A damp squib after all the radical changes
Formula One’s knee-jerk solution to fix the dominance of big teams fails as Hamilton faces few challenges
Two Mercedes and a Ferrari in topthree of a Formula 1 qualifying session. Doesn’t sound too radical does it? So the innumerable hoops that Formula 1 jumped to make qualifying less predictable failed miserably to say the least.
For those not in the know, the erstwhile qualifying system employed in F1 was straightforward. Three sessions (Q1, Q2 and Q3) saw all drivers outside the top 10 being eliminated in Q1 and Q2, with Q3 being a straightforward shootout for pole positions. The system had its moments but thanks to dominant teams (Red Bull from 2010-2013 and Mercedes from 2014 onwards) guessing the pole man and even the top-five cars wasn’t a tall order.
As it is often the case, F1 came up with a knee-jerk solution to the issue. A radical overhaul of the qualifying format saw the elimination system tweaked in what F1 calls ‘quick-fire elimination’. So in Q1, Q2 and Q3 — drivers have seven, six and five minutes respectively to set their hot laps. After this, the slowest driver gets eliminated and then on, every 90 seconds, a driver is eliminated. The aim of the system was to have two drivers remain in a head-tohead shootout for pole in the final 90 seconds of Q3. Still with me? Yup, read it a couple of times and you may just about get what it is all about.
So it sounds great right? Except that there were no cars on track in the final three minutes of Q3. Why? Because after Hamilton posted that blistering 1:23:837 lap, Rosberg figured there was no way he was going to match it and the team decided against going out again. The same was the case with Vettel.
As all remaining drivers were eliminated thanks to the 90 secondticker, there was no one left to chal- lenge the Brit.
The worrying part was that each phase of qualifying saw a brief period of activity followed by a lull in the on-track action. At the beginning of Q1, Q2 and Q3 it was all systems go as the cars lined up at the end of the pit lane and everybody tried to set a lap time to avoid the risk of being eliminated. And then it was all quiet for most of the remaining session.
Let’s face it, if you ask me to come up with a new way to spice up qualifying, I can’t. The fundamental issue is not that the qualifying system which was in practice so far was broken – far from it. It’s F1 that needs to be fixed. The issue is that due to a high dependency on aerodynamics, modern F1 cars cannot race each other. That is the sole reason the focus is on gimmicks – whether it is DRS or this farcical qualifying format.
I completely believe in technology transfer from race track to road – it’s a reality. ABS, modern automatic gearboxes, fuel injection technology, all of it has come from motorsport.
The new qualifying format was pretty rubbish. Everyone is trying to do their best to improve the show, but when you find out you have not improved the show but made it worse, then you need to sit down and say what can be done TOTO WOLFF, Mercedes team principal