Two-day qualifying mooted once more

Grand Prix supremo Bernie Ecclestone is reported to have added his voice to calls for a return to two-day qualifying for Grands Prix, according to a story in this week's Autosport magazine. Since the single hour-long session was introduced in 1996, it has been praised for its increased excitement and tension over the previous two-session qualifying. However, in recent times the fact that Friday's on-track action has suffered has led to calls to revive qualifying over the first two days of a Grand Prix meeting.

Jul 19, 2000, 11:12 AM

Since 1996, the only running for F1 cars has been untimed practice sessions, and with the advent of extensive testing, many teams do not make full use of the two hour-long practices.

The calls come in the wake of proposals to make the Friday of a GP weekend a test day, with six hours of running available in return for banning private testing. Two-day qualifying would mean less running for the F1 cars, but would make Fridays more meaningful.

Times from Friday and Saturday would possibly be aggregated to make sure both days were as significant. Two-session qualifying suffered in the past, as the best time from either session was counted, but one day was likely to be faster than the other, rendering one of the sessions useless. By combining times, drivers would be committed to making a fast run in both sessions.