F1 tackles questions nobody is asking

I despair of Formula 1 sometimes. I despair of its reasoning, of its logic, and of its collective sanity.

We are now becoming used to regular tirades against the state of F1 from its commercial chief, but what does Bernie Ecclestone really have to gain from continually criticising the product that makes him so wealthy?

Not for one minute am I going to suggest that F1 is perfect. It's a commercial basket case, and many people are clearly unhappy with perceived contrivances regarding tyres, drag reduction systems and the like, which those critics argue have stunted its pure sporting appeal.

There are constant moans about noise, about 'pay' drivers, about the speed of the cars, about the challenge of driving them, about the quality of the racing, about the fact that one team is dominating, and about the fact that many smaller teams struggle to survive against manufacturer might.

Declining interest in F1 is causing panic, but why mess around with qualifying? © LAT

And TV viewing figures are dropping, which is naturally giving the powerbrokers sweaty palms.

Later this week, the World Motor Sport Council is expected to ratify the answer to all these great ills: a tweak to the qualifying format...

How typical of F1, amid all the wrangling about its identity and future direction, to decide to meddle with what most would contend is the one element of the current sporting format that didn't need to be questioned.

I'm all for mixing things up in F1 to introduce elements of unpredictability, and the gradual evolution of qualifying in the modern era means it has become more exciting than the tradition of watching cars sit in the garage for 50 minutes before manically trying to set times at the end, but this latest change is simply unnecessary.

I found single-lap qualifying quite enjoyable, but it was biased massively against cars running early in the session. The current format - introduced in 2006 - works well, because of the jeopardy of the knockout element.

Clearly F1 has realised people like this dynamic, so it has tried to introduce more 'knocking out' during each session.

The trouble is, I get the distinct impression no one has really thought it through properly. Details such as whether cars must complete each session on one set of tyres and whether or not they can refuel are missing, and as ever it is in such detail that the Devil does his work on F1's bright ideas.

The first portion of each stage of qualifying should remain fairly similar to before, with all drivers heading out at some stage to establish an order. On a basic level, knocking out the slowest driver every 90 seconds thereafter during each segment should be more exciting to watch, except the way I see it those intervals will only hurt the slower cars while offering greater flexibility to the fastest ones.

The 2006-15 qualifying format did a good job of putting big teams under pressure © LAT

If refuelling and tyre changes are allowed, the faster cars will be able to set quick times early on then wait in their garages until they need to venture back out. If you are 'on the bubble' and in danger of going out at any moment, 90 seconds will not provide enough time to get in and out of the pits to alter your fate.

Unless you mandate that everyone must use one set of tyres and be fuelled for the whole session. At least that way you stand a chance of a quick car burning too much rubber early on then struggling to react as it tumbles down the order. But this would also lead to lots of go-slow driving, as drivers try to protect their tyres for a counterattack.

This still hands the tactical advantage to the faster cars, which tend to look after their tyres better in the first place and won't need to pump in consecutive quick laps to remain in contention.

That's before we get into the counter-intuitive nature of watching cars driven slowly during the one session of a grand prix weekend in which fans expect to see them driven to their limit. Lest we forget, deliberately slow driving in the races is central to the argument against the current 'tyre management' era of F1.

Multiple drivers desperately trying to avoid the chop after the chequered flag falls in Q1 and Q2, and the multi-car denouement of the pole position battle as time runs out, will also be lost under these proposals.

The reason the old format works well is that it forces everyone to work to a final deadline three times within an hour, and allows drivers to finish a lap once the time runs out. The excitement is in seeing who drops out as the fastest times come in at the end, or who gets it wrong and cracks under pressure.

This new format will take away the ability of everyone to compete on an even keel by essentially moving the goal posts every 90 seconds, potentially robbing slower drivers of the chance to complete flying laps.

There is some vague hope that it will be impossible to predict the correct tactics and create potential for bigger teams to slip up, but all I see in the current proposals is something that will help the biggest fish while penalising the smaller ones.

It would be like watching Rafael Nadal whip a forehand cross-court, only for his opponent to have to return one of the best shots in tennis while the net slowly gains height, or watching League One Shrewsbury Town take on Premier League Manchester United at football with lead-lined boots.

Ecclestone wanted more radical changes to how F1 decides its grid order © LAT

The aim of these qualifying changes is to mix up the grid, because everyone has worked out anecdotally that mixed-up grids make for great racing. But reversed grids, or slapping time penalties on the most successful drivers (as Ecclestone originally wanted) are considered a step too far.

The simplest way to achieve mixed up grids and spice up the races would be to abolish qualifying altogether and set the grid by reversing championship order. The grid for round one would be based on the final standings from the previous season, with the grid for each subsequent race based on the current standings.

That way you would force the quickest cars to work their way through the field at every race. But such a move wouldn't favour the fastest teams, which wield power in F1's strategy meetings, so we get more fiddling at the margins of F1's problems, and a solution that has the potential to do more harm than good.

Once again Formula 1 covers itself in glory, focusing on the answer to a question nobody asked in the first place. Constant change and evolution is one of the enduring beauties of this sport, but sometimes it is important to remember that if something isn't broken there is no need to fix it.