Originally Posted by stefmeister:
“But would they, There's nothing stopping them running with the engine turned down or without the ERS enabled to try & qualify lower down so that they start higher up when the grid is mixed.”
I doubt they'd gain much tbh. It all depends on how you apply the penalties, and how big of a penalty they are. Also, if the penalties apply to all the top 10 point scorers, then they'd go down en-masse surely (If their quali pace is as good as their last race pace), so I think a lower runner would only gain 1 or 2 places tbh. I don't think that qualifying much slower would make a difference. If it was a reverse grid, i'd understand, but it's not. It'll be the equivilent of a driver qualifying on pole (providing he's won the previous race) say being penalised so that he gets pushed down to 5th.
What I don't understand in this format (or qualifying in general tbh), is that Rosberg had like 4mins remaining in Q1 today, yet he backed off immediately after failing to beat Hamilton's lap the 1st time round. But why did he back off? Surely if you've got 4 mins it's worth giving it another lap or two?