Qualifying 2016 style (could be fun ? ? )

[RoadRunner220]

I'm glad sense has finally prevailed and they've reverted back to the 2015 format, although all this faffing about has shown the leadership to be a bunch of useless cretins.

I was actually having a think the other day (whilst we still had the new rubbish format) of how you could actually change qualifying to satisfy a) Bernie's aim of mixing up the starting order so as to make the racing more exciting by sometimes having the quicker cars starting further back, and b) the fans like me wanting to to see the best drivers in the World driving on the limit as quickly as possible, but over the course of an hour and not just in the final few minutes.

What I came up with was to leave Q1 and Q2 as they currently are, as per the 2015 format, ie, getting rid of the slowest 6 in Q1 and then the slowest 6 again in Q2 leaving the top 10 for their Q3 shootout. Have Q3 as it is now (again, as per the 2015 format) but when the drivers come into the pits once Q3 is over they get to choose where on the grid they want to start.

The quickest driver gets to choose first, so there's your incentive for them to push the limits and aim to be quickest, which I think is ultimately what I think most people want to see.

However, you award points for qualifying on a sliding scale depending on which grid position the driver wants to start from. So, the rough example I came up with was 10 points for starting tenth, 9 for 9th, 8 for 8th and so on until only 1 point if you want to start on pole.

So if you're the quickest driver do you choose 10th to bag the points and gamble on being good enough to overtake and work your way up the order, you are the quickest after all, or do you gamble on starting on pole, not messing the start up, and driving off and securing the win ?

I'm sure there's loads of flaws I haven't thought of, like we wouldn't actually know what the starting order was until they'd all got back to the pits and made their choice, but I guess you could maybe get them to choose their top 10 preferred starting order before they went out for Q3.

Anyway, like I said, I was only trying to think of a possible alternative that might satisfy both parties.

What do you reckon, might actually work, or load of garbage ?

[Flooble]

I actually really like the idea. Particularly if the driver had to make the decision (not the "strategy team") while doing their slowing down lap.

Or, for extra excitement, instead of them deciding in the pits, have them nominate a delta before they go out.

So keep the 1 point per place back they start you suggested and that's then what they get regardless of where they qualify. If you go for maximum points but screw up your lap, you end up starting 20th (10th - 10)

Hence if a cocky young upstart thinks he will put it on pole and manage to overtake it could go really badly wrong - increases the jeopardy and the drama when he messes up and finishes 8th then has to claw his way up from 18th against people who are on different tyres!

[RoadRunner220]

Flooble said:

I actually really like the idea. Particularly if the driver had to make the decision (not the "strategy team") while doing their slowing down lap.

That was my initial idea, having the driver make the decision when he got back to the pits, and before he could consult with his 'strategy team'.

I did think though, if you set a time quick enough for pole on your first run in Q3 that nobody ultimately could beat, but went out for a second run and the car broke half way around the track, or you stuffed it into a wall trying to better your time, it could be a while before the driver got back to the pits so that they could make their decision.

But like I said, you could get them to decide beforehand what their preferred starting positions were so that the final starting positions could be worked out without the driver actually being there. But I guess that means their preferred order could then be decided by the strategy team rather than the driver in the heat of the moment.

Like I said, I'm sure there's loads of flaws.

[coppice]

Or you could just leave gimmicks to BTCC and NASCAR - in F1 the quickest starts first. It's sort of how it works- and the jumbling up with qualifying will not sort F1's problems . It is far more complex then a kneejerk change of the type bloody Ecclestone is so keen on

[realjv]

I love how Bernie and Todt have agreed to change back to the old format but conspicuously failed to accept that the new one didn't work.

[thegreenhell]

PW said:

Jasandjules said:

Except that without the fans, they have no sport.

Almost literally the only thing you DON'T need to go motor racing is "fans", and quite a lot of it goes on with very few people watching.

You wouldn't have companies investing millions in F1 with no one watching, but you could still have an entire race weekend otherwise carry on as normal.

Without promoters & race tracks who decide to turn their backs on F1 because "the fans" are not buying enough Saturday/weekend tickets to turn a profit, then you have no sport.

Same for the drivers, the teams, the organisers, the broadcasters, the sponsors, the officials... all of the people you NEED to have a race take place, but who are instead the people that "the fans" feel entitled to endlessly complain about and criticise whilst demanding to be entertained by them, because "without the fans, they have no sport."

Sure, many series run quite happily with no fan base whatsoever. However, such racing tends to be entirely self-funded and invisible to the outside world.

F1 might be able to continue without fans, but not in anything like it's current form. Without fans, the sport would attract no advertising, no sponsorship, no broadcasters, and I dare say no top drivers. Without all that money coming into the sport who would pay Hamilton's £20M (or whetever) salary, or the salaries of the 1000's of people back at the factories? Who will pay for all the hybrid powertrains, and all the fancy bits of carbonfibre?

All that money pours into the sport to target the audience of fans with the aim of selling them stuff. Without the fans to attract the money then you'll be left with nothing more than a club championship. The fans are F1. F1 is nothing without them.

[ClockworkCupcake]

I think it's hilarious that last week several team bosses were saying that it was impossible to go back to last year's qualifying format, and Bernie was saying "what we have is what we have right now" when interviewed by Sky, then suddenly we are back to last year's format.

So not quite as impossible as previously imagined, it seems.

[andburg]

What's most worrying is despite the roll back and rejection, Bernie and the FIA will get their average proposal for 2017. They will simply vote them in using their majority between seasons.

They only caved now as they saw how much the 2016 Qualy was damaging their asset and knew the teams wouldn't agree to average times.

bookies odds on average time over 2 runs for 2017??

[wiggy001]

Surely of all the issues F1 faces at the moment, qualifying isn't/wasn't one of them?

My memories of last year were that in general drivers would go out and set a banker lap, then go out again if they had to to go through to the next session. You can't really expect any more than that can you?

All the new format did was penalise a team that were unable to turn their cars around in time for a second lap - it was the slower cars being penalised not the frontrunners.

What we actually need is more competitive racing. Merc are running away with it yet again, and I'm not sure we can do much about that. But there's more to F1 (to me at least) than just the championship. If I see great battles for 3rd/8th/12th in a race then I'm happy. But we don't do we? Races are won and lost, in general, in the pits and by strategy. That should form part of the race but shouldn't be at the exclusion of car and driver.

That said, I'm not sure the racing has ever been that close. Sure people will trot out the Mansell/Senna/Prost videos, but they weren't going on for 50 laps of every race either.

I agree with the others who have said we need less gimmicks (ballast, points for quali etc). But how do we make the races closer and more exciting?

[RichardM5]

wiggy001 said:

But how do we make the races closer and more exciting?

Reduce the effect that the aerodynamics have on following cars. Ban wings and allow ground effect.

[Vaud]

wiggy001 said:

That said, I'm not sure the racing has ever been that close. Sure people will trot out the Mansell/Senna/Prost videos, but they weren't going on for 50 laps of every race either.

Quite, racing was never "flat out" from flag to flag. Wasn't it Fangio who's philosophy was always to win at the slowest possible speed?

For championships, until recently we had some good ones when you look at the season, going down to the last race in a number of years.

[wiggy001]

RichardM5 said:

Reduce the effect that the aerodynamics have on following cars. Ban wings and allow ground effect.

If you insist

[Gary C]

wiggy001 said:

RichardM5 said:

Reduce the effect that the aerodynamics have on following cars. Ban wings and allow ground effect.

If you insist

Yey, like that !

I grew up when F1 wings were in their infancy and have always been a part of and a problem for the sport. Cant see them ever being removed.

You could have a max downforce rule and give the incentive for maximum efficiency but speeds could spiral, but really we want to see development, let the teams modify any part of a car at anytime throughout the season and let them test them ! We dont want to see a team who make a simple mistake during the winter, being unable to complete for the whole season (or more in the case of engines in the past few years).

As for qual, quite like the shoot out as it was. Maybe they could introduce a standard qual tyre in q3 and let them use as may as they want again. Then they would keep pushing and pushing to get P1

[EnglishTony]

^^^ Just make them use a tyre that is at it's best after 20 laps

[Zoobeef]

Tyres that get better the harder you push them and slipstream that gets better the closer you are.

[Flooble]

RichardM5 said:

wiggy001 said:

But how do we make the races closer and more exciting?

Reduce the effect that the aerodynamics have on following cars. Ban wings and allow ground effect.

Regarding the wings, did they not try moves to "solve" the problem already with smaller, higher, simpler rear wings and larger front wings (remember the 2009 cars huge front wings?)

This was a good piece on it: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2015/06/why-f1-cars-...

If we went back to no-wing cars then they would be painfully slow through the corners compared with what we are used to unless as you say ground effect was re-introduced. But I was under the impression ground effect was banned because when it "failed" the car became uncontrollable and lethal, while the cornering speeds ended up so high that combined with the modern speeds you would end up with the drivers blacking out:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2007/06/07/banned-groun...

Since ground effect is basically all-or-nothing (you can't, I think, have "partial ground effect" - it's either working or not?) how would the cornering speeds be mitigated? Electronic meddling with the throttle?

[RichardM5]

If a wing fails you get the same problem, even a DRS failure can be bad enough.

I'm are there must be a way of limiting ground effect, limit the width under the car that can be sealed for example.

[Flooble]

That's a good idea - if there is a way to produce only a limited amount of downforce. Although I wonder why they didn't do that way back in the 80s? Easier to just ban it entirely pre CFD I suppose.

[EnglishTony]

RichardM5 said:

There must be a way of limiting ground effect,

This is exactly what the regulations do now and have done since the full on ground effects cars were banned.

[Flooble]

EnglishTony said:

RichardM5 said:

There must be a way of limiting ground effect,

This is exactly what the regulations do now and have done since the full on ground effects cars were banned.

Perhaps the wrong forum (F1Technical?) but is it possible to relax the stepped floor/plank regulations while simultaneously reducing the size of the wings and thus achieve downforce which is unaffected by the preceding car? Or would a "floor based downforce" car be just as vulnerable to turbulent air?

It seems Pirelli can make super-super-soft tyres easily enough, so could mechanical grip be cranked up in conjunction with wing size reductions?