[Race] 2016 Australian GP

[Dixie Flatline]

Teams struggling to time their laps against the countdown. Nasr and Ericsson close out the eliminations in the first part of qualifying.

[Dixie Flatline]

Magnussen eliminated.

[Dixie Flatline]

Palmer then Button eliminated.

[Dixie Flatline]

Bye bye Fernando Alonso.

[dsg]

Well hopefully that's the last time we see this qualifying format.

[MCWB]

Well I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to call it: this new qualifying sucks. I'm ok because I'm sitting here with live sector timing on a laptop in front of me, but without that I reckon it would be really hard to follow...

[cmifsud]

Yeah it stinks real bad.

I kinda feel like Indy 2005 there's so few cars going around and me sitting here in amazement at how crap it is

[MCWB]

Plus Q3 is now the opposite of exciting. First run determines the order of P5-8, next run if they can be arsed determines 1-4... riveting last 4 minutes.

[dsg]

The last two and a half minutes of Q3 had noone on track. That's not good for people at home or at the track.

[MCWB]

For this format to work the tyres need to keep their performance over multiple laps. If they're only really good for one lap then it's going to be garbage. Let's hope it gets canned, and fast!

[MCWB]

"Sexy laps" from Lewis!

[geoff64]

that was an anti-climax. I always try to watch the qualifying but not if they keep throwing up this rubbish.

[AnEmmoFan]

The qualifying system is rubbish. Another own goal for F1. There are just too many rules, too complicated.

[Benetton F1]

If this is still around for the next GP, the officials have lost the plot.

[pirenzo]

Well that was embarrassing. I cannot believe that it was the original intention for drivers to be eliminated while on their hot laps. The whole arrangement reeks of rushed timing software implementation. Surely the whole point is for us to spend the 90-second elimination window watching the slowest guy trying to set a lap that knocks out the guy ahead of him, rather than trying to figure out who's got time to change tires and get out of the pits...

[peckstar]

am i right in saying the post qualifying interviews had been completed by the official end of qualifying

Woeful format

I struggle to find any redeeming features

edit Wait there was one, cars were on the track early in the sessions, that was a positive.

[LC2guy]

WTF was THAT !!!! Got my 2 boys out of bed at 5.30 to watch live, expecting a call from social services now after putting them through that...

[Another Bob]

A bit cut throat. Didn't think it overly fair drivers didn't get a chance to finish their fast laps.

Definitely didn't like Q3.

Only redeeming feature they all got out at the beginning to set a banker.

[chavez]

Riveting stuff, watching drivers eliminated sitting in the pits.

And no cars on track for the last 4 minutes. Hardly fitting for the highest level of the sport.

[Another Bob]

I was going to go to Melbourne this year, thank goodness I didn't.

A track side spectator would have been totally lost as to what was happening.

[Another Bob]

I wonder if Bernie will be big enough to admit he was wrong and bin it?

Interesting times ahead.

[MCWB]

Well he's just come out and declared it to be "pretty crap"...

[Moneyseeker]

Dear, oh dear what a shambles that was. I would imagine impossible to follow trackside and I'm not sure even the team were completely on top of it!

I'm sure Lewis banging a lap in the 1.23's at the end didn't do much to improve the other drivers or teams mood....

[Razzzor]

I think fans are overreacting on this one.

The old 60 minute qualifying session wasn't perfect, because you could usually go to sleep for the first 40mins or have long periods of nothing, and the entire field is basically fastest to slowest, which makes for pretty boring races.

The format we've had for the last several years of eliminations had issues as well, because you'd have a Q1/Q2 where, if you weren't watching it live, you might as well just fast-forward to the last few minutes of each session. Sitting through the entire 15 mins of q1 was a borefest.

Then you'd have q3 where there'd be a rush, a few mins of nothing, then a rush at the end.

What the new format does is it makes you watch more of the session. q1/q2 need to watch once the eliminations start to see if someone gets caught out. Kyvat did. In fact I bet many drivers who could have done better laps got caught out.

That's what they're trying to do - get drivers caught out because they didn't get another lap done in time. It happened to Kyvat, Bottas, Ricciardo, they're all starting further back because of this qualifying format, and that is going to make more excitement in the race.

Q3 is the problem. Yes the last 4 mins was dead. But who's fault was that? Mercedes were the ones that sent their drivers out 5mins before the end of the session to beat the possible eliminations. It was only spoilt because Ferrari didn't run again. But they wouldn't have run again on the old format either, they obviously decided they needed to save tyres for the race and weren't going to improve.

There's fixes for that though - first, give them two sets of tyres for q3! That means everyone that has time will do a second run.

You could also lessen the session time back to 10mins, that'll mean the final run will end up being right at the end of the session, since everyone seems to be disappointed that it happens 3mins earlier than last year. I mean for god sake, you still got a qualifying shootout between Mercedes, again. It just happened slightly earlier. Does it really make that much difference that the final hotlaps happen in the last seconds of the session rather than 3mins to go? The problem with reducing it to 10mins is it will probably only give the top 4 or 5 enough time to get back out, unless the eliminations are 30sec apart instead of 90sec.

But for q1/q2, I think the elimination format works better than last years borefest sessions. Bottas and Kyvat are proof of that. q3 just needs tidying up. But I do hope they don't just drop the entire idea after only one round.

[RedZedMikey]

Maybe it was easier to follow on TV, maybe it had more interest on TV. But at the track 100% of the people around me agreed qually was a big let down. Uninspiring, lacking tension, anti-climactic, woeful, disappointing, were some of the comments. Did not like it at all. What with 'tokens', 50 spot grid penalties and now this rubbish, F1 seems to be really trying to lose the everyday punter.