten they can immediately go back and lower the time again to prove a point.. Or look unconcerned and put in a last minute banzai attempt..

Have you guys seen Nascar qualifying?? It is extremely boring! And part of it I think is attributed to the fact that they do it one at a time.

[EERO]

This is a dreadful idea. Like everything else that cme out of the Heathrow Meetings, its entirely missed the boat.

Its all smoke and mirrors to try to make us forget that the the show is a lousy one.

If I go to the Opera, I expect to see the Opera, not a monkey juggling on a bicycle.

[Valve Bounce]

Must say that EERO is not far off the mark here. All the lunatic huff and puff about ballast penalties and driver swaps seems to be dumped, so Bermax had to come up with something, and they pulled the joker from the pack. I can't say I will be going to F1-Live to follow quals - probably just go afterwards to check the times.