2016 Rolex Australian Grand Prix

New qualifying format... another great decision by F1 :lol::lol::lol:

Hamilton looks like he's still the man.
 
Welp. The format either needs some tweaking or just get rid of it all together.
That was underwhelming. Q3, in particular was a disaster. Happy to see Hamilton on pole with a blistering lap though.
 
I feel like this new qualy system could work if teams had the tyres to do it. Obviously that is the only thing holding them back.

Its gone from exciting to very anti-climatic. I wanted to see what the new system would be like, thought I would give it a chance but after that, I dont think its good. The old one was way better and exciting.
 
I don't mean to sound like a downer right now, but I'm just fuming at what I just saw. I didn't see what was wrong with qualifying to begin with that needed this change but somehow they felt it was needed and that worked out horribly.
 
Went sort of how I expected it to go. After the first run is complete, the bottom two or three are marked for elimination, and on longer tracks it may be as many as the bottom four. There's just not enough time to turn around the cars and complete a second run flying lap within 9-10 minutes. After that, the teams susceptible to later eliminations must weight improving a few spots (as the first runs will often be representative, the possibility of improvement on a second run should often be limited) against saving tires.

Edit: Didn't realize that Sauber did a second run earlier in the session.
prisonermonkeys
I have to wonder if the teams aren't deliberately scuttling the concept.
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Other than McLaren, no one stayed in the pits when they had any substantial reason to go out and do a lap. Ferrari were safely in front of Verstappen/Massa and didn't have the pace to match Mercedes; they had no incentive to use tires.

Haas even went out to do laps when their drivers had no chance of finishing a lap before elimination.
 
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So it's basically a glorified one-lap session? Which achieved exactly nothing in mixing up the grid?
Yeah, I think I'll stick with the footy for Saturdays.
 
Qualifying turned out to be overhyped mess but the race itself could be a close affair throughout the field.
 
Looking back at the other thread, think @aarror (and Grosjean) called it:

aarror
Romain Grosjean says exactly what I've been saying all along: with the current tire regulations, the new system won't make much of a difference.

Grosjean:
"The only consequence is that all the teams will hit the track early in the qualifying to get a laptime and go back to the pits to wait, because we don't have more tyres than before, so we're not going to run more than before"

"If the idea is for cars to run more, we'll need more tyres in qualifying. As you need to get a laptime in the first five minutes, and the worst laptime gets eliminated every 90 seconds, the laptimes will be done in the first three minutes."
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With no extra tyres they're doing no more running than before, but since cars are taken out in the middle of each session we're actually seeing less on-track action in total - which was supposedly the problem with old qualifying! And the empty track being shifted from the start of each session to the end is ridiculous by any measure.
 
Maybe it would be more interesting if the top 2 are from different teams and can fight each other but even then I think they would be running out of time and tyres, I still think that single-lap qualifying was the most dramatic (that may be nostalgia speaking since everybody prefers it exactly how it was then they first started to watch).

Here are the full times and grid (With the exception of Haryanto who will drop to last with his penalty):
 
Another thing that burns is we wanted to see just how much pace certain teams had gained and with the way qualifying went (combined with a very unhelpful weather from first practice and a slightly better second practice), we didn't see that.
 
GOTMAXPOWER
I still think that single-lap qualifying was the most dramatic (that may be nostalgia speaking since everybody prefers it exactly how it was then they first started to watch).
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Not nostalgia, you're right. It was a simple 60 minute session when I started watching, but my favourite format has been the one lap shootout. Saying that, I was happy with how quali worked last year too, didn't see the need to change it.
 
Bo
So, F1's chewing gum tyres gimmick has thrown a spanner in the works.
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This is where F1 is failing right now. In everything, a gimmick is always relatively harmless if it doesn't directly affect something major. Maybe throw one or two in at a time to spice things up. But F1 is becoming just gimmick upon gimmick layered up to make one silly mess.
 
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