Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, Sochi Autodrom, 2018

F1 considering new eight-car Q4 session for 2019

2019 F1 season

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Formula 1 is consider a new qualifying format for the 2019 season which would split the session into four parts instead of three.

The topic was discussed by the Strategy Group last week at the instigation of F1’s commercial rights holder Liberty Media.

“They’ve been doing a lot of research among fans and this is one of the things that they feel the fans would like,” FIA race director Charlie Whiting explained when asked by RaceFans.

At present, with F1’s 20-car grid, Q1 lasts 18 minutes and sees five drivers drop out, Q2 lasts 15 minutes and another five drivers are eliminated, which leaves 10 cars in the 12-minute Q3 session.

Under the new proposal both the sessions and the delays between them would be shortened and the number of cars eliminated cut to four each time. “I personally think it’s quite a nice idea but it’s not my decision,” said Whiting.

The new Q4 session would feature eight cars. Whiting said the possibility that each car would do a single lap in turn had not been discussed. The length of the session could remain sufficient for each car to do two runs.

Drivers currently receive 13 sets of tyres per race weekend. That allocation may have to change if the qualifying format is altered.

“Our next action to see exactly what would be required tyre-wise,” said Whiting. “That’s something that needs to be looked at carefully.”

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90 comments on “F1 considering new eight-car Q4 session for 2019”

  1. Panagiotis Papatheodorou (@panagiotism-papatheodorou)
    1st October 2018, 7:11

    Sometimes I think that people in charge of F1 have a negative IQ score. The qualifying system is fine as it is.

    1. Funny how they keep looking to tweak the things that really should be far down of their to do list, is’t it @panagiotism-papatheodorou!

      1. @bascb, now that I think about it, I think I can see one angle why Liberty Media might want to have more sessions with more gaps between them – commercial advertising.

        I wonder if the idea of breaking qualifying up into more segments, which creates more frequent interludes between sessions, is intended to appeal to TV channels which might show adverts between the qualifying sessions. Offering broadcasters the opportunity to put another ad break in the coverage between sessions might be one angle that could help make their broadcasts more commercially appealing for broadcasters.

        1. You may be right but there are ways to do that without fiddling with the sporting aspect which currently works well. Longer gaps between sessions for example.

          And then there is the short attention span of American audiences… and in the UK. But are they ever going to be real F1 fans until there are three races of ten minutes each on Sundays.

          So I’ll stand by my comment about management running out of ideas and desperately trying to look dynamic as, after all, Liberty have failed on cost cutting, failed to get new teams into the sport, failed on the prize money system, failed to change the engine specs for 2020 (thankfully) so they have to do SOMETHING.

        2. Ads every 10 minutes? Not sure, it looks like a bit too much.

      2. A sign of failure when a management starts having committees and projects to choose a new colour for the walls when no-one has complained about the current colour.

        Change for change’s sake to look dynamic. The history of business is littered with examples. So much dynamism that the basic needs of the business are neglected.

      3. @bascb

        Exactly.. It feels like theit traditional philosophy of ‘let’s fix what’s not broken’. This Q4 idea has a certain senile quality to it.. The Ecclestone-ish kind.

    2. @panagiotism-papatheodorou, it does seem to be a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, because the feedback so far does seem to be that the current system works fine and is fairly popular.

      It might make more sense if you had more entrants, since then there might be an argument for needing to break up qualifying a bit more. Otherwise, there does not seem to be a particular need or that much support for this change to be made.

    3. Panagiotis Papatheodorou
      Bernie, bless him, had his faults, but at least you knew where he was coming from. Liberty are seriously becoming annoying. It’s as though they are choosing to pick on the few things that actually work to tinker with. IF IT IS NOT BROKE DON’T FIX IT. LEAVE IT WELL ALONE. I know of no F1 fan who thinks the qualifying sessions for races needs fixing. it works.

    4. “If it ain’t broke, let’s break it!”

  2. If Q4 is exactly like Q1, Q2 and Q3, I don’t really see the poiint. What’s the difference between 8 or 10 cars?

    But if Q4 ends up being a super pole style phase, I’m up for it. But not with 8 cars, that’s too much. Only 5, 1 lap each, track for themselves. We’ll see the whole lap of the 5 fastest laps in the weekend live on the telly, and that’s awesome. It’d be like 2003-2005 but without adjusting pace for fuel, and that’s great!

    1. Yeah! A single lap qually would be amazing. There would be the odd case of track conditions making it unfair but so be it, if they start in the order from the previous qual session it would give reason for them to want to push then too. That’s a change I could get behind. A Q4 with 8 instead of 10 cars in the final session is completely arbitrary and isn’t going to improve much of anything.

      1. Q1 1 outlap 1 timed lap and 1 in lap 5 slowest cars eliminated
        Same for Q2 and Q3 each with 5 cars eliminated.
        Q4 5 cars with a super pole format,
        That would give enough time to fit it all in with the available TV airtime coverage.
        I could get behind that but to simply add another session with less cars, I don’t see the point. I don’t know which “fans” they consulted but I do know that they definitely didn’t ask me. Hands up all those who were consulted and complained about the existing qually format! I personally don’t see anything wrong with the existing format and for me it is one of the most interesting parts of the race weekend.

      2. @skipgamer, wasn’t the single lap qualifying format rather unpopular in the past, particularly for those who were at the circuit given that it reduced the amount of on track action for them (since they would be watching a single car coming round spaced out at intervals of several minutes)? There was a reason why it was dropped, and that was because the feedback from those at the circuit was generally negative, especially from those who were at the circuit itself.

        1. I think the main reason why it was dropped was because of weather getting in the way, and the inherent advantage of running late in the session. But if Q3 serves as a way to sort them out, they’d be pushing hard in Q3 and then in Q4 for pole.

          And track action would be almost equal to what we see today.

      3. The only problem with single-lap qualifying is that the order in which the drivers get to run could be very decisive. On a wet track that is drying up, the last driver has a huge advantage. But if it starts to rain, the last driver is at a huge disadvantage. In the current system, the teams/drivers can choose when to go out for a lap, so if they choose wrong, it’s on them – and that is what I prefer, for teams and drivers to make their own mistakes, instead of adding another random factor.

        1. I agree with the idea that if a team decides to run early or late in a Qualifying session then the outcome is upon their shoulders. Often you see cars’ being tinkered with, sometimes even being hurriedly repaired, so having an open session does give teams some breathing space if there’s urgent work to do. After all, at the end of Qualifying teams are restricted on the work they can do on the car.

      4. @skipgamer ”There would be the odd case of track conditions making it unfair”
        – And that’s precisely why that format should never be brought back.

    2. I like this idea.
      And draw lots for the running order of the 5.

      1. No, surely Q3 would determine the order – gives something worth competing for in Q3.
        Maybe 1st in Q3 gets to choose 1st or last (a weather gamble perhaps?), then remainder follow in 1st to 5th or 5th to 1st order.

        1. Yeah… I can go with this…

  3. “They’ve been doing a lot of research among fans and this is one of the things that they feel the fans would like,”

    By fans they mean puppies, other popular suggestions were edible tires and “ball! ball!”

    1. COTD 😂😂😂

    2. Pedro Andrade
      1st October 2018, 8:48

      Exactly, what fans did they interview? Because most people here seem to be against changing the one part of F1 that does not seem broken!

      1. Someone recently posted a comment about a low profile pole F1 had conducted that included a question on how many cars should be in Q3, and the options started at 11 and went to something like 20, so there wasn’t any way to say you preferred the status quo because you weren’t given that option. I’m not sure how they deduced that the final Qualifying round should be 8 cars because, as I understood it, that option was never given to fans.

        1. Looks like it’s back to the stupid decisions of Bernie’s era.

          1. How did they get to 8 cars … 20 – 4 – 4 – 4 = 8. Three elimination rounds and then there were eight.
            Always look on the bright side (yes, cue for a song), now the best position to be in is 9th rather than the current 11th. Think of how much more strategy will be applied by the mid-field runners trying to get as far up the grid as they can, to be on the tyres they want and not push the engines too long or hard.
            Isn’t it strange how some drivers frequently start in 11th.

    3. joe pineapples
      1st October 2018, 10:43

      Hehe

    4. If anything, qualification was one of the few things that got unanimous support amongst fans. I feel they have a particular agenda and putting this behind supposed fan demands is pretty lame.

  4. Why fix something that’s not broken? This will just end up with teams spending more money and putting unnecessary mileage on the engine.

  5. What a random change, what’s the point? Is this their answer to midfield cars wanting to qualify outside the top 10 because of the stupid tyre rule?

    Would be nice if they think things through and actually explain with good reasoning, not just “because the fans like it” that’s such a cop out. I saw a comment here a couple weeks back about how they feel the fan surveys they give out are worded to give them justification for bad decisions.

    After seeing this given as the reasoning for such a bad change I too now fear this is the case.

    What is the real reason I wonder? To give more sponsorship time for the teams in the cut-off zones in qually perhaps? They could do that during the race, for example Sauber got hardly any TV time despite Leclerc’s great race because they were too busy showing how “amazing” Verstappen was. They so rarely show any of the racing outside the top 6 lately but will talk for laps on end about when one of them will be pitting or a radio message.

    It’s really, really, hard to have much hope for F1. Close to switching off.

  6. A lot of things to consider for balance. Are they still going to be using the quali tires for the race? Is it the tires from Q2 or Q3? Imagine being 5th (if we go with top 5) and being on the optimal tire right n front of someone who had the better qualifying tire but the suboptimal strategy. That’s not just a points winning move but a race winning one.

    1. In 3 years you didn’t get many replies or comments did you. What does that tell you about your good idea?

    2. The midfield don’t really have a chance as it is, this would make it worse. I still think drivers should be rewarded for one off laps which they could probably never repeat(Singapore this season) was a good example.

    3. I don’t think there is anything wrong with qualifying as it is now…but if they really want to change it, I would say that your idea is as good as any.

  7. NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

  8. No stop this nonsense, the only thing that’s working in F1 is the qualifying

  9. I like quali how it is at the moment. For this to be interesting, it needs to be a one shot style quali in Q4. 2 runs changes nothing. Make that last session 4 minutes long with 5/6 cars.

    1. I’ll reply to my own comment because I don’t think it’s actually as bad as first thought. This weekend if drivers had to start on their fastest set from the new Q3 then if there was a top 6 shootout afterwards, the top teams wouldn’t be risking using the US to get into Q4 so we could have seen them starting on the HS. So in this case, anyone outside the top 6 has a free choice of tyre.

  10. Liberty should hire Michael Scott

  11. Keep qualy as it is. But make Q3 such as each driver only does one lap, with the whole track to themselves, in reverse order of Q2 results, regardless of weather or track condition

  12. Pretty sure the only and one single reason they want four sessions instead of three is so they can add one more commercial break. Or some of the tv channels could.

  13. Frankly like V8 Supercars has it they should make Q4 if they are going to have it… Top 8 Shootout with 1 lap in reverse order. Would see grids definitely jumbled

  14. You do not want single qualifying laps, if it rains during the session the later drivers would be disadvantaged.

  15. How about a shootout for the top 4. Gives RBR, Renault, FI a chance to go on a contra tyre strategy.

  16. If you really want to change the qualifying format. Do the following (a suggestion I came up with few months ago). It is radical, but it will spice up the races significantly.

    There is a fundamental difference between racing (F1 and others) and other sports. No other sport – cricket, tennis, football, basketball – give an advantage to the better player / team. Nadal doesn’t get to play with a larger racket nor do India get an additional 2 overs during any ODI. However, in racing, we have a concept of qualifying which is designed to give a large (if not decisive) advantage to the competitor with the best car-driver combination. If all car-driver combinations are going to arrange themselves in descending order of pace, they are bound to pull away from each other. Which will obviously result in lack of passing. So, here is theradical solution:

    Split the F1 calendar into 2 types of circuits: 1) not wide enough for 5 cars to be alongside each other on SF straight 2) wide enough for 5 cars to be alongside each other on SF straight.
    For type 1 circuits, continue with the current qualifying + race format.
    For type 2 circuits, conduct a bidding between teams on every circuit for slots on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th row. (4 rows of 5 cars each). This bidding won’t be with real money but with hypothetical points (e.g.: 2000 points given to each team equally). Teams will have to use this allocation wisely through the season and also between their 2 drivers. Bidding will be done after practice and before the race. Like regular bidding, the highest bidder will get choice of row and lowest bidders will have to settle for the back rows.
    For the race start, each row will start 3 seconds after the previous row. That is, row 2 will start after 3 seconds after row 1, row 3 will start 3 seconds after that and row 4 will start 3 seconds after that.

    This will add randomness to the starting grid which could lead to some overtaking. Also, the randomness won’t be truly random as there will be a strategy element to it which teams will have to play out across the entire season. There will be no difference between the well-financed teams and the poorly financed teams or between fast-car teams and slow-car teams as they will all get the same number of hypothetical bidding points. Also, 3 seconds gap between the rows won’t necessarily spread out the grid too far.

    1. I remember your post and I remember pointing out that Nadal is top seeded and doesn’t play against another top 4 player until the semi finals. That’s a huge handicap other the rest of the guys. Same with football in major tournaments, top seeded teams don’t play each other in the group stages. It’s normal in every sport.

      1. Yes, but Nadal at least plays sometime during the tournament with the 2nd seed or 3rd seed.

        In racing, the top seed (Merc or Ferrari) can qualify on pole and drive off into the distance away from the 2nd seeded car. In effect, the top seed and 2nd seed never ‘play’. All the ‘play’ happens in qualifying itself.

        Hence my stress on changing qualifying to liven up the races.

  17. SparkyAMG (@)
    1st October 2018, 9:56

    Why stop at Q4? Let’s eliminate 3 drivers in Q4, 3 more in Q5 and then have a one on one shootout in Q6.

    1. @sparkyamg the idea of a one on one has some appeal. Maybe just a Q4 deciding the first row?

  18. Why not keep it as is and have a Sunday morning shootout session with a bespoke qualifying tyre for the top 10? Q3 results determine running order.

  19. I’ve seen practically every format and my favourite was 1 hour, 12 laps. During this era I thought maybe reducing it to 45 minutes would eliminate the lull that used to typically happen at the beginning of the session but it definitely produced the most memorable qualifying sessions that I’ve ever seen. But I do understand that times have changed and I’m happy to allow for time to have commercial breaks. The pre ’96 format wasn’t to my liking and likewise the post ’02 nonsenses did nothing for me. Right now I don’t have too many complaints about the current qualifying format, other than the gimmicky stuff. The usual suspects, tyre gimmicks and DRS being used for qualifying laps and lap records.

    I’d even accept the grid order being determined by an unelected panel of The Judean People’s Front, the X-factor bloke, Piers Morgan et al., if they could just get DRS out of the sport.

    If you know how the sport was, it’s very hard to stomach how it is, but qualifying isn’t the main issue.

    My conclusion on this qualifying debate: get rid of DRS. You’re all welcome. :-)

    1. @cevert73 DRS is one of the lesser problems, though. First and foremost, it has to stay until at least as long as the long-standing problem of following another car gets fixed.

      1. I see your point from but must respectfully disagree about DRS. Eliminating it should be priority #1. I know that sounds fanatical but poll the older fanbase who have followed the sport over a broad range of rules. In ’05 the qualifying format was fairly farcical, and the tyre rule anachronous in the context of the history of the sport, but the Sunday’s typically had good, pure racing. I’m not championing aggregate single lap qualifying nor that tyre rule but simply emphasising the fact that, ultimately, it’s about the race on Sunday.

        Eddie Irvine used to use the fishing analogy (tadpoles vs. great white sharks) to lampoon this excessive quest for overtaking of any kind in abundance in F1. Maybe have a look at his interview from ’99 on Jeremy Clarkson’s old talkshow, which is the specific example that comes to mind.

        Yes the racing could be improved through better aerodynamic regulations but the myth that people are aiming for of overtaking every single lap didn’t consistently happen in the history of the sport. It’s partly the perpetuation of this myth that leaves us with an abomination such as DRS.

  20. “They’ve been doing a lot of research among fans and this is one of the things that they feel the fans would like,”
    – Quite the opposite actually. A total waste of time to even ponder about changing something that doesn’t need any alterations whatsoever anyway. Like has been stated many times before; The current format works perfectly fine, so just leave it as it is. Haven’t they learned anything from the errors made the last time the format was altered? What is it with this obsession F1 has (already has had long before the most recent change of the commercial rights holders) to try to change things that already work adequately well? They clearly have never heard of this famous phrase:
    ”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  21. Hmmm…it may prove to be too much of a good thing. I still think that with few tweaks the running elimination qualifying tried couple of years ago might have been great, if given proper chance. But it was met with complete non-understanding by the (presumably brilliant and well paid) team strategists.

  22. Mattias Hammer
    1st October 2018, 11:13

    Maybe they could make the hardest tire mandatory for q1, the medium for q2, free choice for q3 and the softest mandatory for q4. That could spice it up and force them to make the car work on every tire.

    Haven’t thought this through tho…

  23. Yes, but Nadal at least plays sometime during the tournament with the 2nd seed or 3rd seed.

    In racing, the top seed (Merc or Ferrari) can qualify on pole and drive off into the distance away from the 2nd seeded car. In effect, the top seed and 2nd seed never ‘play’. All the ‘play’ happens in qualifying itself.

    Hence my stress on changing qualifying to liven up the races.

  24. I’m all for this. It’s a modest tweak with a modest upside, but I see no downside.

    If all it does is to quicken the pace a bit, that sounds fine by me. I find there’s too much down time in Q1 and too little consequence. 18 minutes to eliminate five drivers is a bit much.

    I could even see a benefit in reducing the amount of time in Q1 and Q2 so that the teams only have time for one clean run. That would heighten the stakes and increase the chances of a mixed-up grid without a lot of artificiality.

  25. Has Bernie returned?

    We keep hearing that Liberty want to make a change “because the fans want it” – how about Liberty actually release their detailed surveys and polling information behind these claims.

    To me, Liberty have gone down the same rabbit holes and are just repeating the same mistakes that have plagued F1. As before they’re picking out what they think is a soft target to make themselves feel good because they “changed something” whereas sometimes things just need to be left alone.

  26. Literally the one thing in F1 that doesn’t need to be changed at all and is often the most interesting and exciting part of the race weekend.

    DO NOT WANT.

    Remember what happened when you last changed it and it was so unanimously hated it was dropped after what, 2 races? Don’t do this again. Silly idea.

  27. Whatever they do can they please call the last qualifying session Q1? Start with Q4 or Q3 but please reverse the way they name them. Am i wrong? Q1 is for the guys trying for P1..yes?

  28. Maybe shortening the breaks between the sessions by another couple of minutes would be enough for me. I often feel Qualy is a bit too broken up. Make it a bit more frantic and exciting by making it more like one continuous session.

  29. There’s one simple change they could make to improve the ‘show’ on a Saturday and Sunday, which is to remove the rule mandating Q3 drivers to start on the same set of tyres that they used in Q2. Whatever format they adopt, I hope this restriction is lifted and qualifying goes back to being about drivers and teams pushing flat out to qualify as high up as they can on the grid.

    If the whole format was to be overhauled – and I agree that this should be low down the list of the sport’s problems that need addressing – I would favour a format where Q1 and Q2 were as they are now (or perhaps combined into a single session) and then Q3 was a single lap shoot-out with the drivers going out in reverse order from their Q2 times (i.e. so the fastest car in Q2 goes last).

  30. This is a perfect example of why I don’t have confidence in Liberty’s management of F1. Change for the sake of change is never a good idea and especially when the thing they plan to change is actually working. I have a feeling it won’t be long before some of the crazy ideas that Bernie and Max proposed, like irrigation systems randomly wetting the track, will be brought back to life.

    1. Once an American company took over, I was slightly nervous of the gimmicky elements that could be brought in. The superficial ‘shiny shiny shiny’ fanfare to distract from real issues. Nothing they’ve done to date has quelled my initial fears. If anything they’ve just confirmed them.

      1. +1 but I hope we will be proven wrong in the end…

  31. Rashmil Rajagopalan
    1st October 2018, 13:46

    Assuming 2019 and 2020 to have not more than 20 drivers, a 4 session knockout with 2 groups of 10 could be given a try.
    Session 1 (Group 1) – 10 minutes (6 out, 4 stay)
    5 minute break.
    Session 2 (Group 2) – 10 minutes (6 out, 4 stay) 5 minute break.
    Session 3 – 10 minutes (last 6 of both groups, deciding the last 12 of the grid, can use new tyres to start the race)
    5 minute break.
    Session 4 – 10 minutes (top 4 of both groups, deciding the first 8 of the grid, have to start on the same Tyre).
    5 minute break.

    Pros –
    1. Each driver will at least be in 2 sessions, making the final difference in usage of no. Od tyres sets lesser in the entire starting grid.
    2. Lesser cars on track per session, lesser impeding.
    3. Greater chances of smaller teams to contest better. If not within top 8 (Assuming 6 to be booked by Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari), they have a free choice of tyres. Also, midfield seems the real fun battle this season. This will make things even more interesting.

  32. Filippo Peverini
    1st October 2018, 14:01

    We need to get back to basics here, not this artificial nonsense. I find the 3 sessions already irritating and a 4th one would just make it worse. Less is more. I preferred the open session of long ago. More variability, more risk (weather, traffic etc), no parc ferme, no tire rules. Just drivers going flat out with the cars set up for pure speed.
    I find modern F1 increasingly frustrating, always worrying about tires and engine penalties. Surely there is a better way.

  33. FOM did a survey on weekend formats via F1 Fan Voice and concluded that “only 27% would like to see changes to the qualifying session or main race”. How can they then claim that according to their research “this is one of the the things that fans would like”?

  34. It ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Seriously if there’s anything fans are very happy with, it’s the qualifying format.

  35. What for? It’s fine like it is right now… Do you guys over there in FIA have nothing more important to do?

  36. Everything that is broken with Formula 1 is due to television. It is not a racing series; its a TV show! Anyone who is old enough to remember real F1, like me, thinks qualifying has been a joke for more than 20 years. Qualifying sessions, where the cars “go for broke,” was waaaay better than this manipulated drivel they feed us today. And as to the racing; jeez louise! What the hell are Blue Flags and tire changes for? Without them, today’s cry-babies would never have chocked up so many wins, and should never be compared to anyone who actually “raced” before them. The “F” now stands for fake!

    1. @jjfrazz, sounds a lot more like there’s a lot of underlying bitterness that you seem to be taking out on the sport in that comment.

      It seems that, irrespective of how young or old the fans are, the sport is never “as good as it was in my day” – the drivers were supposedly always more heroic and noble, the racing supposedly always more pure, blue flags apparently never existed (when in fact they pre-date not just your first race, but pre-date the advent of F1 itself – they were introduced into the pre-war Grand Prix championship and carried over into the current era), and there always seems to be this bitter, desperate urge to paint everything that came after as somehow infantile, fake and degraded.

      Frankly, it comes across as a bit of a desperate attempt by people to cling onto a faded memory of a world that no longer exists, and a statement of their resentment at the fact that it no longer exists.

  37. Current quali rules disadvantage the top ten as they don’t have a free choice of tyre compound.

    I would change this. My proposal is that any team with less than (say) 150 constructor points from the previous season still gets a free choice.

    An alternative is to say that any team with no wins in the previous season gets a free choice.

    Another would be that any team with less than (say) 50% of the constructor points of the leading constructor (at any point in the season) gets a free choice. Thus all teams get a free choice for the first race of the year.

    There are loads of ways to do this. It’s easy to brainstorm proposals like this – getting them ratified is perhaps a little harder…

  38. Just eliminate 6 drivers from Q3 and Q2. That way you get to last session with 8 drivers.

  39. So does this mean only 8 cars on the grid will have to begin the race on the Q2 (now Q3) tire? I thought the point of having the top 10 cars start on the Q2 tire was to give advantage to the “slower” cars by giving them a more flexible strategy.

    if P9 and P10 now start on whatever tire they choose, wouldn’t this mean less teams in Q3 will bother to qualify in order to have the more effective strategy, as it is now so much more advantageous.

    How does this help F1?

  40. The folly of this folderol continues
    Fix the one thing that needs not need fixing
    While ignoring the crucial issues
    Well known and agreed upon
    By fans, teams and powers that be
    Aero, tires, lack of overtaking, unfair prize money scheme
    Come back when you’ve attacked
    These glaring, festering boils
    Upon the collective bottom-side of F1

  41. How about this for a new Quali format:

    20 cars start Q1 – six cars drop out;
    14 cars start Q2 – six cars drop out;
    8 cars start Q3 – four cars drop out;
    4 cars start Q4 – three drop out;
    1 car starts Q5 – and if their time isn’t faster than all times in the previous four periods the driver receives two penalty points and starts from the pit-lane…

    OR… just leave it alone…!!!

  42. how about reverse grids based on current championship standings for that race. Whoever is leading the championship will lineup last, and all top drivers will have to make their way through the field (like verstapen did).
    It will “spice up” the racing, plenty overtaking, drivers making a difference how fast they can cut through the field, unpredictability, smaller teams will get a shot at the podium (maybe even a win). Solves most of F1s problems.
    I know we’l loose qualifying and won’t get to see the ultimate one lap pace of the cars/drivers ( or keep quali also on saturday and hand out 5 points to the pole sitter or something)

    1. Peter Waters (@)
      1st October 2018, 22:47

      Reverse grids would certainly make the teams change the aero on their cars. They would have to make sure that they could overtake therefore the aero would have to change.

  43. My poor idea…
    Q1 – all cars go out.
    Q2 – slowest 10 from Q1 go again for positions 20-11
    Q3 – top 10 from Q1 go again for positions 10-1

    Gives all cars equal running, more focus on the fastest as currently Q1/Q2 the focus is on who is knocked out & given the current state of things we normally know who is out in Q1.

  44. Maybe we could change the whole thing to a real media event/reality TV.

    Have all the drivers called out (in reverse order of where they last finished) walk up to a podium and draw their starting position out of a hat. That way TV interviewers could pounce on them straight away and ask inane questions like “how do you feel about the position you’ve drawn?” and “what special strategy plans will you and the team now make?” so we can experience the highs and lows alongside each driver throughout the whole event.

    Liberty could make it a huge event – even hold it in the CBD of the city they’re visiting instead of the track (after all why would people at the track want to see cars?) so that they can expand their appeal to a whole new market.

    Perhaps even get a rapper and a Kardashian or two involved so its “relevant” to today’s youth.

    1. I think your idea would be even more fun than mine… :) :) :0

      1. Scary part is that Sean Bratches probably thinks this would be a great idea. You get these sorts of things when you let marketing people that have no real idea of the product loose.

  45. I would prefer a six-car qualifying session than eight.

  46. Tyre allocation in the current qualifying scheme is already a problem as not enough tyres are allocated so teams cannot run there cars as much as what they would like to. This then affects not only the outcome of qualifying and that it could be more exciting as teams might be closer but also as several of the drivers have stated themselves that it affects the fans who have paid to watch the cars going around the track but are not able to watch them as teams only have a set number of tyres and have to save them for the race.

  47. My idea would be:
    Q1 – as now
    Q2 – as now
    Q3 – Decides the top row, i.e. Pole setter and 2nd – as now
    Q4 – dropped out cars (10 cars) from Q1 and Q2 but not from Q3, runs again. Top two cars are given 2nd row i.e. 3rd and 4th places. All other car positions will be cascaded down.

    This will mix the grid a bit and also allow mid to lower qualifiers to be in the top of the grid.

    1. Another option could be Q4 becomes Q3 (decides P3 and P4). Q4 is then top 10 shoot out except for P3 and P4 (2nd row).

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