Formula one appears unlikely to tweak the current qualifying format despite concerns in 2011 about a flagging spectacle.<\/p>\n
Overall, the ‘knockout’ format has been popular in recent years, with fast drivers graduating from the Q1 segment to Q2, and then from Q2 to the decisive top-ten Q3 session.<\/p>\n
But in 2011, with fresh sets of Pirelli’s heavily-degrading tyres at an unprecedented premium, a tactic increasingly deployed is for a driver to move into the next ‘Q’ segment but then sit out the actual session.<\/p>\n
By doing this, the driver ensures a decent grid position and saves a fresh set of Pirellis for the race.<\/p>\n
Team bosses in Abu Dhabi admitted that the phenomenon has been discussed recently during meetings.<\/p>\n
“I think, generally, when that’s been discussed, it’s been the view of the teams that qualifying is actually quite an interesting format now,” McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh said.<\/p>\n
He said that after F1 moved from the free 60-minute format of 2002, several new formats were briefly trialled but then abandoned.<\/p>\n
“So I think we should exercise quite a lot of caution before we change what is, frankly – certainly for those of us sat on the pitwall – pretty gripping,” said Whitmarsh, also the chairman of the FOTA group.<\/p>\n
He revealed that “the consensus view” during bosses meetings is that the existing format should stay.<\/p>\n
Mercedes’ Ross Brawn concurred.<\/p>\n
“Quite honestly, I think the ability for other teams to take a more tactical approach to try and compensate their performance is an added dimension,” he said when asked if drivers sitting out sessions is a problem.<\/p>\n
“As Martin said, we should be careful not to fiddle with it because it’s actually quite a good show.”<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Formula one appears unlikely to tweak the current qualifying format despite concerns in 2011 about a flagging spectacle. Overall, the ‘knockout’ format has been popular in recent years, with fast drivers graduating from the Q1 segment to Q2, and then from Q2 to the decisive top-ten Q3 session. But in 2011, with fresh sets of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,118,491,35],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14236,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14235\/revisions\/14236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}