2010 Qualifying format is great news!!

[WhiteBlue]

The sporting regulations for 2010 have been published in the wake of the last WMSC meeting on Thursday. They are available by link on this site to the FIA rules page.

As expected the refuelling ban proposed by the FOTA has lead to changes in qualifying as well. Fuel may now be added after Q3 and that means we will have no race fuel for Q3 as we used to have.

Teams will be able to refuel in their garages (without sophisticated equipment) with the driver seated in the car and the engine stopped. This would suggest that multiple tyre and fuel run are possible in one qualifying segment.

The elimination will go by two times 8 cars if the grid is stocked up to 26 cars as planned.

This is indeed excellent news as we get to see real qualifying for the first time since the introduction of the race fuel qualification. I allways thouht that race fuel qually was depriving the fans of the most interesting spectacle of the best drivers taking their cars to the limit in an all out attempt to beat each other.

Next year pole positions will have a new meaning!

[Ian P.]

Finally....
What about Parc-Ferme....??
Without the need to prevent the addition of fuel, will they still limit the work that can be done on the car after Q-3.??
If they do, it will make for some interesting technical problems in getting a car to qualify fast on low fuel and then take on 180 L of fuel to start the race.

[Belatti]

Now teams and drivers will need a setup for qualy and a setup for race.
This was done in the past:
Senna and Prost were opposites examples of how to setup the car for a weekend.
Senna privileged qualy setup on friday and maybe some of the saturday. Sunday warm up used to gave you time to roll heavy on fuel so you could feel the car before the race.
Prost setup work was all for the race, maybe he even used qualy time to setup for the race he didnt mind that much for the pole position.

Great news to me!

[Scotracer]

Pole position has no meaning this year or last - good news.

[mike]

since they dont have refuelling next year, they will all have the same amount of fuel in Q3 on the current system.
refuelling in Q3 only means lower lap times which is nice

[hpras]

So far I hear, it is to be same as now but all on low fuel. Any stunning ideas out there on other formats, one shot, 15laps, best time etc.

One idea that always intrigued me was to have them go out and circulate around, like a start of a race, give them 3 laps or so to get space and then start dropping them off one by one based on slowest lap time. Next year, everybody should have enough fuel, making a set of tire last 30 laps might be a bit hairy, might be part of the show. Pole guy takes the chance of having the most laps on his engine. Then parc ferme other than fuel.

Anyway, add your own ideas and rip mine apart. I'm sure there is something I haven't thought about.

Cheers

H