Ecclestone blasts new F1 system
Chief executive labels qualifying process ‘crap’
BERNIE ECCLESTONE has vowed to axe Formula One’s new qualifying system after its farcical debut at the Australian Grand Prix caused bewilderment in the grandstands and derision around the world.
It now looks likely that the revamped format, whereby cars are eliminated every 90 seconds, will be replaced as soon as the next race, in Bahrain, in a fortnight’s time.
The remodelling of qualifying was meant to be the sport’s answer to the predictability that led Ecclestone, F1’s chief executive, to say the spectacle was the worst it had ever been.
But with more than five minutes of the final period of qualifying remaining, the cars peeled into the pits until there was none left on the track. By then Lewis Hamilton had set an unassailable time in his Mercedes, and his challengers decided to conserve their tyres for tomorrow’s chase rather than go on a fool’s errand to try to beat him.
When the chequered flag was finally waved, there was nobody left to wave it at. The cars were all parked up and the drivers were on the scales in the weighing room or changing out of their overalls back in the paddock.
Ecclestone, who was watching the action from his central London home, was appalled by the embarrassment he saw unfold on television. ‘It was crap,’ he told the Mail on Sunday. ‘But it wasn’t my idea at all. I am sure we can get it changed for Bahrain. We should be man enough to say — we gave it a try, it didn’t work, let’s find a new way of doing it.
‘My idea was a simple one — you leave qualifying as it is and then add a bit on to the time to make up the grid.
‘You take the results of the last race, and the guy who won that race would have so many seconds, or tenths of a second, added to his qualifying time to determine the grid for the race itself.
‘So that might put the guy on pole in sixth or seventh or wherever on the grid, and then we would get a mixed-up grid and some good racing for at least two-thirds of the race. That’s what we should do now.
‘The guy who started on pole would still have a good chance of winning.’
The teams were due to meet prior to today’s race to find a solution. Ecclestone confirmed that he would also make contact with Jean Todt, the FIA president, who said last night that a change ‘requires unanimous agreement’.
Todt said, with justification, that the major problem was the allocation of tyres — essentially not enough of them to make it worthwhile running until the end.
For once in Formula One, there looks likely to be agreement about ditching yesterday’s format, judging by how everyone in the paddock, from team to team, driver to driver, declared it ad amp squib. Whether to adopt Ecclestone’s alternative may produce a some argument.
Hamilton, who took his 50th career pole, said: ‘We said at the beginning it wasn’t the right way, but you can’t knock it until you try it.’
His Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, who qualified second, said it was time ‘to go back’. Sebastian Vettel, third fastest in his Ferrari, had pointedly changed into his jeans by the time of the press conference — he had been out of the cockpit so long.
Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button showed improvement in the McLarens, qualifying 12th and 13th, while debutant Jolyon Palmer outgunned Renault team-mate Kevin Magnussen and will start 14th.