planetf1.com

Now I know most of you would already be typing out some kind of "don't be stupid I love qualifying" type response but I thought this idea merited at least a dismissive discussion.

As much as I love qualifying I feel like it's an exercise in not screwing up most of the time, and an extra day at the track and several sets of tyres later and the order is pretty much identical from race to race based on car speed.

I wanted to just suggest an alternative, whereby the race finish order from the previous race automatically became the starting order for the next race. That way races are more a continuation from each other and progress can be made or lost over the course of many races. Now I know this would never be implemented across the whole field but you could make it work for those that finished outside the top 10 from the previous race and didn't earn the right to qualify. Fast forwarding us to a top 10 shootout without the fluff.

Thoughts?

I pay alot of money to go to these races. I want to see the cars as much as possible

Interesting idea, but how would we start the season? There's always new teams, new drivers etc.

Also what about the fans, it wouldn't be as fun with just a 10 min top ten shoot out. Unless they chucked in an extra practice session...

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

so you are punished twice (or more) for Grosjean crashing into you, a mechanical failure, or not having a car that is suited to one of circuits. As said we pay a lot of money for a race weekend and quali is one of the exciting events for the weekend.

If we want to get rid of qualifying for whatever purpose then the fairest way of deciding the starting order would be to have a lottery draw before each race.

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good point, and i agree i look forward to watching qually, i want more action not less.

Exactly. Imagine if Grosjean spins you round, you spin someone else round trying to recover, get a grid penalty, etc. Ugh.

It's an original idea but I can see why nobody has thought of it before.

Ok, there are some issues.

If you do get crashed into and it's not deemed to be a racing incident or your fault you can obviously get some positional compensation from the stewards (I started from the position you were in when you got taken out). Secondly yes I understand it will feel like you are losing time with the cars, but the time not wasted on sorting the last 14 positions on the grid can be added to the race in extra laps.

I just feel that everyone makes a lot of noise about cutting costs in F1, yet no-one looks at real options for it. If you compressed the action into two days instead of three, and eliminated the costs involved with qualifying outside the top 10 you are helping the small teams survive. The hosting city also has less disturbances/costs associated with the event, and ticket prices can decrease.

From a racing standpoint I feel that a continuation of position would reward consistent fast safe racing over one lap pace and punishes those that cause accidents by dropping them to the back of the grid at the starts where they should be.

Anyway, not the first or last time i'll be wrong

You shouldn't punish crashes too heavily because they are exciting. This brings us to another point, how do you punish dangerous driving?

Race bans is the obvious answer, but if the guy who caused the crash gets a one race ban why would he care, he was gonna start from the back anyway.

Certainly an interesting idea, but I'd have to agree with those pointing out the double punishment for drivers who fail to finish the previous race. We did sort of see this kind of situation in the days of one-lap qualifying where the running order was decided by the finishing order of the previous race and I didn't like seeing championship challengers having their weekend hampered before it had even begun.

Also I'd say the cost savings from stopping qualifying would be negligible. The main costs for the teams are in transporting equipment around the world and in developing the cars. Once the cars and all the equipment are at the race track, running a few extra laps on a Saturday has little effect on cost.

And the of course there's the spectacle of qualifying that we'd be missing out on. I enjoy qualifying and would certainly miss it if it were taken out of the race weekend. Sponsors would also be a little annoyed at losing TV time, especially at the lower teams who probably get more exposure in qualifying during the scramble to avoid being knocked out of Q1.

It'd just get confusing if the stewards started giving places back for X Y and Z and we'd just end up with even more inconsistent steward decisions.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

It depends on how you view quali. If you think of it as just something that determines the starting order of the race then you are missing something.

To me quali is a race in itself. You have to think a little bit from the driver's perspective for the real thrill. Forget about racecraft and overtaking. Its a race against yourself. You throw the car into the corner on the absolute limit and hold on. Imagine quali at Monaco with all the barriers around you. You want to miss them and yet if you don't kiss them you know you're not pushing hard enough. You have to get really involved.

It really helps if you have got a few things in your quiver. Some racing experience, however small. Video games also help because that way you get to know every corner of every track by heart and know exactly what the challenge of the driver is when you're watching on the tv. I love onboards in quali.

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Sounds like a sensible, fair and cost-saving way to set the grids.

Must be done consistently for the whole field, not just bottom ten or any other combination. And as pointed out by posters here, a solution to accidental race-position loss should be worked out.
It would save costs. As a team owner I'd like to have three days though to test/measure/compare/set up the cars. As much track time as possible.

The test would be to survey the teams about this idea.

PS: I do not like the current three shoot-out sessions, so maybe I'm prejudiced.

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http://grandprixratings.blogspot.com

1st worst idea of the season so far

- In some races I've seen in the past, qualifying is more exciting than the actual race, so why get rid of it.

- Like many have mentioned above, if you use the previous finish grid for starting a next race, you punishing cars with mechanical one-offs from the previous race "twice" and also rewarding luck.

Last race should have zero bearing on the next race.

So you would just have qualifying for the top 10 finishers from the previous race?

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PFI Pick 10 Competition

Current Standing: 14th Position

In short... no.

And no to shrinking the race weekend to 2 days. (Actually, if it was about making it less burdensome in terms of inconvenience for host cities, you could just do everything on Sunday, a practice session or 2 in the morning instead of support races, and then race in the afternoon, and other than street closures for the street courses, many might never know there was an event taking place.)

From a fan standpoint, like others have said, the more activity the better. I'm flying in to Montreal this June for my 1st fly away race (went to Austin last fall). If it was an abbreviated 2-day arrangement, I doubt very much that I'd go given the cost of air fare just for 2 days. With 3 days it becomes a full weekend of activity that makes the travel cost more acceptable, at least for me. The savings (if there was any ticket reduction, and maybe 1 less night in a hotel) isn't great enough to offset the travel costs. That's for a relatively common trip Dallas to Montreal. It certainly would dissuade me from attending any of the European races I hope to attend in coming years. With those, I'd spend the air fare on a legitimate extended vacation, not just for a 2-day race weekend.

From the host city standpoint, yeah, it would be less inconvenience for those who don't care (or even don't want the event). But from the city's standpoint, the more days, the more money people are in town spending money at restaurants, bars and hotels, which is really the benefit for them. So cutting back on the weekend, probably does more to hurt the host cities than help them. (Even more so if a shorter weekend discourages people flying in for the event, and making it an event that's mostly attended by people from the surrounding area who won't need hotels, and won't spend the typical tourist dollars.)

It wouldn't cut costs to reduce to two days. The big costs for teams at a GP is travel, so it makes no difference if you're there for two or three days, the cost saving is minimal - you're only saving the running cost of fuel and tyres in qualifying, and they're not a lot of money (in F1 terms). And, as the race fees would probably remain static, you're actually giving the circuits one less day to get people through the gates, which means the cost of tickets will have to go up to cover the shortfall of the 'lost' day.

The way to save money in F1 is to reduce the number of races but increase the GP weekend to 4 days - have the Monday after the race as a test day, seeing as all the teams and facilities are already there anyway. You can sell tickets so fans can watch.

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90% of the topics on the PF1 Forum consist of this: "My favourite driver didn't win! The driver I hate the most did win!! Wah! WAH!! WAAAAHHHHH!!!"

I'm opposed because for each race, it's a fresh start not burdened by what happened before. I fail to understand that what happened in Spain should have any effect in Monaco.

I also support qualifying because it's based on merit, not chance. Additionally, event organizers want to fill their grandstands with as many people as possible, as often as possible. If there was no qualifying, their revenue would be a lot less, and may spell the difference between being financially viable, or a loss.

For the teams, qualifying is also valuable testing time, to gather more data in an environment where every lap on track is precious.

Actually Vince makes a good point there. But 1 thing to be noted here is when a team goes testing its not jus the fuel and the tyre Cost that are involved. You forget the cost of the personnel. The fees for the track. Transportation of all the equipment and personnel, and your still using up a couple of engines. I cant remember where but I had read that 1 day of testing would cost about 200K pounds. Not Sure if it said salaries were included there nor not. For a small team its still a significant cost.
But yes as a fan if Im paying a bomb for the tickets Id like to watch as much of the cars as I can

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PF1 Pick 10
Aus13: 2nd
Chi13: 3rd

In short... no.
we fans pay a lot of money to see it witch goes to berine hence a big deep hole of cash to fill as most sales are weekend passes

Like DC used to say " there is nothing better than watching F1 cars driven in anger" something like that.

And I agree, it's just a beautiful thing qualifiying, cars taken to the limit and beyond, and it also sets up the scene nicely for race day......so I wouldn't want qualifiying to be taken off.

But it's a good idea nevertheless, and It could be implemented. But I get a huge rush of adrenaline every time I watch Qs

i am sorry , but this is the stupidiest idea i have ever heard of and i didnt read anything

My 2 cents...

Award points for qualifying 1-6 and then reverse order of those 1-6 for the start.

It would punish drivers who took risks and failed to heavily. I don't want to watch 22 cars to scared to get close to each other in case they lose a front wing and 2 races are ruined. I agree with cutting costs but there are better ways to do that than shrinking the product.

Lauda did. A long, long time ago.

Since we only have a few cars left, I can see the logic in doing away with qualifying for a race that doesn't even achieve a full grid anyway. But I would invert the finishing order of the previous race. So the winner of the last race, normally starts last, with only those punished lining up behind him. Not punishing those innocently taken out in accidents will always be difficult, but perhaps a solution could be worked out even for that.

My personal preference would be for a return to classic qualifying, in which we don't disadvantage the poorer teams any further by giving the richer ones even more chance of TV-coverage. In other words; an hour of qualifying on Friday, one hour on Saturday. And for heaven's sake, a half-hour warm up on Sunday, during which drivers could fine tune their cars. Enough horse play already; F1 is F1, not Temptation Island.

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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

You really do have an appropriate nickname, don't you?

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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity.

Maria de Villota

If qualifying was removed they'd be nothing of interest to watch at the Monaco GP weekend.

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Oh and Bernie, National flags should be raised not flipped. Sort it!

I suppose it would just have use the results of the last race of the previous season.

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Qualifying is the only time when we see how fast the cars & drivers actually are
Races are most of the time driven with a deltalap- time nowadays to save tyres, fuel etc
Qualifying is the most intersting thing on the many race weekends especially on a lot of dull & boring tracks where overtaking is not possible

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"Everything you can imagine is real." Pablo Picasso

Reverse grids are more artificial than DRS and degrading tyres. Sure it works in low formula to give a bit of action but it's not GP racing.

edit: 'bit' no longer bitch

It would be interesting to order them in reverse of their points standing. But with Quali there are 2 aspects to winning, single-lap raw pace with only 1 or 2 chances to get it right, and then average speed over a long distance. Think it's good to have both of those count, so I'd vote to leave it as-is.

Only way you can begin to think of getting rid of qualifying is by having TWO races per weekend.

Grid decided by Championship standing order. First race by car number, so constructor order from the last race. Grid could also be decided by best times set in practice session. Kind of like the old Friday qualifying.

Friday has two two hour practice sessions.

Saturday has a half length race that scores half points. Open tyre strategy, do not have to pit.

Sunday has a full length race that scores full points. Same rules as now.

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http://www.racefan.co.uk

I haven't been here in a while... But this has got to be the worst idea from someone on this forum for quite a while.

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PLAY A RECORD KARL COS I'M GUNNA KNOCK YOU OUT!!!

It would work better if the grid order for the next race was the finishing order from the last race, but reversed, with the last place on pole...

Then we could introduce artificial rain on at least 2 corners per lap

And alter the tracks so there were shortcuts for overtaking which could only be used, say, 5 times per race

And have 'debris' safety cars every 10 laps or so

martyF1 = Bernie and I claim my £5 voucher, half the cost of a Ecclesburger

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Sebastien Vettel, the youngest driver ever to have the fastest car in F1 for four consecutive years

Not as bad as the ideas in this thread... http://forum.planet-f1.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6007

If everyone started from their finishing position yes we would probably have a consistent championship, but a lot of the excitement would be taken away. We wouldn't see a Maldonado on pole, or a grid like we did in Spa. Having different frontrunners at different circuits is part of what makes F1 exciting, and different cars suiting different tracks - under this proposal we would lose out on that.

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#ANYONEBUTVETTEL2013

Pick 10 Competition 2013: Current Championship Standing = 13th with 848 points
Pick 10 Podiums: USA 2012 - 1st Place with 205 points

Dumbest idea ever!!!!!!!!

Implement your idea and all you will get is the same driver winning again and again and again. Just like Vettel 2 years ago...

You can kiss goodbye to big teams screwing things up and falling out of qualy in Q1...

You can kiss goodbye to any hopes of any surprise weekends where a mid-lower team driver like Maldonado can beat the odds and put his car on pole and then go on to win the race.

You can kiss goodbye to those exceedingly interesting qualifying sessions where the teams have no idea whether rain is coming or not and if so when... Do they send cars out early to set a banker lap or wait for a few cars to go and rubber the track in a bit. Is a driver going to get caught up by another driver trying to qualify or will they get a flyer.


If you think qualifying is just an exercise is not screwing up - then what the hell is the race? That's more an exercise in not screwing up - because in qualy you can screw up and make the grid. In the race you are done!!!!


If you are bored with Q1 and Q2, then don't watch that and wait for Q3 to start - but qualifying is an essential part of the weekend. There is a reason why every motorsport has some form of qualifying...


I would suggest you come up with ideas to improve qualifying rather than trying to scrap it either altogether or at least partly...


Heck, I'll suggest a first one for you based on your idea and your dislike for the lower order teams qualifying:

Two part qualifying. 60mins per session. Part 1 is the bottom 50% of X (X could be either finish order from last race/drivers championship positions/something else to be decided). Part 2 is top 50% of X. Part 1 goes first and sets their times, then part 2 has their 60mins on track to set their times.

I don't like it as it's not fair on the lower order teams on dry weekends as the top teams will have a more rubbered track to set faster times - but then on possibly wet weekends, they might set fast times in the dry only for it to rain for Part 2... hmmm

That was a real funny topic.. The guy and his idea got ridiculed like ive never seen before. What happened to him? Havent read his posts for sumtime now.

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PF1 Pick 10
Aus13: 2nd
Chi13: 3rd

Perhaps this is true but that's why you reward with points...

Personally, I have no problem with how the grid is placed. Some tracks the qualifying is more fun to watch...

Repeatedly ignoring counter-arguments and making already-shattered arguments of his own caught up wth him. I'm sure we'll find you a new court jester in due course

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I've run out of patience with tyre threads. There is an official one: USE IT.