New qualifying format...

[turbof1]

We might even see it this season already: https://twitter.com/adamcooperF1/status ... 2953190400 https://adamcooperf1.com/2016/02/24/fia ... -for-2016/

[danielk]

my thoughts are that the midfield are the most likely to get caught out leaving the front runners to disappear. Mercedes will be able to beat most cut-off on the hardest compound available for the weekend. So will surely be able to get a laptime good enough in first 6-7 mins of each session. Those just behind are the ones who will struggle, having to gamble on if to run the softs. This will give Mercedes an advantage in my view and will just stem the progress of midfield teams getting caught out by this

[turbof1]

The question is: how will they determine the starting position? Obviously, the one in front has a huge advantage of clear air and no traffic in front. I can see several ways to determine this:

-The free practice times, which will make it a bit of qualifying before time trial qualifying.
-The championship position, although that sounds quite boring.
-The one who stands first in line in the pitstraight at the lights
-A pre-qualy brawl where the order is determined by how long one stands on his feet. Fans can vote for their favourite driver to have the right to swing a knife.

[LookBackTime]

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/148 ... use-upsets

New qualifying format will 'cause upsets'

Williams technical director Pat Symonds says F1's new qualifying format will succeed in mixing up the grid and making races more exciting.

The new format features a live elimination of drivers in each of the three sessions depending on who is slowest at 90-second intervals, resulting in a one-on-one competition for pole in the closing stages. The proposal received unanimous agreement from the teams and could be introduced as soon as the opening round in Australia if the exact details can by finalised in time by the FIA.

"It will lead to a few upsets, all of us will get it wrong from time to time and therefore we will get a slightly upset starting grid and that's the purpose of it," Symonds told ESPN. "To me the purpose is not to improve qualifying, it's to get a more mixed up grid and I support anything that does that because that will improve the racing."

Symonds said one of the most difficult aspects of the new system would be making clear what is going on.

"I don't think they are going to be terribly easy to understand and that depends on what FOM do. There's an enormous amount of software needed to make this work and very little time to do it. I'm glad I don't work for FOM at the moment because it really is a task for them."

Symonds said further upsets could be caused by the fact teams have already decided their tyre compound allocations for the first race.

"Now we've got a different qualifying procedure, for sure we would have chosen our tyres differently, but we are all in the same boat."

[Gridlock]

"To me the purpose is not to improve qualifying, it's to get a more mixed up grid and I support anything that does that because that will improve the racing."

[LookBackTime]

[turbof1]

Note how there is absolutely nothing on how they want to determine the running order. I find that quite an important detail as the one in front will most certainly get to advance to the next part of qualy, regardless of it's a Mercedes or a McLaren.

[FrukostScones]

bring it on in 4 weeks,

it will only highlight Bernie goons incompetence

[erlik]

Somehow I feel that at the end of the day it will be pretty much the same.

It might produce some confusion (among teams and spectators) at the beginning of the season but teams will adapt and make best strategy out of it. They will find out quickly what are the perfect time and tires for each session to set the best lap and it will be business as usual. Even with previous format some cars sometimes were being caught by checkered flag and bad timing.

This is artificial way to "spice up" things and stop Mercedes pulling away from the start and taking easy wins. I think it will not happen. It is better to have more entertaining qualifications and races as product of close cars performances (i.e. first 15 cars in 1s) than product of gamble.

[erlik]

Note how there is absolutely nothing on how they want to determine the running order. I find that quite an important detail as the one in front will most certainly get to advance to the next part of qualy, regardless of it's a Mercedes or a McLaren.

What do you mean? They will have 7min in Q1, 6min in Q2 and 5min in Q3 to ran and set times as usual... they are free all the time to go out whenever they like. Maybe I am missing something.

[turbof1]

Note how there is absolutely nothing on how they want to determine the running order. I find that quite an important detail as the one in front will most certainly get to advance to the next part of qualy, regardless of it's a Mercedes or a McLaren.

What do you mean? They will have 7min in Q1, 6min in Q2 and 5min in Q3 to ran and set times as usual... they are free all the time to go out whenever they like. Maybe I am missing something.

No they have to be on track all the time during each session.

[FrukostScones]

I think it will be called off for 2016 anyway as it conflicts with the new tyre alloc. regs afait

[Gridlock]

I think it will be called off for 2016 anyway as it conflicts with the new tyre alloc. regs afait

Heh yeah just what F1 needs is more confusion over these 3-compounds rules. Seeing how they are decided for the first 3? races now it wouldn't be fair to change the circumstances under which the cars qualify.

[erlik]

Note how there is absolutely nothing on how they want to determine the running order. I find that quite an important detail as the one in front will most certainly get to advance to the next part of qualy, regardless of it's a Mercedes or a McLaren.

What do you mean? They will have 7min in Q1, 6min in Q2 and 5min in Q3 to ran and set times as usual... they are free all the time to go out whenever they like. Maybe I am missing something.

No they have to be on track all the time during each session.

I thought that they simply start countdown after 7-6-5 min and cut out the cars that are slowest on time table at each determined interval. I didn't see where it says they have to be on track all the time... That is silly that Mercedes is trying to set best lap for 45 min... or cruse for 45 min because they set best time on the first flying lap.

[Racewatcher]

The biggest downside of this new format for me is the endless quibbling "so and so blocked me and I got eliminated at the 1:30 cutoff point". How they are going to sort that out I have no idea....