New F1 Qualifying System

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This covers it, and makes the new tire rules look positively easy.
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Bernie wanted a bit of a reverse grid. I like what he said here, grumbling about the teams vetoing the idea:

Originally Posted By: Bernie
There are a million things they could do, but they are completely mad.

I suppose if anyone would know how to recognize madness....
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That's probably why it's delayed for "software" reasons. Writing the software is no probably not a problem. They just have to explain this in a way that the software engineers can actually write an algorithm that won't crash and burn or wind up in some endless loop. Or, the software engineers caught wind of this and accordingly and understandably bolted.
 
I think they're doing this to ensure more cars are on track in each qualifying session. Many times, the fastest cars will stay in the garage in Q1, and wait until the end, go out and put up a fast lap, then go back to the garage. In this new format, every car will have to put in laps before they start knocking cars out. Presumably, if you haven't put up a lap in the first 7 minutes, you will be knocked out.
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
I think they're doing this to ensure more cars are on track in each qualifying session. Many times, the fastest cars will stay in the garage in Q1, and wait until the end, go out and put up a fast lap, then go back to the garage. In this new format, every car will have to put in laps before they start knocking cars out. Presumably, if you haven't put up a lap in the first 7 minutes, you will be knocked out.

It might end up the same as before, in final qualifying atleast. Put in one banker lap at the beginning and then a fast lap at the end?
 
I had no issue with the three segment qualification set-up where each tire needed to be used at some point.
 
Originally Posted By: billt460
So........ Is Mercedes running away with it again this year? Or is Ferrari going to give them a run for their money? What's the, "smart money" on?

I don't think anyone is positive yet; everyone's playing it close to the vest. I'd like to see Ferrari get somewhere, and Williams, too. Maybe Bernie et al can sow enough confusion to make things interesting.
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Here's the latest. This should be nice and confusing.

Originally Posted By: F1 Sporting Regulations
- Q1 will run for 16 minutes. All cars permitted on track. The slowest driver will be eliminated after 7 minutes and must return to the pitlane.
- The same procedure applies at 8m30s, 10m0s, 11m30s, 13m0s and 14m30s until 16 cars remain.
- At the end of Q1 all remaining drivers may complete a flying lap if they have crossed the line in time.
- Once those laps are completed and the classification established, the slowest driver will be eliminated, leaving 15 to contest the next stage.

- Q2 will run for 15 minutes. All remaining cars permitted on track. The slowest driver will be eliminated after 6 minutes and must return to the pitlane.
- The same procedure applies at 7m30s, 9m0s, 10m30s, 12m0s and 13m30s until 9 cars remain.
- At the end of Q2 all remaining drivers may complete a flying lap if they have crossed the line in time.
- Once those laps are completed and the classification established, the slowest driver will be eliminated, leaving 8 to contest the final stage.

- Q3 will run for 14 minutes. All eight remaining cars permitted on track. The slowest driver will be eliminated after 5 minutes and must return to the pitlane.
- The same procedure applies at 6m30s, 8m0s, 9m30s, 11m0s and 12m30s until 2 cars remain.
- At the end of Q3 both remaining drivers may complete a flying lap if they have crossed the line in time.
- Once those laps are completed the final classification will be established.
 
I don't really think this will shake up the order at all. Instead of teams sitting in their garages until the end of a session, then putting in a fast time, it'll be the opposite. You'll get fast teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, etc. putting in a fast time in the beginning of a session, and just sit in the garage the remainder of the time, under the probably correct presumption that their time set is easily good enough to get them through to the next session. Q3 might result in the top tier drivers/teams shuffling around a bit from week to week, but who knows. I'm just glad it's motorsports season again
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Bill, I knew you'd like that.
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As for shaking up the order, I doubt it, too. Heck, even in Vettel's last championship season, I remember at least once, I believe in Japan, he did one blistering, early lap in Q3 and parked the car for the rest of the session, in a rather dominant display. We might see some sandbagging and some estimation errors, that's about it. Bernie keeps trying for a reverse grid, but no one is biting.

McLaren must be really torn on the issue of reverse grids right about now.
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Originally Posted By: Garak
Bill, I knew you'd like that.
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I think at some point in Q3, they should have to pull into the garage, get out of the car, run around it 3 times, get back in, go out and do at least one more lap. And during all of this the mechanics cannot touch or work on the car.
 
And in one race out of every five, picked at random, Bernie holds a game of musical chairs among the guys starting Q3. Whoever loses his seat gets to start from the pit lane.
 
Well, qualification was a bit of a groaner. The new system is effective, in that it does create a grid that looks reasonable when in comparison to the previous system. But, it looks to be a logistical nightmare for the teams, and doesn't do a thing for the fans.

In Q3, instead of watching the back markers keep working at it and plugging away until the end of the session, hoping for a miracle or a mistake, or at least getting some laps in, they get relegated to the garage, while the front markers are already there, having done their job ages ago. A good car and driver of course will only have to do one or two laps. That's the way it was before. But, shutting back markers down early and having an empty track for the last five minutes is silly.

If they insist with sticking with this, I'd suggest a couple things. Treat the 90 second cutoffs as a chequered flag for the relevant people, so at least they can attempt to get back on the track. If they have 90 seconds until cutoff and haven't even started an outlap, they're done before they started right now. I'd also suggest having the top eight (I think that's how they're doing it, rather than top ten now) use tires from Q3 instead of Q2. At least, then, they won't sandbag Q2 and go all out in Q3, irrespective of tire choice. At least then, getting P1 might mean your tires aren't optimal for the first laps of the race, and, conversely, if you conserve tire life in Q3, you may give up a good grid position. If Mercedes and Ferrari, for instance, want to chew up their tires fighting over pole position over five hard qualifying laps, let them. If they want to save tires a bit and slip back, let them. Tire strategy is, unfortunately, part of the game; let it have some consequences in qualifying. If someone runs a bunch of laps on a new ultrasoft to get pole position and ends up running it off the cliff, let him start the race with it.

At least that might mix things up a bit more and throw a bit of uncertainly to the front of the grid. It's still a lot of playing with a system that wasn't broken. Either do something totally different, like reverse grids, or leave it alone.
 
I just got finished watching qualifying. And I think it stinks on ice. 4 minutes left to go in Q3 and the fastest guys were climbing out of their cars, while there was nothing on the track. What the he!! is that? A new team, (Haas), could have placed higher, but couldn't because of time constraints..... And there was still plenty of time left in the session. None of this makes any sense.

I really wish Formula 1 would stop over complicating things, in an effort to fix what isn't broken. It's just stupid. Now instead of the last 3 minutes of Q3 being total excitement, it been relegated to a bunch of clock watching. The dumbest thing I've seen yet. My guess is this won't last past the 3rd race... If it lasts that long. They'll have no choice but to pull the chain on something that stinks this bad. Whoever came up with this stupid nonsense should not only be fired, the dumb SOB should be forced to drive an ice cream truck in a bad neighborhood for the rest of his life.
 
Anything in F1 makes sense from the point of view that Bernie's random idiotic ideas and one-liners get everybody's tongues wagging and reading about F1. Genius PR man! I'm going to miss that rotten troll when he's gone.
 
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