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According to Binotto next year in at least some races the qualifying will be replaced by a sprint race where possibly the starting grid will be formed according to a reverse championship position.

Why do they do this?

I'd swear sometimes they're deliberately trying to ruin the sport.

Quali's the one part of F1 that's universally applauded and now they're looking at ways to ruin that.

Sounds pretty exciting. Certainly would be something worth seeing. I look forward to it. They need to make sure they try it on both tracks that are easy and hard to pass though. Maybe something like Shanghai and Singapore?

What? No!

Qualifying in the present format is PERFECT.
Ok, it would be if there wasn't such a large gap between the cars, but in theory the top 10 shootout is as good as you can get.

I have no idea what they are playing at.
If anything, do we really need 3 practice sessions that are pretty worthless?
They could scrap FP3 or one of the friday sessions and stick a sprint race there.

Don't fix it if it is not broken.

I’d rather they replaced FP3 with a reverse championship grid sprint race, then just ran qualy and the feature race as normal.

An hour long race, same as FP3 now. 10 points for the winner, with points down to 8th place.

Funny thing (for me at least) is that this is almost EXACTLY what I proposed on this forum probably 5 years ago!

I enjoy qualifying but the reality is I'd rather watch racing. My preference would be Saturday a 20 Lap sprint with 1 mandatory stop between Laps 5-15 but this would be for the teams 3rd/test/reserve driver. Bit rubbish maybe only have 10/11 cars but can't see them running 2. Grid would be reversed grid based on previous race finishing position. Everyone wins: fans get to see F1 action, teams get to valuate their 3rd drivers in race conditions, 3rd drivers get the chance to prove themselves as racers not just testers.

For Sundays I'd have the same race format as now but qualifying would be in the morning.

What I'd like (and have been suggesting since at least 2015) is that they should mix up the weekends a bit as I don't see why they need to be identical to each format-wise.
I'd welcome having a sprint race replace the quali in some of the weekends and keeping a conventional quali in the rest.

Covalent wrote:What I'd like (and have been suggesting since at least 2015) is that they should mix up the weekends a bit as I don't see why they need to be identical to each format-wise.
I'd welcome having a sprint race replace the quali in some of the weekends and keeping a conventional quali in the rest.

We have had the same format, with 3 Free practice sessions for about 25 years now. Apart from FP1 at Australia, I never watch them.

Sutton wrote:

Covalent wrote:What I'd like (and have been suggesting since at least 2015) is that they should mix up the weekends a bit as I don't see why they need to be identical to each format-wise.
I'd welcome having a sprint race replace the quali in some of the weekends and keeping a conventional quali in the rest.

We have had the same format, with 3 Free practice sessions for about 25 years now. Apart from FP1 at Australia, I never watch them.

Yes same here, practically never watch the practice sessions. At most I'll have it running in the background whilst I do something else.

This, for me, is the most baffling thing about F1. There are issues/weaknesses within F1. The lack of competitive balance, the difficulty in following closely behind another car, the out of control budgets, etc. F1 seems to have very little problem identifying it's areas where improvement is needed. The mystery is that, when they take action, it frequently has nothing to do with any of these issues; rather they seem to endeavor to fix things that aren't broken.

sandman1347 wrote:This, for me, is the most baffling thing about F1. There are issues/weaknesses within F1. The lack of competitive balance, the difficulty in following closely behind another car, the out of control budgets, etc. F1 seems to have very little problem identifying it's areas where improvement is needed. The mystery is that, when they take action, it frequently has nothing to do with any of these issues; rather they seem to endeavor to fix things that aren't broken.

Because solving that is hard and this is easy.

I still think this will be exciting to see though.

sandman1347 wrote:This, for me, is the most baffling thing about F1. There are issues/weaknesses within F1. The lack of competitive balance, the difficulty in following closely behind another car, the out of control budgets, etc. F1 seems to have very little problem identifying it's areas where improvement is needed. The mystery is that, when they take action, it frequently has nothing to do with any of these issues; rather they seem to endeavor to fix things that aren't broken.

Its easier that way.
Gives the impression they are doing 'something', but it reality its just because they do not have the guts to tell the likes of Ferrari, Red Bull or Mercedes what to do, and in the past the likes of McLaren or Williams.

Much easier to faff about with sprint races, that tell them the budget is now $50m a season like it or lump it.

I have to agree with those who have said it would add to the excitement and make it a must-see race weekend. Imagine that it would also lead to a decent increase for trackside crowds on the Saturday. And actually I think one of the reasons that they are considering this is directly related the difficulty to follow cars closely, probably one of the biggest issues raised by fans at the moment. No arguments that qualifying is great as it is and I certainly hope that they retain it in the current format for the majority of races (70-80%). But having several sprint races dotted throughout the season (perhaps every 4th or 5th race if it was successful) would hopefully see teams design there cars to cope better in dirty air.

Weekends with sprint races will no doubt lead to busier weekends for the teams and engineers though – because with all the cars out of position there will be more incidents on the first few laps and plenty of late nights to get damaged cars turned around for Sunday. We would still see around 20 Q3 sessions a year, with the calendar approaching 24 races. Some of the traditionalists may even begin to appreciate the variety if Liberty keep reducing the number of race free weekends.

I'm not convinced this could work. If the sprint race is not for championship points who's going to go 10/10ths in a risky situation and possibly wreck their car for the GP?

Also, given that passing is so hard in a long race, in a sprint race, presumably with no pit-stops, it would be virtually impossible. Of course if the grid is in reverse championship order passing would be on, but would the top teams take the risks? There would be lots of aggressive blocking by midfield runners..

This sort of artificial gimmick belongs in Touring Cars to my mind. If F1 is to stay the pinnacle of the sport it needs to remain pure racing, in touch with its heritage. The skill needed to get pole position is a mark of great drivers, it shouldn't be traded for a few extra ignorant viewers.

tim3003 wrote:I'm not convinced this could work. If the sprint race is not for championship points who's going to go 10/10ths in a risky situation and possibly wreck their car for the GP?

Also, given that passing is so hard in a long race, in a sprint race, presumably with no pit-stops, it would be virtually impossible. Of course if the grid is in reverse championship order passing would be on, but would the top teams take the risks? There would be lots of aggressive blocking by midfield runners..

This sort of artificial gimmick belongs in Touring Cars to my mind. If F1 is to stay the pinnacle of the sport it needs to remain pure racing, in touch with its heritage. The skill needed to get pole position is a mark of great drivers, it shouldn't be traded for a few extra ignorant viewers.

My understanding is that the (reverse order) sprint race will decide the grid for Sunday, so if the drivers will have to balance the risks and either make up the places during the sprint race, or have more work to do on the Sunday.

All teams will have to agree to introduce this in 2020 at this stage anyway, and I would imagine that is unlikely – although given more thought the only team likely to lose out, championship wise, would be Mercedes. And they would stand to gain a lot from additional interest/publicity/marketing so perhaps it would get agreement. Sounds like Racing Point, and Ferrari somewhat surprisingly are in favour.

All the comments about the current quali being perfect.... apart from last weekend!!

Drivers will have blue tortoise shells to fire at each other by 2025.

At least Kubica will get to be on pole again....

WHoff78 wrote:

tim3003 wrote:I'm not convinced this could work. If the sprint race is not for championship points who's going to go 10/10ths in a risky situation and possibly wreck their car for the GP?

Also, given that passing is so hard in a long race, in a sprint race, presumably with no pit-stops, it would be virtually impossible. Of course if the grid is in reverse championship order passing would be on, but would the top teams take the risks? There would be lots of aggressive blocking by midfield runners..

This sort of artificial gimmick belongs in Touring Cars to my mind. If F1 is to stay the pinnacle of the sport it needs to remain pure racing, in touch with its heritage. The skill needed to get pole position is a mark of great drivers, it shouldn't be traded for a few extra ignorant viewers.

My understanding is that the (reverse order) sprint race will decide the grid for Sunday, so if the drivers will have to balance the risks and either make up the places during the sprint race, or have more work to do on the Sunday.

All teams will have to agree to introduce this in 2020 at this stage anyway, and I would imagine that is unlikely – although given more thought the only team likely to lose out, championship wise, would be Mercedes. And they would stand to gain a lot from additional interest/publicity/marketing so perhaps it would get agreement. Sounds like Racing Point, and Ferrari somewhat surprisingly are in favour.

According to Binotto they already have:

"All the teams said yes. Including us. Therefore in 2020 it will be done."

https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles//fer ... t-in-2020/

I can see the cars jostling for 8th (or 10th, or whatever gets you reverse-pole) in a similar fashion to Q3 at Monza last weekend.

Nuts, I can see 'racing incidents' the day before the race, pit crews rebuilding cars, sub teams doing the parent team favours and "back of the grid" drivers ending up in the top positions. Imagine a Williams hurtling into turn 1 with the two championship contenders either side.
Recipe for freak results.

Hate it. I'll give it its chance to win me over, but I'm not expecting it to do any such thing.

I don't like 'slippery slope' analogies, but this feels to me like the first step towards the NASCAR playoffs. Dilute the racing product to manufacture excitement.

You will still get Alfa Romeo and Haas moving over for Ferrari and Torro Rosso moving over for Redbull. Anyway terrible idea, they just need to look like they are doing something similar to UEFA and the champons league, that's being changed just for the fun of it. Make it easier for cars to follow and change some of the tracks and that will do me.

They talk about controlling costs and then make a plan to wreck twice as many cars and ship twice as many spares around the world. Smart.

sandman1347 wrote:This, for me, is the most baffling thing about F1. There are issues/weaknesses within F1. The lack of competitive balance, the difficulty in following closely behind another car, the out of control budgets, etc. F1 seems to have very little problem identifying it's areas where improvement is needed. The mystery is that, when they take action, it frequently has nothing to do with any of these issues; rather they seem to endeavor to fix things that aren't broken.

Because they aren't trying to fix the actual problems. There's no desire to do so among the top teams, they would much rather keep things as they are as it maintains their competitive advantage. The goal is purely to shake things up just enough to generate enough publicity to draw viewers in.

Now there is some wisdom in shaking up the starting grid a bit. Arranging the cars in speed order for the start of the race does not make sense if you want them to be fighting and passing each other, it's the main reason why the French GP was so dull. The past few races have only been good because the fastest cars in qualifying have not turned out to be the fastest cars in race trim.

I wonder if equal points for quali AND race results were up for grabs, would that make things more exciting. With the race grid a full reverse of quali results. With the same quali and race formats as now.

A mate of mine inside the sport just told me the FIA have been keen on this idea for some time & even hired, at great expense, a consultancy firm to conduct a feasibility study of the practicality of implementing the change.

This is the consultancy firm in question


http//ah_the/wacky/races./what_a_great/show/that_thing-was.


On the plus side, I might get to delete my sig around Monaco next year if they try it there.

Jezza13 wrote:A mate of mine inside the sport just told me the FIA have been keen on this idea for some time & even hired, at great expense, a consultancy firm to conduct a feasibility study of the practicality of implementing the change.

This is the consultancy firm in question


http//ah_the/wacky/races./what_a_great/show/that_thing-was.


On the plus side, I might get to delete my sig around Monaco next year if they try it there.

Not to dispute your source but I heard the consultancy firm was in fact:


https://www.bloomingtonmn.org/things-to ... dy-display

Had a thought.

This may be cynic in me talking here but surely it's more than a coincidence that this news broke just 5 days after the most comical end to a qualifying session in years?

I mean, if the FIA wanted a favorable lead in to for what would clearly be a very controversial announcement, Italy certainly gave it to them.

Now i'm not suggesting for a second that the farce that was the 2nd Q2 run was contrived for that purpose. You'd need to own a tin foil factory to make a hat that big, but you have to admit, it was a very convenient timing & certainly wouldn't have diluted any support for the change.

Out of interest would you be able to sell TV rights to Sprint races at a higher cost than Qualifying and practice? That might be the motivation.

Jezza13 wrote:Had a thought.

This may be cynic in me talking here but surely it's more than a coincidence that this news broke just 5 days after the most comical end to a qualifying session in years?

I mean, if the FIA wanted a favorable lead in to for what would clearly be a very controversial announcement, Italy certainly gave it to them.

Now i'm not suggesting for a second that the farce that was the 2nd Q2 run was contrived for that purpose. You'd need to own a tin foil factory to make a hat that big, but you have to admit, it was a very convenient timing & certainly wouldn't have diluted any support for the change.

Pretty sure it was announced before Monza.

Jezza13 wrote:A mate of mine inside the sport just told me the FIA have been keen on this idea for some time & even hired, at great expense, a consultancy firm to conduct a feasibility study of the practicality of implementing the change.

This is the consultancy firm in question


http//ah_the/wacky/races./what_a_great/show/that_thing-was.


On the plus side, I might get to delete my sig around Monaco next year if they try it there.

I wonder did they feel the need to hire a consultancy firm after their previous comical attempt at spicing up qualifying.

If they really want cars in interchangeable positions then maybe they should bring something in that isn't artificial, like refuelling. Considering most races are one-stoppers now anyways, it shouldn't affect strategy as negatively as it did before.

S5000 in Australia are trialling a Sprint format this season, which has me intrigued on how it’ll go.
In a nutshell;
* There’s 1 qualifying session, and 2 qualifying heats.
* The top 75% nominate their starting spot in the first heat, in order of where they qualified in the session. Eg Fastest time gets 1st choice, second fastest gets 2nd choice etc.
* The 2nd heat is a reverse grid based on the drivers selection in the 1st heat. So if a driver picks pole in the first heat, they’ll start the 2nd heat in the midfield
* Grid for the main race will be determined from the combined points from both heats

Charles LeBrad wrote:S5000 in Australia are trialling a Sprint format this season, which has me intrigued on how it’ll go.
In a nutshell;
* There’s 1 qualifying session, and 2 qualifying heats.
* The top 75% nominate their starting spot in the first heat, in order of where they qualified in the session. Eg Fastest time gets 1st choice, second fastest gets 2nd choice etc.
* The 2nd heat is a reverse grid based on the drivers selection in the 1st heat. So if a driver picks pole in the first heat, they’ll start the 2nd heat in the midfield
* Grid for the main race will be determined from the combined points from both heats

That seems like it feeds into my big complaint with the idea, which is that it devalues the eventual race. They've made far too much of a racing event out of qualifying, by which time people will already have seen exciting racing by the time they get to the race. What's different about the real race compared to the two races that came before it?

Beyond that, the other issue is that it's a self-defeating idea. The whole point is that qualifying sets the race result because you can't overtake... so you fix that with a sprint race where, presumably, you still can't overtake?

The sprint races are only being considered for tracks you can overtake on. The suggestion is that no points will be scored on Saturday still.

Johnson wrote:The sprint races are only being considered for tracks you can overtake on. The suggestion is that no points will be scored on Saturday still.

So are we considering a sprint race because you can't overtake in the main race? Then fix the main race overtaking problem! The 2021 changes are designed to do this, so let's not make any knee-jerk changes to quali before we see if they do..

tim3003 wrote:

Johnson wrote:The sprint races are only being considered for tracks you can overtake on. The suggestion is that no points will be scored on Saturday still.

So are we considering a sprint race because you can't overtake in the main race? Then fix the main race overtaking problem! The 2021 changes are designed to do this, so let's not make any knee-jerk changes to quali before we see if they do..

It isn't a knee jerk change. In fact it's exactly the opposite. It's something that has been discussed for years they are going to try out for a couple of races before potentially introducing it proper in two years time. It's the slowest jerk of a knee in history.

And it's got nothing to do with making overtaking easier.