Cav's Place

After the failure of the new Formula 1 qualifying format after only two races and the official announcement that the previous one will be used for the rest of the season, I started thinking of some other format that will add to the excitement while doing without the flaws of this failed new format. In a way, I guess I was trying to mix elements of the one-lap qualifying format from more than a decade ago with this previous and now once again current one, to come up with something fairer than the former and more exciting than the latter.
That said, splitting the cars into two or three groups, as described below, does leave some room for unfairness and abuse in case conditions worsen, which usually means rain starting or being heavy enough that more water accumulates on track than the running cars can clear away, during one part of qualifying, but there are ways to sort that issue out and I’ll mention them at the end. Along with that, I’ll also mention a number of other variations that may be considered, mainly because what I suggest would extend qualifying by up to ten minutes and some may be unhappy with that, and the way in which this model would apply to 18, 20, 24 or even 26 cars, as the numbers I’ll use below refer to the current 22-car grid.

To start with the definitions, my suggestion would split qualifying into four parts instead of the current three, so I’ll keep the same naming convention and refer to them as Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4, respectively. However, since the cars taking part in Q1, Q2 and Q3 will be split into groups, you may also see Q1-1, Q1-2, Q1-3, Q2-1, Q2-2, Q2-3, Q3-1 and Q3-2 when I’ll be referring to a specific group. Since there will be no such split in Q4, there will be no Q4-1, as that’d be pointless.
Considering the current 22-car grid, Q1 will consist of two groups of seven cars and one group of eight, which I’d say should be Q1-3, to offer a bit more space on the track for those who’d normally be expected to need to fight for a Q2 spot. Then, after eliminating the slowest four in Q1, Q2 will be left with 18 cars, split into three groups of six. Another six will be eliminated after Q2, leaving the fastest 12 into Q3, split into two groups of six. And then, once the slowest six in Q3 will be eliminated as well, the remaining six will fight for the top spots in Q4.
The Q1 classification will be used to determine the Q2 groups and the Q2 classification will be used for the Q3 groups. For the purposes of splitting the cars into groups in Q1, the current drivers’ classification will be used starting from the second race of the season. In case of the first race of the season, the previous season’s constructors’ classification will be used, with the previous season’s drivers’ classification used to decide which driver will start in one group and which in another for the team that will be split in such a manner, even if one or both of the drivers in question changed teams since then. If neither of this team’s drivers raced the previous season, I’m in favor of handing over this decision to the team, as coming up with other fair methods to break the tie is likely too much trouble for something of too little relevance.
In Q1, Q2 and Q3, each group of cars will have five minutes of track time, while in Q4 that will be reduced to three minutes, but any car that crossed the line before the timer reached zero will be allowed to complete the lap. For Q4, that means drivers will have three minutes to find track position and complete an out lap, while those who have enough fuel to do so will get the chance to complete two flying laps, and perhaps even three on particularly short tracks, in Q1, Q2 and Q3.
If the conditions are poor on one of the longest tracks and race control determines that not all drivers will be able to find track position and complete an out lap before the end of the three minutes, Q4 should obviously be extended accordingly. While this may also happen for Q1, Q2 and Q3 if race control determines that many will be unable to do more than a single flying lap, I’d rather it didn’t, as I’d find it even more exciting to give drivers even less room for error just under the most difficult conditions. Plus that adding one or two minutes at the end won’t make much of a difference when it comes to the total time, but adding one or two minutes in up to nine different places will.
Within each part of qualifying, the timer for the next group will start as soon as the one for the previous group reaches zero, so, for example, if the last car crossing the line to start its last flying lap in Q1-2 does so just before the end of the five minutes, the first car starting its out lap as soon as the light turns green for Q1-3 will be right behind it on track. This means drivers from one group on out laps won’t get in the way of those from the previous group on flying laps, and it’ll be their job to find track position so as not to start their own first flying laps too close to those on in laps, at the end of their session.
The five-minute break between the parts of qualifying will be maintained, however, and it’ll still be counted from the moment the track is clear, the last car finishing its in lap and entering the pits. This means that, if there are no extensions or red flags, a qualifying session will last a total of 58 minutes plus the amount of time needed for the last car on track in Q1-3, Q2-3, Q3-2 and Q4 to complete its final flying lap and the subsequent in lap. Seeing as the current format makes qualifying last for 55 minutes plus the amount of time needed for the last car on track in Q1, Q2 and Q3 to complete its final flying lap and the subsequent in lap, I find the difference entirely acceptable.
Still, seeing as this format offers drivers only one chance, possibly allowing them to complete more than one flying lap in Q1, Q2 and Q3 but only if they stay on track, unable to return to the pits and try again, interruptions will obviously have more of an impact. In case of red flags, it’s clear to me that the part of the session they were brought out in will need to be restarted for the affected group unless this happens at the very end, when all drivers still on flying laps are past the troublesome part of the track by the time of the announcement and should therefore be allowed to complete their laps normally. Yellow flags, on the other hand, will need to be judged on a case by case basis and likely used far more sparingly, so not for every little issue but only for those that present a real threat yet not quite enough of one to justify a red flag. But that’s something I actually keep wishing to see in general…

Using this system with a different number of cars is quite simple, though it can probably be said that it’s actually best suited for a 24-car grid, as in that case Q1 will consist of three groups of eight cars and six will be eliminated before Q2, after which it’ll continue just as for the current 22-car grid. In the unlikely case of a 26-car grid, Q1 will get rather crowded, with one group of eight and two of nine, which seems to be a bit too much, especially on short tracks, but I guess it could be manageable, though I’d rather see eight eliminated before Q2 in order to continue the same way as for the current 22-car grid from that point forward. Another option would be to only eliminate the slowest six at the end of Q1 even in case of 26 cars, making for a Q2 with two groups of seven and one of six, and then for a Q3 with two groups of seven after six more will be knocked out. In such a scenario, it’ll also remain to be seen whether eight or six will be eliminated after Q3, making for either the usual six-car Q4 or a rather crowded eight-car one.
In case of 20 cars, Q1 will consist of two groups of seven and one of six, but I feel that only eliminating two at the end of it in order to stick to the system used for the current 22-car grid from Q2 onwards would be too little, so I’d rather stick to four being eliminated after Q1, making for a Q2 with either one group of six and two of five or, though it may not be the best idea on the shortest tracks, two groups of eight, before eliminating four more in order to get back to the system used for the current 22-car grid for Q3 and Q4. In case of 18 cars, on the other hand, it’d be easy to simply get rid of what’s described as Q1 above and start directly with what’d be Q2 for the current 22-car grid, but I’d personally rather keep the four-part system, with four knocked out at the end of Q1, Q2 and Q3, making for a Q2 with two groups of seven and a Q3 with two groups of five, before the usual six-car Q4.

As stated above, I see the slightly increased duration of the qualifying session as completely acceptable. However, though I definitely wouldn’t want to see this happening, I guess it could be possible to reduce the duration while mostly preserving this format by leaving only two groups in Q2, though this will likely require knocking out more cars in Q1 if there are more than 20 on the grid, or even if there are exactly 20, as I see groups of nine as a bit of a stretch on many tracks and even those of eight, especially past Q1, as on the limit for shorter ones.
Another method to reduce the total duration would be to remove the break between Q1 and Q2 or, in case the drivers taking part in Q2 will remain split in three groups, also by removing even the break between Q2 and Q3. Obviously, if any drivers who were in the last group in one part of qualifying ended up having poor enough results to need to compete in the first group of the next, they won’t be able to do so if there will be no break, so they’ll need to be moved to the second one while those who were just above the line will take their place, which won’t exactly be fair, but I guess it could be argued that their better previous results grant them this right.

With only five or ten minutes between the start times of the first and the last group in one part of qualifying, as opposed to about an hour between the first and the last driver in the old single-lap format, it should be quite rare that conditions will worsen enough to make starting early clearly be the preferred option. Temperature variations shouldn’t usually be significant enough even in case of qualifying sessions taking place in the evening, while in case of continued light rain the cars competing in one group are likely to leave a drier track for those in the next.
However, if significant rain will start between groups or if it’ll be heavy enough that water will keep accumulating on the racing line despite the running cars, the system will become unfair, as those with better results will be penalized by starting later, so under those circumstances race control should probably have the right to remove the groups and pretty much revert to the current format, allowing all cars on track for a ten-minute part of the session. And this may also be done if there have been multiple red flags that caused parts of the session to restart, though I’m not keen on the idea and think a better way would be to offer additional sets of tires to the drivers who needed to run more times as a result, to make up for those used under those circumstances.

As far as I can tell, this system should maintain a high level of excitement throughout the qualifying session, final times being set almost constantly and small mistakes potentially generating surprising results, while getting rid of the situation introduced by the system used for this season’s first two races, when most drivers were eliminated without even being on track and the end of each part of the session tended to be disappointingly quiet. Also, splitting the cars into groups should strike a decent balance between offering sufficient space on track and some incentive for drivers to strive for good times in each part of the session on the one hand and reducing the potential for abuse and unfair conditions brought by the old single-lap qualifying format on the other.