Yes, it did not flow too well.
Good stuff from Rachel and Ted though, we have the development one later in the week.

Yes, the F1 race is the main event of the whole weekend. Having a lesser race where people don't try as hard isn't going to make any of it more appealing.

From a fans point of view maybe success ballast isn't a terrible idea, but the teams would say "why do we spend all this money to build the best car when we aren't allowed to compete equally?". And they'd have a point. It has to be a level playing field otherwise the competition means nothing.

F1 isn't a level playing field.

Why would they not try as hard? A sprint race or two on a Saturday instead of qualifying would provide significant points towards the drivers and constructors standings.
If you could win as many points on a Saturday as you could on a Sunday it would make both days interesting for different reasons.
Saturday would be balls to the wall racing without the same level of fear from the constructors of engine failure and would allow the drivers to really race.
Sunday would be the showcase for the constructors to get the reliability of the car right and showcase the tactical ability of the teams and the drivers have to prove they have the ability to adapt to a longer more tactical race too.

I disagree, if you're going to have 2 races, they should be the same length (i.e. half of a current f1 race) each, maybe have 1 for constructors points only and the other for drivers points only.

But then they'd be 2 potentially equally dull races.
If you had a sprint race/s on a Saturday you could sway the points benefits towards the the driver and then reverse that to benefit the constructor for the feature race.
if constructors are less likely to lose out on points on a Sat they would let the drivers rag the backside out of the cars, then on Sunday they get to reign the driver in and play the tactical game for their own benefit, the driver however still knowing that they''ll get some points for their own benefit too.

I would guess the concern would be that if they damage there car on Saturday (More risk of doing so in a race than a practice/qualifying session) it could affect their race on Sunday.

And if your using that as a qualifying race then why risk damaging a wing or something which is going to see you starting towards the back on Sunday.


Something else that is a bit of a risk with awarding points on Saturday (Be it for qualifying or a race) is that you could end up having championships decided on Saturday which would then take away from the main race the following day.

I also saw some discussion last year that series that do run 2 races over a weekend always tend to find that one of the 2 gets significantly less tv viewers than the other. I saw Indycar brought up as an example in that discussion as they tried to run 2 races over a weekend at some circuits a few years ago & found that the Saturday race always rated less which is why that is something they moved away from (Apart from Detroit which apparently stipulates 2 races in its contract).

Each day would be as important meaning they would need to race on both days. If they didn't they'd risk losing points to competitors.


Because you get points for the finishing positions of the sprint races. Starting from the back the following day would also have the benefit of places gained points. further towards the back you finish the more points you can take the race.


No different to the title being decided with 1, 2 3 races left before the end of the season. Except constructors points would still be available. Plus the last race of the season determines cars starting places for the first sprint race of the following year (based on cars if drivers change during the off season).


I'd have thought that's the case anyway for Saturday/Sunday but could be wrong!

New qualifying format, because that's what was wrong
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1...r-2016-675278/

Time ballast aside, I honestly think it seems like a good idea. Hopefully it'll be very exciting.

Just hoping that we don't have any early season FOM graphics/app live timing problems this year. Could make things a tad confusing...

I think Time Ballast will make it even more complicated for the casual fan.
They might just get the elimination stuff.

Doesn't look like they're actually doing the time ballast stuff.

New format sounds interesting, should actually build up to a proper crescendo. No idea how tyre changes fit in though?

New tactic - set a quick time early on, then become a mobile chicane for the rest of the session under the guise of saving your engine.

I just wish they'd have concentrated on something that really needed fixing.

But I'll try to keep an open mind.

It's a ridiculous idea that will be very difficult to televise well. Eliminating cars every 90 seconds at Spa when a lap takes longer than that is stupid, anybody who gets blocked through no fault of their own will have no chance to set a fair time.

It will actually make qualifying less exciting as there's only one left to knock-out at the end of each session, sure it might screw over a few people along the way, but other than the odd car out of position for the race, you're left with two cars going for pole at the end, rather than 4 or 5, with no chance of a random poletaker getting the conditions just right at the end on a damp track.

I think that that they should use the knockout format at most circuits however I think for narrow tracks like Australia, Monaco, Sochi, Canada, Baku, Singapore they should run a NASCAR Superspeedway like format where there is 2 rounds of qualifying yet they do single car, 1 lap runs.

Were you watching F1 in 2003 mate?

Yes I have had a look back a previous qualifying sessions from past years, I understand that this was used before and I don't see a problem if that came back.

My idea may not sound exciting but I think it could remove unnecessary crashes and incidents on the narrow and dangerous street circuits which can easily happen under the new format.

Why qualifying was fine the way it was.

If they do end up going along with this elimination system, I can see if turning out like that silly aggregate time system they introduced in 2005 which was dropped after only 6 races.

No reason to change it. More important to fix the 'following another car' dirty air issues. Ironically, a team member has said basically that it won't change how they work as Mercedes for example will just do a flat out lap at the start of Q1, same for Q2, same for Q3 and then head back to the pits for the rest of the session (except for Q3 when they'd come out again at the end). The teams obviously forget that tyres won't last 10-15mins at full pelt so the first lap will be the best, meaning most of the rest of each session will be irrelevant as people will struggle to improve.

Aside from being able to follow everythng that's going on, the other issue with regular eliminations (in Q1 in particular) will be the eliminated cars returning to the pits, which would just be rolling roadblocks as they've no reason to go full speed if they're already out.

Single lap is terrible idea. It penalised some drivers who liked to work into a Quali. I remember it crippled DC.

Current Qualifying is probably the best set up. Although I did like the 12 laps / 1 hour format, Just need tweaked so maybe everyone did a lap within 107% every 15 mins to ensure we didn't get the first 25 minute standoff.

More tedious fiddling around with the qualifying format. Just scrap qualifying and pick names out of the hat.

Qualifying didnt need fixing, more madness. What happens if a driver has an issue on their first run like a slow puncture or gets blocked?

That's the whole point, you introduce an element of randomness to get slightly more random grids. If they really want that they should just go the whole hog and do proper random grids.

Is this Bernies plan to devalue F1 by getting us to switch off so he can buy it cheap?