Purnell's new radical qualifying

[bernard]

The newest qualifying format suggestion comes from Tony Purnell of Ford racing. He suggests there would be a small race(10 laps) on friday and saturday, and the results of those races would decide the starting order of sunday's actual race.
On friday the starting order would be drawn, and on saturday the starting order would be the same as friday, but reversed. This way if you get a bad number for friday, it would be a good one on saturday.
The results together form your start position for sunday.
This would give a lot of overtaking in the quali, as an overtake gives you better position for the race. There would be no overtaking in the pits, this way you see who really is good,not just who has a good car and tactician.

I'm really excited of the prospects of this system. Imagine a race start, with very little fuel, then think the drivers looking for nothing more than overtakes, then multiply that by two, and you have the new system! It's great!! just what F1 has needed. And it's so revolutionary too. Nobody thought of this before.
The suggestion has got a lot of praises among the teams and personnel, including Ross Brawn, Paul stoddardt, Pat symmonds and Eddie Jordan.

This is much better than the system Ecclestone and Briatore suggested, where qualifying gives you points. It's obvious that minardi would have driven with one lap of fuel and no wings. It doesn't matter for them if they suck in the race, they would get more points from one qualifying than in the last ten years.
This would have made the qualifying rather useless, as it wouldn't have given anywhere near the right image of the speeds.
But this new suggestion... I love it!

[ShoelessJoe]

Sounds like an interesting idea. Coming from Purnell, one of the few guys in F1 who has earned his position as top executive through real mechanical eng. knowledge and experience, shows me that maybe this is the wave of the future....

[sharkie17]

this system would also give the fans lot more to look forward to on friday and saturday.

i wonder what they will do with this suggestion tho...

[dumrick]

The suggestion has got a lot of praises among the teams and personnel, including Ross Brawn, Paul stoddardt, Pat symmonds and Eddie Jordan

I don't know were you read it.

In f1-live.com, french edition (that's the one I usually read), says that this was considered a bad idea by Pat Symmonds (he doesn't think there would be many overtakings in those mini-races), Willy Rampf (too expensive) and Eddie Jordan (he feels the team has more exposure in today's format).

Check for yourself (in french): http://f1.racing-live.com/fr/headlines/ ... 3915.shtml

[tempest]

I would definitley like to see this. It would be awesome. But what happens if you crash and write off the car? do you then automatically have to start form the back? This could also have the potential to reduce the power, which i guess is a good thing, since the engine now has to last effectivley 3 races.

[bernard]

Dumrick, my God, you are absolutely right!:shock:
They were all largely against it, so how can they say in the news that the new system has got much support around the paddock naming those people... I think I watched bbc sportsnews or something.
Should have checked from another source, but there were no other news articles about that yet.
I'm terribly sorry.
But the idea of the format is still the same. I like it.

[bernard]

Just realised that that news bit only exists on the french version of f1.racing-live.com, it's not on the english one. Weird.

[dumrick]

Yeah, the reason I read the french edition is because is usually the best written and more updated, in my view (of course, I don't understand chinese or japanese in order to check those ones... )

[Guest]

why not a fusion of what qualifying used to look like and Purnell's idea. Why don't the cars start a 10 lap race on Friday in the order from the previous race on Friday and your fastest lap time be recorded. On Saturday you start in order of the fastest laps on Friday and use the aggregate time to set the grid for the race.

[bernard]

I can see a few problems here.
If the friday is started in the order of the previous friday, then the first friday of the year(Melbourne) has to be drawn. You get a good position there and you have nice qualifyings for the rest of the year. Because if you are behind a slow car or a traffic jam, you won't get good times. This way the guys at front will get good times, be in the front on saturday, get good times then too, start the race from the front, and on the next friday be in the front again and the same goes on and on...