New qualifying format...

[danielk]

I am at a loss.... how is it possible after all the uproar about how shockingly bad quali was to stick with it?!!? Is it April 1st today? I'm confused how they can do this. I can say 1 thing. I will be boycotting quali. I'm not taking time out of my day to watch that pile of crap. And that's from someone who didn't sleep Thurs Fri sat night to watch all fp quali and race in Oz. What a bunch of F*ckwits grrrrrrr

[Just_a_fan]

I think Bernie is playing a game (when is he not!), there's an ulterior motive to keep this qualy format for another week.

Bernie is fighting for his grip on F1. He's desperate.

After Melbourne, the teams got together and agreed that it should go back to the old qualifying format. Everyone agreed. They meet at the F1 Commission, which then includes Bernie, and the options were to stick with the new format or go with some other new format that is a hybrid of old and modified new formats. As the teams hadn't had time to look at these options, they couldn't get unanimous agreement. So, a good little play by Bernie as he's the one putting the proposals on the table for the Commission to discuss.

What Bernie wants is for the requirement for unanimous agreement to be dropped. That kills off Mercedes' and Ferrari's veto on changes. Mercedes and Ferrari (along with RedBull when it suits them) effectively veto things they don't like. Ferrari have been doing this for decades, of course, but Bernie can handle one team. When they get together, they outflank him.

Bernie keeps saying that the new format was the FIA's idea but according to http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/35896875 he presented the teams with two options and the new format was the "least worst option".

The year started with the 2015 qualifying format in place, only for Ecclestone to decide he wanted a change in an effort to spice up the racing weekend.

He gave the teams two options:

adopt the new elimination format;
or keep the 2015 arrangement and have the top eight re-ordered afterwards, moving the fastest cars backwards on the grid.
They went for the elimination format, something Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff described as the "least worst option".

It's all on Bernie's head, the whole miserable thing. The problem is that everyone in F1 is scared of him and no one will stand up and call him out. The drivers have got the closest so far but it needs the teams, or some major sponsors, to make the next move. CVC's boss likes Bernie so they're going to need to hit CVC in the pocket to effect change.

[i70q7m7ghw]

Well at least I won't have to worry too much if I miss qualifying, I won't be missing much!

[FoxHound]

I think Bernie is playing a game (when is he not!), there's an ulterior motive to keep this qualy format for another week.

Bernie is fighting for his grip on F1. He's desperate.

The sport is being run as it clearly is, by an out of touch business savvy octogenarian.
Bernie is the latter day Joao Havelange, a man who took credit for growing a sport that had popularity in the first place. When really, what they both did was commercialise it and grow rich from the proceeds.

The facilitation of the product is their legacy, but the reality is that they both controlled their respective sports for too long. F1 is now in the image of the man himself, and when it goes wrong he blames others.
Mercedes, Ferrari, Jean Todt, Drivers, Race organisers and even fans themselves have invoked Ecclestones' ire.

The complete disregard for social media is a case in point.

I'm not interested in tweeting, Facebook and whatever this nonsense is. I tried to find out but in any case I'm too old-fashioned. I couldn't see any value in it. And, I don't know what the so-called 'young generation' of today really wants. What is it?

The man leads F1, and does not know what the grass roots want.

If we look at new sports like UFC, they garnered their value by utilising social media. The sport's worth is now in the region of 4 billion despite the fact that Boxing dominated the fighting scene for a century.
At it's current expansion rate, and the decline rate of boxing it could be in the next decade that UFC is bigger than boxing. I blame Mayweather...
After a fight, there is an official forum, facebook, twitter to let the fans engage.
F1 is lost to this, because as Bernie says he's too "old fashioned".

It goes further, unravelling Ecclestones' charming side...

Young kids will see the Rolex brand, but are they going to go and buy one? They can't afford it. Or our other sponsor, UBS — these kids don't care about banking. They haven't got enough money to put in the bloody banks anyway. That's what I think. I don't know why people want to get to the so-called 'young generation'. Why do they want to do that? Is it to sell them something? Most of these kids haven't got any money.

Red Bull? Renault? Puma? Hugo Boss? HP? Telecoms companies? Clothing companies? Tech companies?
Just a walk outside to the local shops sees a teenager wearing £100 Nike huarache's, £200 True religion jeans, £80 Ralph Lauren shirt and £200 stone island jumper. This would not be complete without a £600 Samsung S6 edge.
The reason kids don't roll Rolex is cos they never did in the first place, and they got better things to spend their cash on.

Then this qualifying debacle with Bernies' fingerprints all over it, one of many. A bloodless coups d'état should be in the works if not in full motion already. The drivers' are immune to an extent, hence their standing up to this rubbish.
The saving grace for BE is that all the teams will never agree, Bernie dangles too many carrots for there to be complete agreement.

It's the only reason he's still there.

But for how long will this remain?

[ChrisM40]

F1 is in serious trouble. I know people criticise the Sky coverage, but its certainly opened my eyes to just how bad F1 has become. The volume and detail of coverage has made it clear that F1 is elitist and totally out of touch with reality.

Commercialism is all there is, the racing is now just a necessary evil, and little more than a reason for rich people to gather together and show off their £50k watches and £300k cars to the plebs. Even the presenters are covered in product placements. There was a time that sponsors were a necessary evil, now its the cars.

[foxmulder_ms]

It is even further than that. The sponsors are not even targeting the "regular" people anymore. It is business to business connections or very high end, aimed at 0.1% of the public. Pay-per-view is going to lament this further. I cannot see how younger generation can become fans. If it goes like this F1 will literally die with Bernie and his generation.

E-sports for the win LoL, Dota, Call of Duty, Minecraft, Starcraft champs are coming...!

[Sombrero]

No change ? I will pass the Bahrein GP and drink Champagne ! Poor F-1...

[ojlopez]

What the hell? Bernie is behind this, as always. Sometimes it feels like he is trying to kill F1. But in what purpose?

It seem like his greed has no limits. He should be man enough and stand down.

[Hail22]

Well, we probably would give you a warning and a slap on the wrist for profanity, but we could hardly ban someone for basically making sense.

Up to you if you deem profanity worth a warning and a slap on the wrist. As a moderator I will not encourage it, though we life in a free world to make choices and accept their consequences .

We're talking hardcore swearing here. Because honestly, this pissed me off enough to make me rage for a good few hours. High blood pressure and everything.

F1 is slowly being destroyed into oblivion and there's nothing I can do about it.

We can already see how bad the state of Formula 1 is in right now you only need to watch Ted's Notebook to go coo coo

Ted Kravitz notebook: 6 minutes of actual technical analysis, however the next 20 or so minutes its filled with irrelevant garbage "oh look its Jean Eric Vergnes partner, she looks stunning in those tight jeans"
"here we have a chap who seems to want to get my attention for some unknown reason hmmm"
"Who were we talking about? Was it Force India? Ferrari...no we already did them, oh well I'll get back to what I wanted to talk about in part 2, I was distracted by this very interesting jacket that fellow was wearing"

Bernie needs to be thrown into a ditch and the FIA needs a reset (the next FIFA?), why is there a race director well into his 60's is there no one else who has aspirations to be race director? An FIA media manager who's wife is a reserve / test driver yet has virtually no skill sets?

It's a disaster waiting to happen

[Shrieker]

I'll only turn the telly on for q3 and that's just to watch the laps of the people gunning for pole. If they actually show those laps lol. And if a contender fails to reach q3, well.. tuff sh!t.

[Gridlock]

Ted's Gonzo Notebook is awesome.

Everything else to do with F1, at the moment, meh.

[basti313]

I'll only turn the telly on for q3 and that's just to watch the laps of the people gunning for pole. If they actually show those laps lol. And if a contender fails to reach q3, well.. tuff sh!t.

Do not switch on too late. The last 3 minutes you will not see a car on the track...

[Gaz.]

It's all very well the drivers striking and not having a direct contract with FOM, but they do have contracts with their teams and some have personal sponsors/backers who help or wholly fund their seats. A strike over safety is one thing but striking because they don't like something is a different ball game.

[Sevach]

http://en.f1i.com/news/48548-f1-should- ... neuve.html

Things are so weird right now that Jacques gets to be the voice of reason.

[iotar__]

At least the mystery of teams accepting new qualifying format is solved. It's just a rumour but it makes sense: Ecclestone had even dumber idea with some time penalties/reverse grid type of thing. Although I understand they can't say no to him all the time it's still their fault if they vote for it.

No idea why McLaren and Red Bull blocked hybrid format, if it was for some sporting gains fair enough but I don't see any. It would be nice if they explained it but surprisingly usually talkative Horner and Marko are silent. Same for Alonso and Button, no written nonsense prepared here so I guess Red Bull and McLaren simply hate F1, drivers and fans .