104% rule

[pompelmo]

does F1 still have the 104% rule at qualifying??

[manchild]

You mean 107%? No, it was introduced in 1996 and abandoned after 2002.

[ketanpaul]

What is this rule? can anybody explain?

[manchild]

Introduced for the 1996 season, the 107% rule is designed to
weed out the slower cars in the field. Any driver whose best
qualifying time is more than 107% of the pole-sitters time will
not qualify for the race. For example, if the pole time is 1 min
40 secs (100 seconds), then any car slower than 1 min 47 seconds
(107 seconds) will not be in the race. The rule does allow for
some discretion on the part of the stewards and this discretion
has so far been exercised just once for Pedro Diniz at Melbourne
'97.

[Tom]

I seem to remember it was under scrutiny in Belgium 2002 after both Williams cars had put in stunning laps at the very end to grab pole and 2nd, which caused 4 cars or so to be knocked off the end of the grid as they shifted outside the 107%.

And Manchild, I' gonna be picky here because its rare you make a mistake

Any driver whose best
qualifying time is more than 107% of the pole-sitters time will
not qualify for the race. For example, if the pole time is 1 min
40 secs (100 seconds), then any car slower than 1 min 47 seconds
(107 seconds) will not be in the race.

[manchild]

I just copied and pasted the text of the some googled article about 107% without reading it

[zac510]

I recall they exercised discretion a few other times, for example if the session was half dry/half wet.

[Ciro Pabón]

I've already posted this, but maybe you want to take another look :



By coincidence, one car was close to 107% in Australia, and the current backmarkers seem to be around 104% (when compared with cars in race trim).

Fool of me, I never thought that not everybody was aware of the "old" rule for "empty tanks, flat-out" qualies, decided on the last couple of laps, with the chance of obstructing other drivers or being obstructed subtly, that some people liked so much...

Now I think about that, this was a pretty constant "flavor" of F-1: before this kind of "unjust but highly emotive" qualy was discarded there was a clear rule about what an F1 team was or wasn't.

There were no talks about "pinnacles" then: too many excellent racing teams had tried and failed.

Some people is famous for never making it: I find interesting (and defining) that no one less than Aguri Suzuki tried like, I don't know, 17 times in one season and never, ever made it.

Other pilots were "loved" only for trying... We have http://f1rejects.com/ in their memory. Well, not exactly, but you get the point.