new f1 qualifying

Formula One team bosses unanimously gave the final go-ahead to new qualifying regulations here Saturday and said they will be introduced for the British Grand Prix next month.

The ten Grand Prix team chiefs signed an agreement to introduce a format originally proposed at the last race in Germany which will see times aggregated from two separate sessions run within an hour.

"The final version of qualifying procedures was agreed and signed off by the teams today," McLaren-Mercedes chief Ron Dennis confirmed. "It will be introduced at Silverstone."

The team chiefs agreed to extend the originally proposed 20-minute sessions to 25 minutes with a ten-minute break after appeals from television companies that the mid-session wait was too long.

"Television could not have a break of that length," said team boss Eddie Jordan. "But in the ten minutes they will try to make coverage with Jordan and Minardi and the teams who wouldn't get the coverage in the main sessions."

Each driver will have to run six laps in each session to ensure there is plenty of on-track action throughout the 25 minutes but while the changes are unanimously agreed they have not been fully welcomed by all team bosses.

The current system of single lap qualifying was only introduced at the start of last year and had reasonable success, mixing up grid positions and punishing mistakes made under pressure.

The format was changed this season to bring both sessions together on the Saturday but the first session, which decides running order for the second, is now immediately superseded and it is unpopular with television companies.

Qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix here Saturday, however, proved the system can work as Ralf Schumacher claimed pole in a nail-biting finish and the usually dominant Ferrari team finished well down the order.

"I don't think we should have changed it at all," insisted Jordan. "I thought it was quite exciting today. You want to see can the guy do it and he has to do it on that lap. I didn't think it was that bad."

The changes outlined in the signed document still have to be approved by the FIA's World Motorsport Council at a meeting on June 30 but that is understood to be merely a formality.

Source AFP

That is the ony info I have...

 

As I understand it the grid will be based on the aggregate of the best time from each of the two sessions, not the sum of all six laps in each session. In fact, it couldn't really be all six because some of them would be in and out laps.

I might say that the whole thing sounds like overcomplicated nonsense to me and just goes to show that Max Mosley and the F1 team bosses shouldn't be allowed to make up the rules.

 

Perhaps 6 is overkill, but otherwise, makes sense to me -
Previously, they couldn't add fuel between second qualifying run and racetime -
Arguably, a single lap does not reflect one's "qualification" to be leader or in the middle of the starting pack -
Combine those elements, and you've got a slightly less true starting grid which can lead to overeager starts, let alone what appear to be odd times to make pit stops - thereby depriving drivers, crews, teams, let alone fandom of seeing a true race.