New qualifying format...

[henry]

Ditto Singapore.

[henry]

Edit: double post. Can't get the hang of new tools

[henry]

I think it is possible we might see more pushing of the track boundaries under this format. If a driver records a time that avoids elimination by going off the track by the time the stewards delete his time someone else may have been eliminated and their times erased. The off circuit driver will be still in the session even though his time is slower than an eliminated driver. Could be chaos on a rainy day.

[zioture]

[Gaz.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJqDwn-fOQ

Thank you.

I doubt I am alone thinking that if the tyre rules need an animation to explain them then they are too complicated in the first place.

[hollus]

The more I think about the consequences of the new Q format, the more I like it. It will be stewarding hell, but a good improvement to "the show". Yes, it is a show (and a sport).
The old Q format was becoming too predictable but for two flurries of action when everyone tried to improve a the same time in the last minute of Q2 and Q3, and then everything happened too fast to follow. Now things will happen one at a time and it will be easy to know where to focus as an spectator. One could make awesome graphics showing, for example, the current sector times of the last 3 cars plus the sectors of their best laps so far. A 4-way split screen allows to follow precisely those cars.
A bit of chaos will be thrown in the mix, but the order will still be decided by who is fastest on track when it matters, and people will learn to love the accasional last minute save or last minute fumble, including the need to come back through the field come race day...

Here comes a bold prediction: this will be called the best format ever way before year's end.

[Phil]

The only issue I have, is that this season could very well be one of a kind - the kind of season we've all been waiting for. A sort of build-up, inevitable consequence of 2 years of domination, but one where we could finally see the two front teams close enough to have a 2-4 way race to the WDC. Imagine for a moment, what if Ferrari is that close. Then we'd have the two Mercedes drivers who are as ever close as they can be, plus at least one of the Ferrari drivers too.

If the gap is this close, then the new Q format has the potential to ruin or take some of that excitement of a genuine championship right out the window by introducing this unpredictability. Instead of seeing an exciting race where the closest cars qualify closest and actually end up battling for those positions through out the race, they might be scattered through out the field, split by slower cars because they qualifying out of position.

Or maybe it won't. Maybe Mercedes is still too dominant that it'd be another two drivers race, but with the added unpredictability that might taint the championship...

3 days to go.

[Vasconia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJqDwn-fOQ

Thank you.

I doubt I am alone thinking that if the tyre rules need an animation to explain them then they are too complicated in the first place.

Hahaha You are right. Its like "its super easy but we have taken our time to make a video instead of a single press note".

[Juzh]

New radio regs prohibit pit to car information about gaps between cars (on the actual circuit) in qualifying. This will throw another spanner in the works.

[joshuagore]

New radio regs prohibit pit to car information about gaps between cars (on the actual circuit) in qualifying. This will throw another spanner in the works.

If were throwing spanners wouldn't a sprinkler work. har har

[iotar__]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... qualifying
"FIA race director Charlie Whiting says it will simply be "bad luck" if a driver gets eliminated from qualifying by red flag timing in Formula 1's new 2016 system."

This is interesting because the same C. Whiting said after Monaco '14 :
"Nonetheless, Whiting has an idea that would stop this sort of controversy from recurring in the future. He said: "Why don't we extend qualifying by one minute when a yellow flag is shown in the last three minutes?"
"It would give affected drivers the chance to try again."

Quite a turn around considering it's yellow compared to red . This is how you keep your job in F1, enthusiastically selling every dumb Ecclestone's idea. It was the same with standing restarts when he was pretending it was him and unnamed McLaren engineer that came up with it. BTW extending session after a yellow flag wasn't mentioned after identical situation in Austria '14 - typical way of FIA's sense of justice that depends on a driver, no bad luck involved.

[Vasconia]

Whiting should quit, really. This sort of declarations plus he has become too cautious with rain, doesn´t make him the appropiate person to continue with this job.

[Moose]

Yeh... this sucks.

If you're not one of the top cars, you don't have a chance to do a second lap, and change things. Effectively, we've just written half the grid off.

[Gaz.]

This is ---. At 7 minutes to go there were 6 cars on track, with 2 minutes to go there are no more cars on the track. As I said two weeks ago we have had less running.

[Moose]

Yeh, this is absolutely terrible.

It doesn't result in a shoot out, it results in no one realising early enough that they need to run, and then being eliminated before they can actually do their lap.

I hope they give up on it, and revert to the old format immediately.