76 replies to this topic

[Sheepmachine]

Maybe for this weekend they will change it so it's just 4 cars out in Q1 and 4 cars out in Q2. I don't see there being any radical change for this year, maybe next year if grid numbers stay low.

[Spillage]

I like single-lap qualifying. It meant the lesser teams got as much exposure as the big boys and it must have been one hell of a challenge for the drivers. It was rather ruined by qualifying on race fuel, I think. I wouldn't mind one bit if it were to return.

[SenorSjon]

@Afterburner

 

In Europe, viewers don't react kindly to paywalls. In the countries that have it, viewership collapsed. The rest of Europa doesn't have the Sky treatmemt with a dedicated F1 channel. At the top, some 1.5m Dutchies (9% of the population) watched F1 live on open channels. Now we have an expensive Sport1 channel with other sports I don't care about, BBC and RTL Deutschland. Online? Hah... nothing! You could talk about F1 all day with friends and co-workers. Now you get a strange look when you even mention it.

[Button4life]

@Afterburner

 

In Europe, viewers don't react kindly to paywalls. In the countries that have it, viewership collapsed. The rest of Europa doesn't have the Sky treatmemt with a dedicated F1 channel. At the top, some 1.5m Dutchies (9% of the population) watched F1 live on open channels. Now we have an expensive Sport1 channel with other sports I don't care about, BBC and RTL Deutschland. Online? Hah... nothing! You could talk about F1 all day with friends and co-workers. Now you get a strange look when you even mention it.

I can confirm this. I'm a Dutchman and I know alot of people who stopped watching F1 after 2012. They only watched when it's on BBC. In all honestly, I don't watch every F1 race anymore, but before 2012, I didn't miss 1 in 2 years.

[Juan Kerr]

Qualifying as we know it died 10+ years ago.

Along with F1

[Afterburner]

@Afterburner
 
In Europe, viewers don't react kindly to paywalls. In the countries that have it, viewership collapsed. The rest of Europa doesn't have the Sky treatmemt with a dedicated F1 channel. At the top, some 1.5m Dutchies (9% of the population) watched F1 live on open channels. Now we have an expensive Sport1 channel with other sports I don't care about, BBC and RTL Deutschland. Online? Hah... nothing! You could talk about F1 all day with friends and co-workers. Now you get a strange look when you even mention it.

 

I can confirm this. I'm a Dutchman and I know alot of people who stopped watching F1 after 2012. They only watched when it's on BBC. In all honestly, I don't watch every F1 race anymore, but before 2012, I didn't miss 1 in 2 years.

Fair enough--you grow up in a different environment, you're used to different things. Time passes and things change. When I hear people complaining about the pay-wall, I can't help but feel a sense of entitlement in their words sometimes; it's perhaps wrong of me to paint that upon people who might realise that some of us have never experienced racing without a pay-wall in the first place, but I can't help but feel that if that perspective were there to begin with, there wouldn't be any complaining. Apologies if my post seems harsh; was not my intention to offend.

[George Costanza]

Qualifying as we know it died 10+ years ago.

 

Indeed. It died in 2002; the 12 lap format.

 

2003-2004 were ok, but nothing like the 12 lap.

[Rurouni]

Too easy. Cars are required to make one qualifying run in each 15 minute segment or they lose their best time.

What you're proposing is basically break q into 4 segment with nothing in it in the first 3 segment.

[TomNokoe]

Depends where your allegiances lie.

Single lap qualifying is perhaps the purest. One lap, nail it.

12 lap/1 hour however is the pursuit of the perfect lap, and there's way more action.

Sport/Entertainment, etc.

The current format is great for action, but really, it's two runs over the course of the final 10 minutes that really mean anything. None of which we ever wholly see or understand until after the fact.

Edited by TomNokoe, 28 October 2014 - 09:04.

[Seanspeed]

Maybe for this weekend they will change it so it's just 4 cars out in Q1 and 4 cars out in Q2. I don't see there being any radical change for this year, maybe next year if grid numbers stay low.

Yea its pretty simple.

As for the other discussions, you can tell how few people actually read the OP.

[SenorSjon]

Did you read it? He questions the need for breaking up Q in three parts. Most people think a 1 part qualy is fine.

[baddog]

I like single-lap qualifying. It meant the lesser teams got as much exposure as the big boys and it must have been one hell of a challenge for the drivers. It was rather ruined by qualifying on race fuel, I think. I wouldn't mind one bit if it were to return.

 

It was a cute idea but failed the basic fairness test. If it rained, or the temperature changed, or the track got better, or anything happened then people could be completely unfairly penalised with no chance to make it up.

[pdac]

Maybe for this weekend they will change it so it's just 4 cars out in Q1 and 4 cars out in Q2. I don't see there being any radical change for this year, maybe next year if grid numbers stay low.

 

It's implied in the sporting regs (http://www.fia.com/s...ion_category:82) ...
 

33.1 The qualifying practice session will take place on the day before the race from 14.00 to 15.00.

The session will be run as follows :

    a) From 14.00 to 14.18 (Q1) all cars will be permitted on the track and at the end of this period the slowest eight cars will be prohibited from taking any further part in the session. Lap times achieved by the eighteen remaining cars will then be deleted.

    b) From 14.25 to 14.40 (Q2) the eighteen remaining cars will be permitted on the track and at the end of this period the slowest eight cars will be prohibited from taking any further part in the session. Lap times achieved by the ten remaining cars will then be deleted.

    c) From 14.48 to 15.00 (Q3) the ten remaining cars will be permitted on the track.

The above procedure is based upon a Championship entry of 26 cars. If 24 cars are entered seven will be excluded after Q1 and Q2 and if 22 cars are entered only six cars will be excluded after Q1 and Q2.

 

 

With 26 cars, 18 are left after Q1 and 10 after Q2 (i.e. 10 cars into Q3 with 50% of the others being removed in each preceding session). Same formula for 24 cars and 22 cars.

 

The same formula applied to an 18-car field would be 4 out in Q1, 4 out in Q2, leaving 10 into Q3.

[Juan Kerr]

Its typical actually that my idea from over ten years ago would still be a great solution, at least as good as any we've seen. I posted in here about splitting the Q into 4 parts and they move the lap finish timing beam foward for each part, this to confuse everyone as to how much the track has evolved. Quite easy to do and quite easy to work out how to make sure the first part of Q is theoretically quicker than the last part but if you made a mistake you'd be too tempted to keep trying to improve.

[Stephane]

Wut ?

[Button4life]

 
Fair enough--you grow up in a different environment, you're used to different things. Time passes and things change. When I hear people complaining about the pay-wall, I can't help but feel a sense of entitlement in their words sometimes; it's perhaps wrong of me to paint that upon people who might realise that some of us have never experienced racing without a pay-wall in the first place, but I can't help but feel that if that perspective were there to begin with, there wouldn't be any complaining. Apologies if my post seems harsh; was not my intention to offend.

The problem isn't really that I have to pay for F1, but the problem is that I have to pay for F1 which is worse than a stream.

 

I tried Sport1 for 4 months and it was awfull. The commentary was an absolute joke. The commentator was pronouncing driver's names, tracks and teams wrong. He talked when there was a radio message and he was talking rubbish 60% of the race.

 

Sport1 had almost no preview or review at all. There wasn't a review and the preview was 10(!) minutes long. I mean, 10 minutes for a race is a joke for a pay-wall channel. Comparing it to BBC and Sky and it looks even worse

 

They miss action on track all the time. They find seeing how x driver is x sec behind x driver more interesting than a battle for 8th. They only focus on the top 4. In Melbourne 2013 for an exemple, hey didn't show the battle for 10th once, they only showed the top 4. Also when there was no action at all, they still didn't show the battle.

 

If Sport1 was more like Sky or BBC. I would accept to pay 10 euros every month, but the channel is so poor. I don't see a reason to pay it.

[SenorSjon]

Part of it is the FOM stream that makes the most effort in bringing a zillion DHL logo's on the screen.

[Kraken]

 
Fair enough--you grow up in a different environment, you're used to different things. Time passes and things change. When I hear people complaining about the pay-wall, I can't help but feel a sense of entitlement in their words sometimes; it's perhaps wrong of me to paint that upon people who might realise that some of us have never experienced racing without a pay-wall in the first place, but I can't help but feel that if that perspective were there to begin with, there wouldn't be any complaining. Apologies if my post seems harsh; was not my intention to offend.

I'd have no major problem with paying for it (but I don't have to pay for BTCC, Formula E etc)  if I could pay for F1 and nothing else but I have to have loads of other stuff I don't want or need. Not to mention that I paid in advance for SKY's last attempt at an F1 channel only for them to pull the plug with no refunds.

 

As to the quali format I'd like to see a twenty minute free-for-all. Much more interesting.

Edited by Kraken, 28 October 2014 - 14:15.

[HoldenRT]

I like single-lap qualifying. It meant the lesser teams got as much exposure as the big boys and it must have been one hell of a challenge for the drivers. It was rather ruined by qualifying on race fuel, I think. I wouldn't mind one bit if it were to return.

 

Ha, I had a little mini daydream fantasy a few days ago when reading the OP.. where I hoped/wished/dreamt that they did 1 lap qualifying just for this weekend only, to see how it'd be these days.  Just as a one off with nothing to lose.  A way to stretch it out for the 60 mins.  I never posted about it because it seemed too far fetched but your post reminded me of it.
 

[HoldenRT]

It was a cute idea but failed the basic fairness test. If it rained, or the temperature changed, or the track got better, or anything happened then people could be completely unfairly penalised with no chance to make it up.

 

That's a good point, and the track ramping up on street circuits is also a factor.. but it was also a great spectacle and really separated the men from the boys.  There were a lot of advantages but also a lot of disadvantages.  Having it on both days cancelled out some of the randomness, because if you are unlucky or screw up two days in a row.. it's starting to become nothing but excuses.  But they later scrapped that and just had it on the one day.  On the days where the disadvantages were minimised.. for example no grid penalties and the top drivers all going out one after the other.. it was really a great spectacle and gave us all a chance to see each driver with the spotlight entirely on them, and them alone.  More pressure.  More chance to be a zero or a hero.

 

They could get around some of the track ramping up problem, or grid penalties just by having the order.. be the reverse order of FP3.  It'd give even more meaning to FP3 and make Saturdays even more exciting leading into the race.  I doubt they'd ever do it, but a part of me would love to see it.  Especially drivers like Vettel, Rosberg, Hamilton or Bottas that never drove under the old way.

[pdac]

Original problem with single-session qualifying:

- the cars never appeared on track until the last 15mins or so

 

Initial solution:

- single-lap qualifying. Forced the driver to get it right first time and only one driver (by luck of the draw) would be out when conditions were perfect.

 

Current solution:

- 3 session knock-out format. The general idea is good, but has had silly additional rules applied (Q3 participants must use the same tyres and in the past had to fill up to race fuel levels)

 

My (somewhat  tongue-in-cheek) stupid solution to the original problem:

- single session, but no more than 4 cars can be on track at any one time. Teams decide when to go out, but if there are already 4 cars out, they have to wait at the end of the pit lane until someone comes in. Either they will come out and put banker laps in or they may face the possibility of never getting out at all.

[mclarensmps]

"Qualifying as we know it" died when we lost 12 laps whenever you want in an hour.

For me at least

[thiscocks]

Get them to do a 10 lap race in Dacia Sanderos- starting postions out of a hat. Finishing order is the grid.

[Seanspeed]

Did you read it? He questions the need for breaking up Q in three parts. Most people think a 1 part qualy is fine.

I was thinking he was talking about splitting it into 2 parts with his 20 minute session comment? Could be wrong about that I guess.

But yea, current system is fine still. I quite like it.

And no, I don't think *most* people want just a 1 part qualifying. Just a vocal minority of purists who are forever insisting that the sport go back to being boring.

Edited by Seanspeed, 28 October 2014 - 18:03.

[DutchQuicksilver]

mclaren, force india and STR. lotus and sauber are now back markers.

Why McLaren and not Ferrari? McLaren are quicker than Ferrari.

[tifosi]

I like pdac's plan. 

 

So Ferrari and Sauber run out, get positions 1-4 and then sit out there for the rest of the session doing laps!

[pdac]

I like pdac's plan. 

 

So Ferrari and Sauber run out, get positions 1-4 and then sit out there for the rest of the session doing laps!

 

It solves the problem of 'lack of action on track'. Maybe, though, it wouldn't get approval without a few tweaks.